I brought a car with a dual-clutch DSG gearbox 5 years ago (I am also a UK-er) - and I’ve never looked back. I’m on my 2nd now - All the control of a manual (paddle shift) and the convenience of an auto for the permanent tailbacks where in live (Devon). Plus really good economy.
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Anyone who doesn’t live in the USA (and is old enough to drive) probably does. Not every region in the world has endless, straight and wide highways with permanent speed limits and relatively constant traffic flow.
R4? Electric starter? Sorcery, I say! Sorcery!!
Okay, early Citroën 2CV it is.
BTW, a wonderful ride on rolling country roads in the summer, with the roof rolled up.
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IIRC It’s called “Dogleg” shift pattern
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Nah, it’s Piëch’s Revenge.
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I think it’s a joke. I hope it’s a joke.
My grandmother is in her mid 80’s and has never driven stick. She’s from the Bronx originally and did not learn to drive till the late 60’s.
That was definitely a factor. But all of my European friends and family. Even the gear heads. WANT an automatic, it has the same cultural cache and it once did in the US. And they only occasionally cited mirage differences as a reason the didn’t.
It definitely part of the market structures that created the difference. So the US over the last century has been generally wealthier and car ownership has been more common. Which drove car companies to offer a lot of bells and whistles at standard. Whereas in Europe where cars were less important and a lot of people had trouble affording them for along time the bulk of these market was getting people into a basic car as cheaply as possible. Think of how many classic, cheap people movers are European. Gas pricing definitely had an impact. But your talking about a dynamic that was already pretty set by the post war period.
So by some time in the 80s you got an American market settled on autos as the “standard” package and a European one that’s still on manuals. And whatever isn’t the default, bulk produced version is going to cost extra.
Which is where my cousin in Dublin’s explanation comes in : taxes.
When you buy a car you pay a tax on it. And that tax is often based on the purchase price. So if it’s an extra $400 for the manual on the US. You pay a bit more. And most people don’t mind it’s a small real dollar amount, And it’s a one time thing.
But in Europe the tax is higher in general. And your often paying a separate vehicle and VAT or sales tax. So an extra 400 Euro for the automatic significantly bumps the purchase price. Plus in many European countries you continue to pay an vehicle tax for the life of the car. Based on the features it has, or pricing, or age. So the auto can mean a big bump in the cost of ownership. It can be curiously cheap to buy a car in Europe, but it’s quite expensive to own a car. So even when the efficiency differences disappeared manuals just stayed the “normal” option in Europe.
It’s also the same reason we have leasing. Until really recently it wasn’t popular in the US. For the last 25ish years it’s been really common for everyone in some European countries to get a new car, brand new car, every 2 years. I don’t remember the details for Ireland. But it was something like purchase taxes being lower and covering the first 2 years. Or additional emissions taxes kicking in. So leasing got you around a lot of the taxes, And gave a feasible way to replace the car every two years.
Emissions standards seem to be catching up. Manuals apparently aren’t up to the task of improving efficiency and emissions compared to newer autos and cvts. European manufacturers are abandoning manuals like everyone else. Even in the performance and halo cars.
And something seems to have changed in the tax is well. Until about 5 years ago very few of the Irish I know owned cars. They were all leased or new manuals, except in the case of elderly people who tended to have autos. And they got replaced regularly. You couldn’t find a used car if you wanted one. Older cars seem to be restricted to farms. Now most of the people I know there have a car. More than half of them are autos, bought used. And everyone’s car is at least 5 years old. Where people I know are buying new cars they’re often big American cars (albeit with smaller engine options). Mustangs are huge over there.
I don’t think I really knew what this meant until now – for that matter, I’m still not sure I understand – i.e. clutch and shift into neutral, then clutch and shift into gear, because some transmissions don’t have synchro. (At one time I might’ve imagined “double clutch” meant two pedals.) I learned to drive on an automatic, but my first car was a '71 Vega that was manual. I did not (nor, evidently, need) to learn to double clutch. I quickly learned that if I were to exit the freeway and try to downshift into first, then the engine would race (and probably redline) and that was if I really wrestled on the gear shift, but if I was supposed to double clutch instead (to any gear – not just 1st), no one ever told me.
Just curious what you don’t like about it… (Or did you mean “fad” instead of “sad”?) I’ve had a Subaru Crosstrek (which has a CVT) for about 3 years; still love driving it.
FWIW possibly my favorite car was an '86 Honda CRX. That thing was like driving a go-kart (albeit with an automatic) and, as I was a more cautious driver at the time, it was kind of a waste of machinery – though it’s probably just as well.
Occasionally I’ll use mine to pass someone while going up a hill. But it’s pretty much the same effect if I just floor it.
I had a couple of Accord coupes that were manual, it could be fun but, like you say, not if I was trying to get to work (for example), especially if I was also trying to handle a cup of coffee while doing so.
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Thirded (?). My little Audi A2 (Americans are confused by this car, it seems too small to them) was in for repairs so they loaned me a diesel A3 2.0L Sport. I observed that it didn’t have enough pedals, so they offered me a Q7 - which I would have no idea how to park, way too big. So I took the A2 (complete with paddle shifters on the steering column which I never tried out) - and stalled it within 50 yards. Didn’t think stalling an automatic was possible…
2 weeks later I didn’t want to give it back. Got in my (manual) A2 - promptly stalled it…
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That doesn’t sound too far off.
I too have a Subaru with a cvt. Outback. Which apparently have very good cvts.
Generally what people complain about with cvts is what they used to complain about with autos. They tend to sap power, be set up for bland driving dynamics. They’re more expensive to service or replace. And a lot of them have had some pretty serious reliablity issues. The base advice until just recently was to avoid them because they explode.
