I’m thinking of putting the 2000 Accord out to pasture after 224,000 miles, and replacing it with a 2015 Civic. I can get that with a stick shift, which has long been my preference over traditional automatic shifts.
By ‘traditional’ I mean the automatic transmission has distinct gears, just like a stick does, but the automatic transmission makes the decision on when to shift.
Traditional automatic transmissions are improving over time, but I’d still rather have a standard.
But the 2015 Civic has a “continuously variable” transmission for the vast majority who don’t want the stick. So I’m wondering if this is an improvement, and how big of one.
Specifically, do any of you own or regularly drive a car with a continuously variable transmission, and what do you think about it, compared to whatever else you’ve driven - stick, traditional automatic, whatever? I’m counting on you guys to give me a good idea of what it’s like to drive one.
My Honda Insight had a CVT and my current 2013 Accord does as well, I think. Honestly, I doubt you’d noticed a difference.
I seem to recall that they changed the software at sometime between that commercial with the wife putting on the lipstick but waiting for the car to shift gears and whenever I got the Accord so that it would rock a little and give the feel of an automatic.
But, like I said, I doubt you’d notice you were in a CVT car if someone didn’t tell you.
Can you clarify what that means? Because I do notice it when I’m driving a conventional automatic - the times when I, as a stick shift guy, would shift up or down, but it doesn’t, and the times it seems to have to have a committee meeting somewhere under the hood before it makes up its mind to shift.
So if you’re saying I wouldn’t notice the difference between a CVT car and a conventional automatic, that’s not so good. If you’re saying I won’t notice anything, that IS good.
I long preferred a manual, but I really like the CVT on my '14 Subaru Forester. It does a great job of adjusting the gear ratio as needed to deliver the right amount of power. It’s especially not-noticable on hills, where the tach smoothly slides up, the vehicle speed remains steady, and there is never the clunky downshift or hunting like a traditional automatic.
It actually gets a couple of MPG better than a manual as well.
a CVT helps eke out a bit more fuel economy by being able to keep the engine at the most efficient RPM for the driver’s power demand, instead of having to compromise and choose between fixed forward gear ratios. CVTs (at least the belt/pulley type) do sap more power from the engine, but the gains from keeping the engine at it’s best point offset that and then a little.
the downside is that they can feel “weird” if you’re used to a traditional geared transmission. e.g. if you’re accelerating to get on the highway, you might notice that the engine jumps up to a particular RPM and stays there while you gain speed as the CVT changes its “gear” ratio continuously.
the one thing I didn’t like about the one I drove (an '07 Dodge Caliber, so not the most stellar example of an automobile) is that during winter, on snowy/slick roads it wasn’t as easy for me to tell what was going on at the drive wheels. with a conventional trans, if I go to accelerate and the engine revs up yet I don’t gain speed, I know right away the drive wheels are slipping and I need to back off. with a CVT it’s not easy to tell if the engine is revving due to a ratio change, or lack of traction. Though I suppose this is less of a concern on new cars now that traction control is mandatory.
To be honest, I’m not sure if I’m saying that the CVT is so smooth that I just don’t notice it or that that Honda has programmed it to make you rock a little as you speed up so you DO notice it. What I am saying though is that if no one told me that my last to cars had CVT, I doubt I would have known something was different. Except that Honda CVT Oil is super expensive. I shouldn’t have even bothered changing it on a lease. My current car (2013 Accord EX-L) is slipping a bit first thing in the morning, but the lease is up in a few months and I’m not saying anything about it. I have no idea if it’s related to the CVT or just in my head. When my Insight started doing that they told me I should change the CVT oil but it didn’t make a difference. FTR, I have no idea what kind of CVT these two vehicles use.
BTW, I’m really aiming to get back into a stick shift for my next car. I lease cars (not interested into sidetracking the thread about that) and the one after my next car is likely the one my daughter will learn to drive in. I LOVE driving stick and I really, really miss it. I had a 5 speed Civic before my Insight. I test drove a 5 speed 4 door Accord and really disliked the clutch. There was no, how do I say it, pressure on it. It felt like it dropped right to the floor when I touched it. Maybe I would have gotten used to it, but I hated it after the test drive. It’s difficult to find a 4 door stick shift. When this car is up, I may look into the Civic SI 4 door, it’s way cheaper than the Accord 4 door and comes as a 6 speed. As much as I dislike the exterior of the new Civics, they are fun to drive.
Looking around, I don’t (admitally) find a Kia that’s manual and the first Audi I see that’s 4 doors and stick is 36.4k. Quite a jump from my Accord.
