My week with a CVT, or How I learned not to hate the slushbox

I don't rent cars much, but last week I had a '15 Corolla LE/CVT. I'm a certified automatic transmission hater, but of course, one can't rent stickshift cars.

I wanted to hate the CVT just as much as I hate multi-speed automatics, but I came away from the rental more pleased than with any other clutchless car I've ever driven.

Analogy: When any car blog posts in praise of the manual transmission, almost invariably someone will comment, "Why not go back to hand cranks and manual spark advance?" Well, because automatic starters and automatic spark advance just work - seamlessly and without knowing they are doing their thing.

Conventional automatics, especially modern ones, seem to be designed for maximum fuel economy and not drivability. The '14 MINI Cooper I had last summer was awful for that.

So back to the Corolla... The CVT just works. I never felt anything that felt awkward, jerky, or outside my desires. The only time I ever felt anything at all was when I took it to redline (because rental car!) and felt a "shift" that dropped the RPM by about 2K.

Yep, a Corolla is just an appliance. The CVT makes it a better appliance than any multi-speed automatic.

I'm not giving up my clutch pedal just yet, but if I ever feel compelled to get a car without one, it will have a CVT. I'm a convert.

EvanR wrote: I don't rent cars much, but last week I had a '15 Corolla LE/CVT. I'm a certified automatic transmission hater, but of course, one can't rent stickshift cars.

Technically, you can. Just not in an eco-car. I had a standard trans Mustang last year.

You didn't get the "rubber band about to snap" feeling when driving a CVT? I think that's the part that I always have difficulty with. Not that the driving experience is any different, but it honestly feels like the transmission is slipping when I stomp on a CVT. And the few rentals I've had with them do feel like the response for acceleration is slower. Whereas a standard auto will drop down a gear fairly quickly, CVT's seem to take a nap before changing.

-Rob

rob_lewis wrote: ...Whereas a standard auto will drop down a gear fairly quickly, CVT's seem to take a nap before changing. -Rob

Not in the automatics I've driven lately. The TCU seems horribly reluctant to downshift for any reason, lest the EPA numbers drop. Conversely, when I stuck my foot into the Corolla, it just went.

In reply to rob_lewis:

Depends on the car, I drove a Mitsubishi lancer with the CVT last year and it was horrible, had exactly the rubber band feeling you describe. Rented a Sentra earlier this year (actually got to drive two back to back, a '14 and a '15) and that CVT was great, felt like a really good automatic especially on kickdown when you stomped the gas. Nissan has enough experience with them to get them right, i still wonder what they drive like when they have 100k+ miles on them though. And if the CVT is rebulidable like a traditional auto or basically a wear item you remove and replace.

I prefer the CVT in the Prius to most conventional autos.

Especially in hilly areas. Never downshifts.

While you had that Corolla, did you happen to sit in the back seat? We had one while in Monterey last year. I sat in the back, behind Tim, who's not short. It was like a limo back there.

I like the idea of a CVT and the way it works on the road but I just can't get over the constant rpm drone on acceleration. Maybe in a car with a good engine sound it would be ok but I still think I'd miss the sound of the engine moving through the rpms.

I'll admit, I'm probably odd in that the "auditory experience" figures higher on my list of car priorities than most people.

I had a maxima (14 I think) with the CVT for a couple weeks as a rental. I was equally impressed. had a 'manual mode' and paddle shifter which was meh, but honestly felt more sporty than my mom's paddles on her 335i she had.

On-ramps were the best, as it would engage its lowest possible and pull hard from idle up to redline (about 50 MPH I think), then it would just lock the revs at near redline and you'd really start to shoot forward.

Plus, nissan still makes one of the best sounding v6s.

The only CVT I've had much experience with is in a rental Altima which I've had two different times now. I think of it as a good idea poorly executed. Why on earth does the car go up to the red line and then seemingly bounce off the rev limiter when it could just alter the ratio a bit? I don't like it that they programmed it to perform psuedoshifts so that it sometimes seems like a regular automatic. The car seemed all sorts of strange to me and I wished it would be programmed to act more like a CVT and less like a CVT pretending to be something it is not. If Nissan is a company that has enough experience to figure out how to do these right, then I don't want to experience a badly executed one.

I got used to the constant RPM deal and actually enjoyed the Freestyle...

.
.
.
.

Until it broke and nobody would even think about fixing it.

tuna55 wrote: I got used to the constant RPM deal and actually enjoyed the Freestyle... . . . . Until it broke and nobody would even think about fixing it.

^This is what scares me, cause I tend to keep cars forever. What happens when(not if) it breaks? Rebuild? Replace? (How much $$$) Swap out for a manual? Part out or scrap? Locost or Exocet engine donor?

Hmmmm CVT approval... Nissan capable...

without being judgmental(yeah, right)... How does the Juke CVT "play" in the real world???

06HHR wrote:

tuna55 wrote: I got used to the constant RPM deal and actually enjoyed the Freestyle... . . . . Until it broke and nobody would even think about fixing it.

