Generic CVT-related questions

[slc79]

I apologize for yet another neurotic post, but I'm still in that period that I need to find out if there's problems that needs to be addressed in my limited warranty period and I am simply not used to CVT-boxes.. my Avensis is the first time I've ever driven a CVT-car so I don't really know what is normal and not. Some of this may not even be attributed to the CVT at all. It's not my intention to sound difficult, dissatisfied or similar. Just need to know now to save myself of potential trouble later 🙂

Question 1.

What sounds are normal when driving? I experience a combination of whirring/grinding in some situations, especially after I've been pushing the engine a little or shifting down to brake using the motor. I also sometimes hear something that sounds a bit like wheezing when accelerating. That grinding noise I am starting to come to terms with as being a characteristic sound for the CVT boxes, but the wheezing?

Question 2.

When I put the car in reverse, I hear a whistling sound when backing. It can vaguely resemble the sound of a turbo charger spinning up. It seems to vary with how long down I press the accelerator pedal. Is this also to be expected? If not, what can possible culprits be?

Question 3.

When starting to drive after the car has been stationary for a while, I can hear a subtle "clunk". We have a Ford Focus with a 6 speed DCT from Getrag that does the same thing, so this might be normal aswell. But I am still curious, what IS this sound?

Question 4.

Sometimes when I depress or press the accelerator, there may be a slight sudden jerk. To be expected? Happens especially in situation where the car seems to not be under much load, such as down hills or a non curved road.

Question 5.

Nothing to do with any of the above, I simply CAN'T find it in the user's manual! But is there a way to reset ALL the stats at once? (MPG, average speed, hours driven, etc) ? 🙂 I am almost certain there's a trick to this I'm missing...


Thanks in advance, and again.. sorry! 😄
 

[Cessna]

Although my T270 Tourer has a manual gearbox, I used to have a 2000 Nissan Primera estate with a 2 litre petrol engine and CVT. The only noise it made was a slight whine which varied with road speed and wasn't always audible, and was a little louder in reverse. There were no clunking noises, and no sudden jerkiness in normal driving (although if you were pressing the accelerator when shifting from N to D or R it would jerk in a big way, but that was my fault!). In summary from my Nissan experience I would not expect anything other than a mild whine and complete smoothness from a CVT. Toyota CVTs may be different, so I will be interested to hear what any owners have to say.

[Roy124]

Low mileage Corolla, usually no sound at all. Selecting B the motor noise indeed is audible and similar to selection of a lower gear in a conventional ICE. 

[Cessna]

Looks like the word jerk is in this site's rude word filter (in case anyone wonders what the words hidden by asterisks are in my post and slc79's).

[Heidfirst]

3 hours ago, Roy124 said:

Low mileage Corolla, usually no sound at all. Selecting B the motor noise indeed is audible and similar to selection of a lower gear in a conventional ICE. 

hybrids have a different gearbox though - it is a planetary gearbox rather than a true cvt as in the Avensis Multitronic S

[slc79]

An update to this... Toyota confirmed that something is "definitely not right", so the dealer who sold me the car is going to see what can be done to diagnose this without being financially ruined. I did a recording while driving today, and also filtered out engine sound from the clip so the whining could be more easily heard and amplified the audio so I was able to play it from my phone to Toyota today. For anyone interested in listening, both the unedited and filtered clips can be found here:

https://colaku.com/~tomsk/avensis/

In addition, while doing that particular recording I was driving at 80km/h after the acceleration, and two times in a period of less than 10 seconds, it was as if the power was lost, as in clutch disengaging for half a second each time and caused a very noticeable judder (since the other j-word is banned here :D)

Both Toyota and the seller said that this doesn't sound right, and I also experienced yesterday that this could be heard inside the car EVEN with the radio on... which is when I started to really think that this is bad.

[john p williams]

Why not ask the Seller to give you your money back and you look elsewhere ?

[slc79]

11 minutes ago, john p williams said:

Why not ask the Seller to give you your money back and you look elsewhere ?

We'll start finding out exactly what this is and decide from there, but if this means a costly repair I'm definitely going down that route.