As to why I call it confusing.
The car rolls forward when put in and out of gear on any sort of grade. Just slightly, before the transmission engages the gear. At idle and from a dead stop the car does not move forward under its own power, though it will continue to do so if it’s already moving.
This is a lot like a manual, but it’s usually a very bad sign in an auto. So I had a bit of panic before I found out that’s normal for a cvt. It can make it a little weird to pull out from a stop into fast moving or heavy traffic, until you get used to.
When doing the whole local driving thing the power trail off when you take your foot of the gas is immediate, And big. It reminds me of the one time I drove a hybrid with regenerative breaking. But it doesn’t do that if your moving at higher speeds. The car always feels vaguely sluggish, even though it’s not at all. Like something is holding or dragging it back.
It’s a little bit like it has all the frustrating quirks of both a manual and an automatic. And none of the benefits of a good example of either.
It is incredibly smooth though. There’s never a shake or a noise or a change in the power delivery or anything like that as it goes through its fake gear changes. And for what I’m using the car for and how much time I spend in it. It’s genuinely making my life a bit more comfortable. So it confuses, but it’s not causing me any problems.
It’s also much much better than the auto in my old outback (02). There seem to be a lot of complaints that the outback is underpowered for its size/weight. But I’m pretty sure it’s a lame transmission issue, especially on the base models. The old one had the cheapest tyranny on the smallest engine, iirc it was a 3 speed auto. Rather than feeling sluggish it was sluggish, gear changes were sometimes loud and a bit rough. Supposedly indestructible but it certainly didn’t help make the car fun (it was fun anyway though cause shit station wagon).
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Double Clutch: Depress clutch once, then as you depress clutch second time engage low granny 1st gear.
Kinda simple if ya know how to do it…
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I wish more people drove manuals. It would mean there’s less fucking idiots out there thinking they have a free hand to operate a phone while driving.
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Oh man, not on my car… or maybe it would have more pickup (with a different transmission)? It’s (to me) very sporty.
Knock on wood…
I’ve noticed the opposite, to the degree that I’ll set the handbrake if I’m at a long light.
I can’t say I’ve noticed this. Maybe I just chalked it up to the difference between this car and the (manual) Accord I was previously driving. What I have noticed, is that it takes longer to engage when changing gears.
(As for the Accord, I put about 225K miles on that car, but I can’t say it was very reliable, at least not based on Honda’s reputation. Most distressing was how the ignition would simply shut off. Turned out to be a known issue (though the mechanic didn’t know nor figure it out), the main(?) relay had bad solder joints. When the relay heated up, the joints would open, the relay would lose current and the engine would shut off. On the Capital Beltway, if it felt like it. After a few seconds, or a few minutes, the relay would work again and I could restart the car until the next time. I pulled out the relay, reflowed the solder joints and never had the problem again.)
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Can also be executed with a rev match, but in lower gears you better know your rev target for the downshift or your car will feel like the inside of a washing machine.
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Do you mean changing from 1st to 2nd changing gears?
Cause CVTs don’t do that, there’s no gears in the conventional sense. Instead there’s a couple strategies for what’s effectively a single “gear” with an endlessly variable gear ratio. And there should be no delay or change in power delivery across subaru’s various simulated gear changes.
Or park to drive changing gears? Cause that’s very much the sort of thing I’m talking about. Those sorts of things. The delay in power delivery when putting it in gear (drive), the slipping forward and back. Are going to be less noticable coming from a manual to a CVT than from an automatic. Because manuals usually have those quirks to one extent or another too. As it was explained to me for the same reason. Because the “gear” isn’t fully engaged till it gets engine power delivered to it, both are using a certain amount of that to fully engage the gear. A bad or worn manual will have more extreme or noticeable issues. But the CVT it’s just normal even in good ones. Weirdly the delay doesn’t happen when shifting to reverse, apparently with all cvts.
It’s fairly weird when coming from an auto, because your basically still on an auto from a driving style perspective. And those are not good things to see out of an auto.
In terms of the power drop off thing, it only happens in fake first gear. And it’s probably not an issue in the Crosstrek. It uses a slightly different CVT or version of the CVT than the outback. Apparently it was tuned for more fun driving dynamics. Not neccisarily fast sporty driving, or acceleration. But lots of torquey low end for light offroading and that rally style weird that Subaru is famous for. Combine that with the fact that it’s a much, much lighter car. And especially with one of the bigger engines. And it feels very sporty.
The transmission in the outback was set up almost exclusively for fuel economy and to be a smooth, safe feeling family car. It feels sluggish because they wanted it to feel sluggish. Because people read that as safe, And it saves gas. Even though it isn’t all that sluggish. It’s never gonna make your balls tingle. But you can look down and realize you’ve accidently hit 120mph without much effort. Plus it’s a station wagon, they never exactly feel fast.
The rest of it is just the general consensus on CVTs. Pick any given car available with a CVT and almost any other option. Across the span from when they were introduced to now. And the non-cvts are better reviewed, universally considered more fun to drive, faster, and have a better reliability rating. It’s only been pretty recently, And within a few companies, that it started to change. Subaru’s cvts are considered very good, don’t seem to have ever had reliability issues. And the one in the Crosstrek is considered their best.
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Yes, that’s when I’ve noticed, reverse to drive. Especially notice it when trying to turn around, or parallel park etc., on a busy street.
Glad to hear that!
This is definitely new for CVTs. Their Achilles heel in the past was their relative fragility compared to manuals or even autos.
Older CVTs also tended to have the engine rev higher than people were completely comfortable with. There was a lot of concern than it was keeping the thing spinning at 2500 RPMs on the highway when the auto or manual would be closer to 2200 or even 2000RPM in the same situation.
