Article on CVTs with particular reference to the US market.

http://www.thecarconnection.com/index.asp?article=6264

 

Excerpt from article from Herald Sun 23rd Dec 2005
Muscle cars are manual - obviously. It's been an unwritten rule of the fast-car handbook for decades, and part of the enjoyment of a car designed for driving, not basic transport.

But this is the 21st century and things have changed. Today, even the born-again Falcon GT is better as an automatic. Yes, truly. We have driven the latest car from Ford Performance Vehicles and we would choose the six-speed automatic ahead of the traditional manual.

Even Ferrari has moved away from old-style manual shifts to the latest generation of Formula One-inspired manu-matics.

Volkswagen's Golf GTi, with its breakthrough Double Shaft Gearbox, shows what can be done when you apply technology and automatic programming to a manual gearbox.

Ford has made a similar switch with its latest ZF automatic gearbox, which is about as good as it gets in the self-shifting world.

The imported gearbox has just been fitted across the BF Falcon range, right up to the king of the hill, the GT-P.

It comes with the promise of silky shifts and the chance to still go manual with a touch-change mode. This means a forward push for a downshift and a slight backwards tug to move up a gear.

 

I wonder about the reliability of CVTs. I normally keep Hondas for 15 years or more and have never had to replace an engine or transmission. If the CVT belt can't be separately replaced, but the whole transmission must be exchanged, that raises a yellow flag for me.

 

In Japan they make the registration of vehicles more expensive each year such that after 5 years its cheaper to buy a new car and register it than keep registering an older car. Great way to stimulate domestic market demand.

Honda does simulated aging of vehicles as part of their product development program but its impossible to completely simulate 10 years of real world wear. I'd be far more confident in Honda's CVT than a lot of other manufacturers. Honda spends a lot on R&D and is more than willing to pursue research into product development that has no immediate return / application.

 

Interesting. And I agree that Honda does a great job of engineering its drive trains.

 

Another great technical article on different CVTs as employed by different manufacturers.
http://www.autozine.org/technical_sc...h_gear_cvt.htm