[slc79]

First workshop suspects transmission indeed, so they want Toyota to confirm as they said the combination of this engine and transmission is so peculiar that it requires knowledge mostly found at the retailer. So if Toyota confirms it comes from the transmission too, I'm not quite sure what to do. If it's only the transmission, I might get away with around £2500 for a brand new one, provided that the company that offers the extra coverage accepts the cost for a new one. If so, would it be worth it rather than trying to return the car? I'm thinking that with a brand new transmission, if it ends up with that, might be a very good insurance for reliability for years to come? Any thoughts?

[FROSTYBALLS]

When did you buy the car? If within the last six months, you will be covered under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 regardless of any warranty - see https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act-aKJYx8n5KiSl#your-right-to-a-repair-or-replacement

[slc79]

I live in Norway, so those exact laws does not apply here but we have something similar. The seller is not obliged to pay for a new transmission, he might as well offer me to deliver the car back for a full refund. The thing is, if this plays out as I mentioned above, I may be able to get a brand new transmission for around £2500 rather than returning the car, and I'm thinking that might be worth something too. I mean, a brand new transmission would give me a full five year warranty on that part should it ever fail again, and I would more than likely not have to ever worry about it in an aging car. So my choices are really (if it turns out to be the transmission)

1. Go for a full refund

2. Get the transmission in a used car replaced at a more than reasonable price, considerably lowering chances for a transmission failure as long as I own the car

[slc79]

I guess even this problem is finally being resolved in a good way. Seller offered to take half of the deductible if using the extra car warranty that came with the vehicle when bought, meaning I will end up paying an equivalent of roughly £1200-£1300 in the worst case scenario, this would be a brand new transmission from Toyota. If a rebuilt one can be sourced it will probably be somewhat cheaper. One from the scrapyard, even though Toyota saying it would be a safe solution, was out of the question for the insurer. So either factory new or rebuilt. In my opinion a fair deal, so once this is sorted I think I'll be very satisfied with my purchase, and despite the rough start of the ownership I really hope I have many good years to come with this car 🙂

[slc79]

Hi, been a while, and I thought I'd give an update because I hate when others leave loose ends on their threads, so here's a conclusion on mine.

The CVT transmission was suspected faulty on my end, and it was confirmed. Because of busy days at Toyota, it wasn't possible to get the job done until now. I got my car back today with a new transmission and I will mention a few things about how the car was before and after, as it may actually give some clues to others experiencing similar things in the future.

The cost of the entire replacement was an equivalent of £1840 GBP to me because of a 12 month extended used cars warranty, of which the dealer said he'd split 50/50 with me. The alternative would have been to let the dealer fix this, but I'd then get a used transmission rather than a factory rebuilt from Toyota. I chose that option for peace of mind, as I now have five year full warranty on parts and labor, so I am living just fine with £900-ish for a new transmission, I'd not even fight over paying the full deductible as it is easily worth it.

Now, I was noticing a lot of things with my car that didn't feel right. This included:

- Intermittent shaking when driving on highways, as if driving over stippled lines. This typically went on and off every half a minute or so.
- The car was juddering a lot, especially in sports mode
- There was a very awkward and loud whine from the transmission

When I got it back today, I at most expected some of the judder and the whine to be gone... but... I got a few surprises here.

- The intermittent shaking was gone (yay!!)
- Juddering during acceleration gone completely, even in sports mode.
- The whine from transmission was also gone (as expected)

And here's some things that did surprise me. Remember how I complained about excessive shaking when driving in cruise speed at low RPMs? There's still some shaking (caused by the low-ish RPMs), but ..

- Car isn't shaking remotely as much as it did... in fact it felt so smooth now that it's like a completely different car.
- It runs more quiet (how on earth does the transmission even affect that?)
- The car responded almost immediately when pushing the accelerator and the car felt much much lighter. This was unexpected.
- The transmission adapted MUCH quicker.. it was working way harder to maintain the optimal ratio while the old felt like it was a bit slow to react and lagging.
- Too early to conclude, but I think I saw a decrease in fuel consumption too... it was a relatively short trip (30 minutes), though it ended on 6.4L/100KM.

