this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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Not related to self driving, but other shitty car design.
I had a Nissan with a CVT before it was widely known they were garbage. I hit the brakes to avoid someone that ran a red, and the CVT went in to some protection mode and left me and my family stuck in the middle of the intersection for 2 entire light cycles before it'd move again.
Dealership just kept saying it's fine and it was protecting the CVT from damage after going from throttle to brake quickly. I don't give a fuck about the CVT, I care about the squishy bits inside the cabin.
After it did that again and the power windows stopped working the same day, I traded it in for a Mazda with a proper transmission. 248k miles later it's still great.
Damn shame that CVTs are so janky because it's the only non-manual transmission I'd consider. But reliable CVTs that don't do fake shifts are hard to come by.
The eCVT in my wife's Ford C-Max is an absolute dream. It's so smooth and helps the car take off much faster from a stop than my 350Z, despite having 100 less BHP. Nothing beats the feeling you get from immediate torque when you don't have to wait for the revs to build. Problem is that it also has a 75% failure rate after 100K miles. She's at 120K now and it's still going strong, so she was in the lucky 25%.
What's the reasoning behind CVTs being the only non-manual transmissions you'd consider?
They lack the nice feel of manuals and the reliability of modern automatics. Have you tried an 8HP or 9G-Tronic? Either one will last you a long time and shift so smooth during relaxed driving that you can't tell it's going through gears.
Yeah, that reads like someone who hasn't experienced a nice modern automatic. ZF transmissions are magic, smooth when cruising and then shift hard like a DCT when you push them. Some even work with launch modes and they slip the clutches to eek out that extra performance
Nothing beats a great manual though!