Which Automatic?

[ABToyota]

I have an Auris 09 vvti 1.6 manual and I get 34mpg its mainly around town driving with a trip on the motorway once a week (40 miles there and back) so I assume this is what I should expect.

Now my wife wants an auto box and we are looking at Toyota because of their reputation for reliability so what Auris or other model toyota has a good reliable auto and good mpg but for mainly driving around town.

995 will be short runs of about 3miles or less.

Only downside of the Auris is that it has a smallish boot.

[alan333]

The old shape has what they call an automatic but it's actually a manual box with an automatic clutch, it's called a MMT. You still drive it like an auto ie there's only two pedals and it changes gears itself...but it's a lumpy jerky box to drive, and it especially hates hills.

The new shape (2012 on IIRC) has a CVT auto box which is similar (or maybe identical) to the Avensis, and in the Avensis it's a great drive. Make sure you get this CVT model.

[FROSTYBALLS]

Yes the current Auris (December 2012 onwards) has the better auto option - CVT. Or there is the Hybrid of either generation which has an e-CVT.

[TomdeGuerre]

I've got the 1.6 petrol with the CVT box which I've posted about before. Definitely a bit screamy with the revs but overall better than the MMT. Petrol consumption I don't bother with too much, I don't do high annual mileage. My last 1.6 Auris MMT showed 36mpg overall on board thingy and I hadn't zeroed it in well over a year. My present one shows overall 38mpg when I checked it a few days ago and I haven't zeroed it in a year either. As to how accurate the on board calculation is, well I dunno.

It used to puzzle me why automatics were reported as having better mpg than manuals then I read how they conducted the urban cycle fuel consumption tests. Manual transmissions were not allowed to go into top gear, sometimes not even 4th gear with a 5 spd box). Automatics were allowed to do the urban cycle in Normal drive mode because it was reasoned that's the way they would be driven by the owners.

Manual gearboxes have helical cut gears for quietness but they absorb a lot of power (check out most rally cars with straight cut noisy gears because of power gains). Trouble is the helical gears by their very nature try to drive each other apart and the resultant power loss has to be taken up by layshaft and mainshaft thrust washers and thrust bearings . On the CVT box, however, you don't have helical cut gears therefore you might have less parasitic power loss. if so then that might explain how CVT boxes give better mpg than manuals. But I've never been able to find out whether modern manual cars are still restricted to lower gears during the urban cycle testing. Reading the EU test cycles make your eyes glaze over quite rapidly.

[Miseryguts]

Had my 63 plate (petrol) auto Auris since new.

Under "normal" driving conditions it is very smooth to drive.

On the odd occasion when I have to use "kick down" things become a bit frantic.

If you take one out for a test drive make sure you test this out and you will see what I mean,its really not a deal breaker though.

Don't even consider the old style box,it was truly terrible (Toyota salesman said it was the worst box he had ever driven).

[Cyker]

@Tom - It's really a semi recent thing; Torque-converter autoboxes always had lower mpgs because of pumping losses in the hydraulic fluid.

With Semi-Autos/MMTs they could match manual mpgs because they were basically manuals.

The main reason with CVTs is that they can run the engine at its most fuel efficient RPM at all times and vary the gear ratio to match the speed required, instead of fixed gears and varying engine RPM, so under ideal circumstances they can meet/exceed manuals.

They do tend to get a bit screamy under load tho' and a lot of drivers don't like them because they use the engine sound as a cue, and you lose that with CVTs since the engine sound is mostly decoupled from the wheel speed.

There is still some loss in the system from the friction belt, but it's not too bad (Nowhere near as bad as a torque converter!), and at least Toyota seem to have made the belt a lot more robust in their new CVT autobox (Older CVTs could wear their belts out quite quickly and were rubbish for towing. Often the belt was a very expensive item to replace!)

If I was forced to drive an auto I'd pick either a HSD or the locking torque-converter in the GT86 :)

IMHO these are the two best autoboxes out there at the moment (From my admittedly limited exposure to autoboxes!) - the HSD because there is no friction wearing parts, and the GT86's because it has all the advantages of a torque converter but the locking part means you don't get the biggest downside - The pumping losses.

(But hopefully they'll crack the Battery problem and we won't need gearboxes anymore! And also have flying cars, Mr Fusion, self-tying shoe-laces and hovering skate boa-wuh? what do you mean we have those now?! :D)