So, there were even symptoms I wasn't even aware of before I dropped off the car to have the transmission changed. I hope this can be of help to someone later. There are now no issues left on the car that bothers me... finally! 🙂

[nielshm]

Good to hear that Toyota accepts that even CVT's can fail. CVT are often suspected to be the worst gearbox ever. Toyotas are nearly bullet proff, but Nissans boxes are truely crap, and gives CVT in general a very bad reputation. 

A good advice is to change oil every 60.000 km. That's not part of any service, some shops won't even do it, even if you ask them to. The oil is thin like water and bright red, not like any other lubricant. 

The gearbox it self is a V shaped steelbelt, and cone shaped pulleys. Belt and cones are pressed together with very high force, using the very thin gearbox oil in pumps, valces etc. If the oils gets "worn out" as time goes by, there's a risk that the steelbelt will slip, shaving of tiny metal pieces that can cause oil pumps, valves to react slowly - and suddently your gearbox is beyond repair. 

[slc79]

Not sure they have much choice other than accepting when a customer leaves a car for troubleshooting for troubleshooting a loud obnoxious whine and mechanic hear the whine coming from the transmission. 🙂 Also, to Toyota, this was just a paid job. They did not cover anything. The used car warranty covered all of the labor and 40% of the cost of the transmission. I (and the dealer) cover the rest. And in such claims, there are no VAT either, which made the transmission a bit cheaper.

And yes, I already knew Toyota CVTs being reliable, which is why I took a chance (and lost!) when I bought this 2013 Avensis. But luckily I had this extra insurance, and now with a new/factory rebuilt one, I can sleep very well at night. These boxes fail so rarely that some of the mechanics at local Toyota had never even seen a Toyota with a broken transmission. So I think the odds are still quite good... 🙂

[Cessna]

On 11/20/2021 at 7:00 AM, nielshm said:

Nissans boxes are truely crap, and gives CVT in general a very bad reputation

I don't think that is true. I had a 2 litre Primera with a CVT and my experience with it, and opinion on the owners' club website was very positive. They key thing was to change the fluid at the correct intervals (for the reasons you gave in your post). If that is done on Nissan CVTs they are bullet proof, and I am guessing the situation is the same with Toyotas (thankfully I have a manual box in my Avensis - I prefer to be in control!)

[nielshm]

3 hours ago, Cessna said:

I don't think that is true. I had a 2 litre Primera with a CVT and my experience with it, and opinion on the owners' club website was very positive. They key thing was to change the fluid at the correct intervals (for the reasons you gave in your post). If that is done on Nissan CVTs they are bullet proof, and I am guessing the situation is the same with Toyotas (thankfully I have a manual box in my Avensis - I prefer to be in control!)

I got a new Auris 1.2T with CVT back in 2016. 

I spend hours on google and YouTube to figure what kind of gearbox to expect. It was very hard to find true stories about Toyota CVT's breaking down. But it was very easy to find videos with broken Nissan boxes and mechanics tearing down Nissan boxes to figure out what has gone wrong. Most of the faulty cars and boxes were sold on the US market, maybe there's a difference in hardware from Europe to US?? 

[Cyker]

Yeah, I was very skeptical when Toyota first announced theirs - I've never liked autoboxes, except maybe locking torque converters, but CVTs were always particularly awful: Because of the way they work the surfaces are constantly scraping against each other, and they are all proprietary so, unlike a manual, very specialist tools, parts and knowledge are always required to repair them = mahoosive repair bills.

However, as usual Toyota seem to have bucked the trend and somehow made reliable CVTs! I haven't heard anyone on here with a problem with them so far, in contrast to the godawful MMT automatic single-clutch they had before...!

 

[slc79]

On 11/21/2021 at 4:10 PM, Cyker said:

I haven't heard anyone on here with a problem with them so far, in contrast to the godawful MMT automatic single-clutch they had before...!

 

Well, now you have! 😉
But I did have difficulties finding other examples when troubleshooting. It wasn't until I stumbled across a video from someone with a failed CVT in a Nissan I was 100% sure my transmission was faulty, because it had the EXACT same whine.