Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums  

I personally have a hard time considering buying a car unless it's a stick.  Out of the 20+ cars I've owned ~90% were sticks and the only autos were deals I couldn't pass up.

How many of us know people under 35 who want a manual tranny? Most, by my count. These are the same people who for the most part don't even have domestic cars on their radar. When young people buy performance oriented cars, they're looking for at least 5 gears to row their own.

Now how are CVT's with regards to fuel economy? Better or worse than manuals? We may be getting one this weekend, and I'm wondering if I should wait until I can find a 5-spd version.

…for some reason the Marauders do it for me. I don't know why but I've always wanted one............

Me too.  Add a Trilogy supercharger while you are at it.

The only auto car I have (out of 4) is my euro Ford, the Scorpio...and I HATE it (the trans, not the car).  One of ths things on the project list is to swap out the A4LD for a T5.
The only thing slowing that down is I need to mod the trans to get the shifter in the right spot, but it WILL happen.

Did the XR4ti have the same trans? That would explain why my friend's tranny would always catch fire...

I think CVT's are slightly better on fuel than standards

I think CVT's are slightly better on fuel than standards because they don't have the parasitic losses of an automatic and they're supposedly always in the ideal "gear" (a CVT allows an engine to operate at a higher throttle opening for a given speed, reducing pumping losses). That being said, though, some of them have some serious durability issues (don't even think of getting a Saturn VUE with the CVT, although any dealership that's stuck with one might just about give it to you just to get rid of it). They've also got horrible "feel" - the engine RPM's don't connect with road speed, and it just feels weird. Car magazines call the effect "motorboating" because the engine actually feels and sounds like an outboard motor.

But the 5R55E 5-Speed auto doesn't make me hate life

Funny you should say that. :hick: Tomorrow I will be joining you in the world of dent resistant side panels. I would have waited for a 5-spd, but today our Jeep decided it didn't need tranny fluid to run anymore, and the one we're looking at (I've been researching the larger of the cute-utes and crossovers for about six months now, and we were planning on buying in March, but today happened), is optioned out, has the factory warranty until August, 81,000 klicks and in Truro. I've been living with 16mpg for far too long, so it's exactly what you said. A 4-cyl awd CVT.

Everything I've read about their CVT so far has been praise, saying it's one of the few that work properly, staying at peak torque and losing the false shifting that convinces misguided drivers that thier 'automatic' is working properly. I just looked it up on fueleconomy.gov, and it had a disadvantage to the 5-spd, but that's probably because the AWD doesn't come with a stick. I guess I missed that detail.

Anyway, this will be my second CVT, and I had a lot of luck with the first one, even though everyone swears it should have blown up.

"First off, the continuously variable transmission is a wonderful step forward from previous attempts. It is designed to keep the engine always in its power band for most any given speed. It does that. It's actually kind of weird, since the tach will often stay at the same rev mark yet the vehicle keeps accelerating. It's very smooth and quiet, but it doesn't transform the four-cylinder engine it's mounted to into a screamer. No doubt the CVT extracts more oomph from the four-banger than a conventional automatic, but it's still no barn-burner."

Ok, I have to stop doing this to threads.