Manual Transmissions... - Page 3

Were they produced/assembled in the same place? Might have to do with Germany vs Brazil vs Mexico kind of thing

Both were produced/assembled in Germany. The Jetta had premature engine compression issues.

Personally I tend to believe that "manual" transmissions are headed more or less universally towards electronically-controlled manuals; e.g. paddle/button shifting with genuine clutch or dual-clutch shifting.

I also believe automatic transmissions will increasingly be CVT transmissions.

But these are the musings of a not particularly well-read guy when it comes to this stuff.

I used a CVT Altima as a rental car for a long trip out west. I honestly barely noticed the CVT nature of it (my dad had the same car except in a different color and he didn't notice until I pointed it out) and the fuel saving was phenomenal because it could cruise at such low RPM even at VERY high speeds ~90 mph in Nevada.

the new VW's that have Diesel engines + Manual gearboxes have an software kill switch cutoff where it'll automatically stall the engine if you over-rev it before the shift. The dealer warned me beforehand when I test drove a VW Jetta Sportwagen TDi that its very easy to stall because of that.

I figured he thought I was a manual transmission novice (I was driving my dads late 80's BMW 3 series cars before I hit my teens and even our SUV's had manual transmissions) but immediately stalled upon pulling out of the lot.

its embarrassing, but I red online reports that have the electronic kill switch kicking in as low as 5,000-6,000 RPM in the diesel engines because of the massive torque.

I love driving manuals on rolling twisting hills when you're in that 45mph-75mph range and you can really caress the engine. I fucking hate manual transmissions when my wife/or someone is having a serious conversation with me in NYC stop and go traffic going up and down williamsburg/manhattan bridge.

I'm guessing that's the rev limiter, just like in the Jetta. That's so you can't overrev the engine by just holding the gas pedal down. Diesels have pretty low redlines, so their rev limiters are set lower.

However, you can still mess up a car with the so-called "money shift" by downshifting into a lower gear when you are near redline in a higher gear. This mechanically forces the engine to overrev, and there is nothing software can do about it. For example, the E36 M3's shifting mechanism had a tendency to rotate under load, so that 2nd gear appeared where 4th gear used to be from the driver's perspective. There were some number of engines destroyed when someone thought they were upshifting at redline in 3rd to 4th gear, but instead shifted into 2nd.

I believe the 1st part for conventional cars. Not so sure about the 2nd part for autos. Automatics will get more gears, along with clutch lockups so they're more efficient. Already, many automatic (slushbox) cars get better mileage than their stick shift versions.

If hybrids or electric become popular, then the whole game changes. For hybrids, you will either have a serial hybrid (Volt, kinda), in which case, gears aren't needed since an electric motor will drive the wheels. For parallel hybrids (Prius), both engines need to drive the wheels, so the gearbox will be more complicated and probably managed automatically by a computer. Electric cars don't really need to change gears. There are exceptions, but they tend to be extreme cars (eg. Porsche 918 or BMW i8)

are CVT gearboxes the most boring sounding cars?

Since the gearing is constantly changing, you don't get to hear the BRAAAPPPPP *rest* BRAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP *rest* BRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP *rest* BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP

Very few things make me as squeamish as the thought of a money shift. Since there aren't that many clearance engines anymore, I can hear the valves crunching in my head. Some sort of clutch that would give in a mechanical overrev situation would be really nice, even if it had to disintegrate on use. I realize it would be difficult to do --  the springs would be really serious (if centrifugal), it would increase spinning mass,  would have to tolerate hundreds of thousands of miles and many blips right to redline waiting for that one day...

Honda got a lot of my respect for giving people the option of a 6-speed manual in their CR-Z

BMW is getting some kudos too from their fanbase for offering manual models in the states, MB generally doesn't do that - models like the C63 are 'auto' and the plain C-Class in the US doesn't have a manual option.

I want to say that I think these days, in high performance cars, choosing to drive stick is often a cultural or even "spiritual" choice - not so much for performance. The newly released M5 was designed around the DCT system and I believe we're the only market getting the 6-speed option. If I'm not mistaken, even BMW thought it was strange we Americans still don't find manuals troublesome

What are your thoughts on a double clutch system vs a more traditional auto w/ torque converter? I had a hard time picking out my current car as I was fixated on getting anything with DCT - ended up with "7G-Tronic" haha.

Double-clutch trannies sound like a good idea but torque converter automatics are getting so good these days that I think DCTs are mainly for performance. And they help performance only during upshifts (which is important, but not for more than 99 percent of drivers out there).

Has anyone driven the Nissan stickshift gearbox that automatically does rev matches for you on downshifts? It's a regular H-pattern gearbox, but the computer detects when you're downshifting and does the engine blip for you. It makes everyone look and sound like a hero.

H, to reduce chances of a money shift, practice shifting using either a star pattern or use this method: http://www.nexternal.com/uuc/articles/shifting_technique.htm You can also treat your gear knob like an eggshell, and shift gently (but affirmatively) trying to feel when the gears get into sync through the vibration in the knob. When you're about to money shift, the gear will resist you more than normal as you try to put it in, and that's the first clue.

Just saw this and LOLed:

^ lmao so true

That shifting technique works quite well at least in BMWs. Under lateral load, it's pretty easy to feel if you've missed one of the shifter gates. Another indication of a potential money shift is the huge jump in RPMs when letting out the clutch, but when shifting rapidly, it's not always easy to notice and correct that before the damage has been done.

One of the best things about manual transmissions is that good ones are near bulletproof and therefore quite economical to operate at high mileages. None of the SMGs, DCTs, CVTs, or high-tech automatics are nearly as durable or inexpensive to repair when they (inevitably) eventually fail.

No better sound on earth that being next to a '96 Honda Civic automatic when the driver tries to pass. That pregnant pause before the downshift followed by the BRUUUUUUUUUM just makes me wish I owned one.