CVT owners respond/ I cant drive 55!

[Dirk Diggler]

Dirk, you can run 3000-4000 rpm all day every without worrying about the engine grenading. Just make sure your oil levels are good (only 3.2 quarts capacity). Keep on a regular CVT maintenance schedule and you should be fine.

Whats the avg speed limit in Oregon? Here in Atlanta, its 70 but everyone does 75 - 80 mph. I have to push the drivetrain or Im going to eventually cause a wreck. Ill get folks behind me, on a busy street, just laying on their horn because they dont realize I have to seriously plan turning onto a fast road with only 74 hp.

[javensbukan]

Whats the avg speed limit in Oregon? Here in Atlanta, its 70 but everyone does 75 - 80 mph. I have to push the drivetrain or Im going to eventually cause a wreck. Ill get folks behind me, on a busy street, just laying on their horn because they dont realize I have to seriously plan turning onto a fast road with only 74 hp.

The speed limit here in Nova Scotia is 110 km/h (almost 70 mph) on most of the four lane highways (officially called Arterial highways), lower at 100-80 km/h for the more rural two lane ones or within Cities.

For highways with no access control (officially called Trunk or Collector Highways), it's usually 50-80 km/h.

Interestingly, we call all of our main roads "highways" here, but they're just grouped into three 'classes' of highway.

So it's a bit confusing.

My car usually hits about 2000-3000 rpm keeping up with traffic and most hills, i've had no issues with my CVT so far, just had the fluid changed on it last year (as per the maintenance schedule).

Really steep hills with on ramps I basically have to floor it and it hits ~ 4500 rpm, but I can keep up with traffic as long as I am anticipating the terrain.

That being said, I only have 66000 km on my Mirage... so yeah.

[inuvik]

Speeds in Oregon are lower 65 on the freeway but mostly everyone drives between 70-75 mph. If you had a scan gauge or something that would read CVT temps your CVT temps wouldn't show much difference between in town and on the highway. Stop and go traffic is far harder on a CVT than highway speed operation even if it is 70+mph. Think about Fummin's fleet he maintains. You think the bonobo's that drive these cars baby them?

[Dirk Diggler]

Man if I was a senator Id try and get JATCO/Nissan/Mitsubishi executives to testify and show their data on just how many of their vehicles reliably hit 250k miles with no CVT failure and why they didnt just put an old fashioned 4speed auto in their compact vehicles lol.

[inuvik]

Technically due to the wide range of ratios available CVT’s should deliver a better driving experience that a regular auto slushbox. Note I used the word “should”. The reality is that even after 20+ years of refinement CVT’s are way more finicky than a regular multi-speed auto. Although you read some reviews and people hate their automatics because it is constantly shifting and never stays in one gear and continually “hunts” for the right gear (especially 8,9+ speed autos). Longevity wise however as we all know here in this forum, CVT’s don’t seem to last that long. If you bought one brand new and babied it and were maniacal about fluid and filter replacement how far can one of these go? Dunno, I just know you can’t ignore the maintenance on a CVT compared to a regular automatic.

[MetroMPG]

I wonder if "CVT Anxiety Disorder" will one day be added to the DSM-V.

[Fummins]

On the other hand, how long does your average 6-10 speed automatic last?? Does anyone here have any experience with them?

We have a bunch of 06-10 Chev vans at work, 3 have 4l80 4speeds and the newest has a 6L90 or 6l80 6 speed, It's on it's second transmission in 5 years, the other vans haven't been touched. They were used for the same route for years, 99% relatively easy highway miles.

I don't imagine a 6 or 10 speed auto would be any cheaper than a cvt to replace either? I'm seeing more automatics that don't even have serviceable filters anymore, just a drain plug and you're lucky to get a dipstick too.

Also speed can be deceiving sometimes. I've been in a few "quick" vehicles that felt slow as hell, they just had such a smooth power band that didn't snap you back in the seat.

[inuvik]

At some point the cynic in me thinks that if you design automatics or CVTs transmissions to last 300,000 miles you won’t need a new car very often. Fummins is right too that a lot of the new regular automatics aren’t that serviceable either. Conspiracy I say lol

[Dirk Diggler]

Do Mitsu engineers stress test the drivetrain?

[inuvik]

Do Mitsu engineers stress test the drivetrain?

Not sure but I know their programming is completely different than Nissan’s including the pinout configuration of the system bus.