Corolla gearbox compared to others

[nielshm]

This week I've had a chance to drive 2 different cars with automatic gearboxes.

First car was a Volvo XC90. It seems like a old school gearbox with torque converter and a bit slow changing between gear. Second car was a Peugeot 3008 with a kind of dual clutch like VW. Faster shifts, but still a bit odd.

To be honest, I would prefer my Corolla any time. The Volvo seems really slow at lower speeds. The diesel engine can be heard at any speed, and revs pretty much without the car accelerating very much. The Peugeot is more quiet, the gearbox seems more direct, but still makes some funny little jerks when shifting.

[TonyHSD]

Well, no surprise here 😉

Since I had tried my first hybrid for longer drives back in 2013 with Prius gen 3 I was immediately converted. I came from the trade with experience of driving many different cars and types , there was nothing like Toyota hybrids.  They are the best and the only cars that drives similarly to full Evs. Basically there is no gearbox, it’s a transmission without gears. 👍

[nielshm]

It just makes me think, why car reviews and journalists seems to hate CVT? They don't care if it's belt/cone powered CVT, or e-CVT. 

In the worst case, they wont recommend buying the car. Most of the times, a very long drive is needed to figure out if a CVT can be accepted. 

A VW with DSG is always the best choice - if you're a journalist. No matter if failing and breakdown is pretty common. 

[Cyker]

It's because of that similar behaviour where you press the accelerator a lot and the engine surges, but the car doesn't really move appreciably for a few moments before picking up - This is a horrible feeling to anyone who is a hardened manual driver as it screams clutch failure.

The rest is lazy journalism - None of the newer ones do this; If you push the accelerator a lot, the engine surges... and the car will launch, just like any other car, but they still parrot the same tired old phrases from the Prius Mk2 days.

The worst ones are the ones that complain the engine is a bit noisy when it's under hard acceleration, like this is somehow different to any other car!

Toyota have even tried to tune the engine map to address these complaints, and made the newer HSD's slower than they could be, by not pegging the RPM as soon as you floor the accelerator, but making them climb so you get that rising engine note to convey acceleration.

 

[AndrueC]

Honda CVT drives pretty much the same experience as the Toyota. I moved from Jazz CVT to Corolla and it feels the same most of the time. Only difference is the Mk3 Jazz. The earlier versions don't handle the engine transition between Otto and Atkinson cycle particularly well which can lead to a step effect when transitioning from low to high load.

But apart from that (which to be fair is pretty minor) it's the same smooth experience. Just don't make the mistake of going for the iShift aberration - that wasn't CVT and Honda sensibly dropped it pretty quickly.

[flash22]

i would not touch any automated manual with someone else's barge pole, let alone a French one, Vauxhall is now mainly rebadged Peugeot, Nissan is Renault with the shockingly bad Jatco CVT

 

the Toyota eCVT (hybrid) is vastly different to a conventional CVT, if you're looking for another Hybrid be aware there are plenty of 'mild hybrid' on the market

[Cyker]

They suck tho', get a REAL hybrid! Or better yet get a Mk4 Yaris!  

[TonyHSD]

Only Toyota/Lexus hybrids worth buying them, especially if you are planing to keep the car long and pay with your own money. 👍 Mild hybrids are similar to stop start, and other hybrids still has gears, clutches , belts etc, all things that goes wrong. 👌

[Woofwoof]

On 5/14/2022 at 5:36 PM, nielshm said:

It just makes me think, why car reviews and journalists seems to hate CVT? They don't care if it's belt/cone powered CVT, or e-CVT. 

In the worst case, they wont recommend buying the car. Most of the times, a very long drive is needed to figure out if a CVT can be accepted. 

A VW with DSG is always the best choice - if you're a journalist. No matter if failing and breakdown is pretty common. 

every journalist goes crazy on VAG vehicles, I rent a lot (not a small amount of international travel) and find VAG cars to be the absolute worst whether in manual form or dsg, the manuals cars have to be kept in a very specific rev range to accelarate and 1st gear can at random times at too high revs begin jumping randomly dependent on how steep the road is and who knows what) whilst the DSG is the worst thing to drive in town or to park, the cart is guaratneed to jump around during stop start driving.

Plus the seats are usually pretty uncomfortable, their electronic assist systems are quite unimpressive and theyre not even that economical.

the nly good point is that theyre rarely underpowered like a citroen 301 but they donbt usually have such amaing power either so...

whenever I reach a rental counter I chat up the rep and trhen ask what cars they have in stock and theyre usually very happy to let me choose.