^This is what scares me, cause I tend to keep cars forever. What happens when(not if) it breaks? Rebuild? Replace? (How much $$$) Swap out for a manual? Part out or scrap? Locost or Exocet engine donor?

Nobody would rebuild it locally, my Dad (who rebuilds automatics for some sort of niche) wouldn't do it even for me, I called his supplier and the poor lady on the phone said "Honey, we don't even have a manual for it". I then gave up. You could only buy remans from Ford. That's where the car's second transmission came from. It lasted 20K miles or something like that.

David S. Wallens wrote: While you had that Corolla, did you happen to sit in the back seat? We had one while in Monterey last year. I sat in the back, behind Tim, who's not short. It was like a limo back there.

Nope. I haven't been in the back seat of a car since the day I got my license. I'm a decent driver, but I'm a horrible passenger.

It did irk me that Avis considers a Corolla to be an "intermediate" car, though. I figure the Yaris is the subcompact, the Corolla is the compact, and the Camry is the intermediate. But, all rental companies "inflate" car classes.

tuna55 wrote: Nobody would rebuild it locally, my Dad (who rebuilds automatics for some sort of niche) wouldn't do it even for me, I called his supplier and the poor lady on the phone said "Honey, we don't even have a manual for it". I then gave up. You could only buy remans from Ford. That's where the car's second transmission came from. It lasted 20K miles or something like that.

Given the number of CVTs on the road, I deduce two things:

There is a wide open market in your area.

A lot of people around you actively want to turn away business.

CVTs are simple inside. REALLY simple. There's very little to go wrong (especially compared to, say, a 6/7/8/9-speed epicyclic auto!) and very little to screw up in a rebuild, if/when they do fail.

The only one I've driven was a '14 Legacy. Overall it is a bit different at first, but I like it better than a conventional auto.

Knurled wrote:

tuna55 wrote: Nobody would rebuild it locally, my Dad (who rebuilds automatics for some sort of niche) wouldn't do it even for me, I called his supplier and the poor lady on the phone said "Honey, we don't even have a manual for it". I then gave up. You could only buy remans from Ford. That's where the car's second transmission came from. It lasted 20K miles or something like that.

Given the number of CVTs on the road, I deduce two things: There is a wide open market in your area. A lot of people around you actively want to turn away business. CVTs are simple inside. REALLY simple. There's very little to go wrong (especially compared to, say, a 6/7/8/9-speed epicyclic auto!) and very little to screw up in a rebuild, if/when they do fail.

Prove me wrong with a quote to get a CVT rebuilt for the Freestyle.

My Dad lives 1000 miles away and had the same answer.

The Freestyle was also an orphan, which may further hurt its cause.

@rcutclif: Agree with you on the Maxima - rented a 2012 for a week in 2013 and it behaved very well; not the most fun, but never failed to do what I needed it to do.

@T.J.: Had the same experience when my wife and I test-drove a '13 Altima. Oddly, I rented one several months prior and it didn't happen; that's what helped lead us to look at one.

Drove a '14 Avalon Hybrid a few months ago; the CVT was as well-behaved as the one in EvanR's Corolla. Was responsive on hills and had decent acceleration without the drama of the Altima (despite the four-pot under the hood). We liked it enough to consider buying one when the time comes to replace our DD.

In reply to tuna55:

Should be no problem. I know of two shops locally that have rebuilt the Five Hundred transmission, which Wikipedia assures me is the same unit as in the Freestyle.

I expect that towing it to Ohio would be kind of a bitch.

Conversely, I am stuck in a base model Versa Note this week while the Leaf is in the shop.

The Versa sucks. I think the thing that gives CVTs such a bad name is the droning engines they're attached to.

A 1.5 liter with poor sound insulation and Eco tuning isn't bad to drive when you're distracted by a clutch pedal and stick. It's downright awful when the CVT pegs it at 6000 RPMs for about 10 full seconds while you try to get on the freeway.

In reply to EvanR:

Good to hear. I hope Honda has an equal success with the new Fit, as I'm guessing my wife will end up in one of those after her current Fit runs its course. The CVT had me concerned.

Knurled wrote: In reply to tuna55: Should be no problem. I know of two shops locally that have rebuilt the Five Hundred transmission, which Wikipedia assures me is the same unit as in the Freestyle. I expect that towing it to Ohio would be kind of a bitch.

Some 500s did, some did not

In reply to tuna55:

According to Wiki, there's only one CVT. I know what a CVT looks like with its innards covering a bench

In reply to Knurled:

That sort of answers my question about service if something goes wrong out of warranty. And raises other questions. Is the price of a CVT rebuild comparable to that of a traditional automatic? What about replacement cost? Are salvage yards pulling CVTs out of wrecks for resale? I could go on and on...

06HHR wrote: In reply to Knurled: That sort of answers my question about service if something goes wrong out of warranty. And raises other questions. Is the price of a CVT rebuild comparable to that of a traditional automatic? What about replacement cost? Are salvage yards pulling CVTs out of wrecks for resale? I could go on and on...

The remanufactured unit for me was something like $3500. It was happily under warranty, barely, from the first company that installed the first remanufactured unit.