Regarding the Audi, whenever I’m car shopping, I always, just for fun look at Audi, BMW, Mercades etc, just to see what they have and it seems like they all have one super low end model. That Audi, the A4 (and A3) appears to be theirs. It’s like 10,000 less then all the other cars and it’s probably less well equipped, as far as features go, than my Accord.
My Civic Hybrid has a CVT. Very smooth, no perceptible gear changes.
One situation where you notice a difference: from a dead stop, accelerate quickly to highway speed (well, quickly for a Civic Hybrid). The engine will rev up for a second or two, and then the revs will go down progressively over several seconds while the car is still accelerating. It feels weird the first few times. Especially pronounced if the lever is on S instead of D.
When I had my Honda Insight (Hybrid, CVT) and needed to jump in front of someone from a red light, I’d turn off Eco Mode and put the shifter in to sport. That car really took off like a rocket.
Even my 2013 Accord really takes off in sport mode. Again, I’ll do that if I need to beat someone from a red light, for example, when it merges down to one lane 50 feet away, especially if it’s in one of those areas where everyone races to get in front because we all know that it’s going to stay one lane with no turn offs for the next 3 miles and we’re both worried the other person is going to drive 5 under and we don’t want to be stuck behind them.
Count me in the dissenting column **against **CVTs. I recently was shopping for an Altima and I specifically avoided them. They’re too new a technology. Also you should drive before you buy because they vary widely in ride. Some are noticeably noisier than others.
I think they’re a bad idea in general. An automobile is too heavy a vehicle to use a belt/pulley as a prime mover (nothing bigger than an ATV or snowmobile should). And the only upside is slightly better mileage. And I mean slightly (like 3 or 4 MPGs). There is nothing wrong with current traditional automatic transmissions. They are a proven, reliable technology. And if you don’t care for them, you’re probably not going to think much of CVTs*!*
Maybe, if you were a quadriplegic and had no body sensation at all. For the rest of us, we can easily tell we’re in a car with CVT because you don’t get the jerky feeling you do with a conventional AT when it accelerates and changes gears.
To the op: If you like driving manuals, you probably won’t like the CVT because you don’t get the sporty acceleration feeling because it’s so smooth. Some CVTs have a manual override system where you can gear up and down as you please, (to a point), but since this is done electronically, it’s a simulation at best and won’t match the feeling you get with driving an MT.
CVT is all about torque, power and fuel efficiency and I can’t see why anyone would favour a conventional AT over it. If you like a sportier feel, get the MT.
I am a “gearhead” - I like manual transmissions, sports cars, etc.
I got an 2015 Altima with a CVT as a rental recently and I thought it was fantastic. The perfect transmission for an ordinary car, really. It was incredibly smooth and very fast to respond, and made the dinky little four-cylinder engine the car had feel like a strong V6, yet delivered great fuel economy. It responds instantly and keeps the engine at the right RPM for whatever you’re doing - high RPM for power, low RPM for efficiency. If you floor the accelerator to make a pass or whatever, it goes straight to the power peak and stays there, then goes immediately back to loafing along at 1500 RPM once you’re done. Just perfect.
In a sporty car, a transmission that gives you more control would still be more fun and more useful (e.g. a conventional manual transmission, one of the various computerized manual transmissions, or a really good automatic like those found in some modern BMWs). But for an everyday car, I was just blown away with how good the CVT in the Altima was. I’d definitely recommend it.
Just to be clear, I wasn’t praising the sporty acceleration, only pointing out the strange disconnect between engine noise and acceleration, which certainly feels different from a regular automatic. Having tried a couple of non-hybrid Civics with regular ATs, I would not apply the word “sporty” to my Civic Hybrid ; but I’m aware that this is a function of the engine(s) and not of the gearbox.
Old perhaps outdated advice here, but CVT are not the same/do not preform the same across different makers. One should ask specifically about the car you are interested in instead of CVT in general.
Again this may be outdated as I heard this many years ago.
kanicbird: I’m specifically looking at the 2015 Honda Civic. So if there tend to be nontrivial differences in CVT quality between makes and models, that would be good to know, and if that’s the case, Honda-specific info would be useful.
Hail Ants/jz78817: I definitely come down on the side of 3-4 mpg being a significant difference in fuel economy.
Saturn Dreams: mostly I prefer sticks because conventional automatic transmissions still leave a lot to be desired, AFAIAC, even though they are better than they were 15-20 years ago. If a CVT can close most of the remaining performance gap, I think I’d be OK with giving up the stick.
Maybe it’s time to visit my local Honda dealer for a test drive.
; but I’m aware that this is a function of the engine(s) and not of the gearbox.