Pros and Cons of a CVT?

I haven't seen any threads about this lately, so I thought I'd ask.

What are the pros and cons of a CVT transmission? Cheaper maintenance costs? Easier and cheaper to repair and maintain?

I know that they get the same mileage as their automatic counterpart and that they seem like a better idea in city cars than an auto, because there is no constant up and down shifting.

My wife is showing some interest in a couple vehicles that have CVTs. I just have no clue what to expect from them.

I have never - and I mean never - driven a CVT that I liked. I actually prefer to feel the up and down shifts to the rubbery, lazy action that most CVTs seem to have.

Pros - better MPG, engine wear, potentially better performance

Cons - maintentance costs, surgically removes all the fun from driving.

My Mother has one in her Ford and loves it. Almost 80K with no problems. I've driven it, it's not too bad. Not too good either.

From recent memory, the only place a CVT does any good is in a supercharger...putting one in between the engine and driven wheels of your car is a stupid, stupid decision...and will earn you a severe flogging after the public shaming has concluded.

Pros- nothing.

Cons- everything.

At least in the ones I have driven.

93EXCivic wrote: Pros- nothing. Cons- everything. At least in the ones I have driven.

Ditto. +1. I agree. ^^THIS^^.

I haven't met a CVT I would drive over the worst auto or manual, yet. They all suck donkey scrotum contents.

All the snowmobiles use them. Don't hear snowmobilers squalling about them and asking for shift levers.

I've had a bike that had one. Driven cars that had them.

Sometimes initial engagement can be lurchy, delayed, or otherwise weird and non-smooth.

Floored (or thumbed) it brings the engine to the peak power rpm, and leaves it there. Which seems mighty strange in an automobile, but is fine and dandy in a snowmobile. Worked fine as well on the little motorbike. Does disconnect you from the feeling of acceleration, as it's real smooth and subtle. No lurching between shifts, no changes in power as the engine goes through the rpms.

Transmission repairs can be real simple and fast, or horribly expensive and complex, depending on the design. With a snowmobile, you're done in under 5 minutes.

Ok Guys, I get the whole it sucks to drive. I said my wife is looking at them, she could care less of the drivability. She wants a vehicle to get her from point A to B.

I want to know reliability, cost to repair, ease of maintenance, etc.

Pros: It works, especially when shifting would kill too much momentum(snowmobile).

Cons: Everything else.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

Then I'd suggest re-reading foxtrapper's post.

Repair? Maintain? arent we talking about an automatic transmission? No one really knows how they work...its all wizardry and black magic in there...

Ranger50 wrote:

93EXCivic wrote: Pros- nothing. Cons- everything. At least in the ones I have driven.

Ditto. +1. I agree. ^^THIS^^. I haven't met a CVT I would drive over the worst auto or manual, yet. They all suck donkey scrotum contents.

^^yup^^

I've never driven a snow mobile, so can't comment there.

I've driven a few and my Mother owns one (admittedly, probably the worst one, Ford 500). They act like a giant slipper clutch, and that includes the noises and thrashiness that goes with it. They are a little odd to drive, but once you get used to it, it's okay. Mom bought hers new and is over 100K now with no issues (and she does religious by-the-book maintenance). My repair shop buddies have said that a little odd engine wear will happen eventually, but no worse than a car primarily driven on the highway (constant RPM). Fuel mileage hasn't really seemed to do any better or worse than a standard auto in reality.

I'd say to drive whatever she's looking at, and if she's still warm to them ask about that specific make/model and we can do some searching/asking around on the reliability front.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I want to know reliability, cost to repair, ease of maintenance, etc.

Tuna55 had a lot of problems with the one in his Ford SUV IIRC and it wasn't cheap to fix either.

I have CVT in my Quad and I love it in that application. The new Nissan Pathfinder has a CVT and a tow rating of 5000 pounds, so I think that they feel confident about the reliability of modern CVTs.

93EXCivic wrote:

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I want to know reliability, cost to repair, ease of maintenance, etc.

Tuna55 had a lot of problems with the one in his Ford SUV IIRC and it wasn't cheap to fix either.

I was going to say the same thing, Id pass on those, it was some ford thing that needed multiple thousands of dollars in transmission work for the second time in its life and it hadn't even hit 100k miles yet.

Every CVT I've driven has been in the "emulate X# gears like an automatic" mode.

My daughter has a Nissan and she couldn't even find someone to tell her how to put it into the real CVT mode.

I doubt it can be repaired at the dealership or transmission shops. Its probably an R&R item. Kinda like the Jag tranny

That's Remove and Replace.

The only place for them is in sleds where torque isn't needed and hp is everything. It's so much fun when the belt breaks at 80mph climping a 85° incline btw.

CVT's around here (Calibers mostly) seem to go ~100K then start having problems. I think it's because with Chrysler there is no recommended service interval so the fluid never gets changed. I had occasion to send a used car to our Nissan dealer for a CVT repair (same JATCO transmission), Nissan specifically states the fluid MUST be changed at 60K to keep the warranty in effect.

We are not to try to repair a CVT in the shop under warranty, we get a complete unit. There's a final drive? bearing which can be replaced but that's about it.

As far as how they drive, it's weird but lots of people get used to it. AFAIK there is no 'approved' way to put Chrysler versions in any mode other than the factory programmed A/T emulation mode.

carguy123 wrote: Every CVT I've driven has been in the "emulate X# gears like an automatic" mode. My daughter has a Nissan and she couldn't even find someone to tell her how to put it into the real CVT mode.

I would worry about wearing grooves in the specific spots where it's pretending to have specific ratios...

EDIT: But I don't know enough about the realities of modern CVTs to say whether I'm just being paranoid.

Curmudgeon wrote: As far as how they drive, it's weird but lots of people get used to it. AFAIK there is no 'approved' way to put Chrysler versions in any mode other than the factory programmed A/T emulation mode.

As an engineer and a car guy, that part made me pissed.

Is there a production CVT that doesn't use friction as the power transmission means? (i.e. a gear) Friction style CVTs work great on slippery applications (snowmobiles...) but I just foresee lot of wear in the high mileage units... I don't know if this is really the case, however.

RossD wrote: Is there a production CVT that doesn't use friction as the power transmission means? (i.e. a gear)

Does such a thing exist outside production?

I've never been able to figure out how to make a geared CVT idea work. All I could come up with was terrifying concepts involving relying on meshing tolerances and then still having to breach "steps" where the number of teeth on one component or the other abruptly changed... Ew.

carguy123 wrote: Every CVT I've driven has been in the "emulate X# gears like an automatic" mode.

this bothers me more than any other aspect.

BE YOURSELF TRANNY!!!