rev up your engines,
believe it or not, it's snowing in Houston, since I can't work outside now, I'm just going
to talk about CVT transmissions, now many modern cars come with CVT transmissions,
it stands for, continuously variable transmissions, they don't have gears like a normal transmission,
they don't shift from first gear, second gear, third gear,
now to understand CVT transmissions, here's a little history on transmissions in
general, now the first widely accepted transmissions
in vehicles were standard transmissions, with a standard shifter, and a clutch that
you push down with your foot, they were extremely reliable, you shifted
it when you need to with your hand, but they have one drawback, they are a pain
to drive in traffic, and then came automatic transmissions that
were still geared transmissions, but they shifted themselves automatically,
which of course people in the city love, because then they don't have to think about
shifting, they just step on the gas or the brake,
it makes driving a lot easier, now for a long time, the standard transmissions
had more power, and got better gas mileage than the automatics,
but as time went on, the automatic transmissions got more sophisticated and more complex, and
more computer controlled, so that they would get just about the same gas mileage as a standard
transmission, but that wasn't enough, with pressure from
the EPA to get better and better gas mileage from manufacturers, especially in the United
States, they started making these CVT transmissions, because they get about 6 percent or so better
gas mileage than the normal automatic geared transmissions,
as you can see in this diagram, there's a gear shift that allows you to manually change
it from first, to second, to third, to fourth gear,
and there's actual gears that you shift into by yourself,
while in this diagram of an automatic transmission, although it's a very basic one, the transmission
automatically shifts itself using various types of devices to send power to the wheels,
while in this CVT diagram, you can see that there are no real gears, it uses metal belts
and various shaped drums, in order to make the car run most efficiently,
they have a lot less moving parts than any modern automatic transmission and they get
the best gas mileage for whatever speed your going that you can possibly get,
and decades and decades ago, my grandfather who was also a mechanic, worked
on CVT transmissions, but they didn't work all that well back then,
the garage was down at the bottom of a big hill,
and when he worked on these CVT transmissions, a lot of times they just would not go up the
hill, they would slip so badly that they had to
go around to flatter ground to get up, they wouldn't make it up the hill,
now metallurgy has gone a long way since then, so the modern CVT transmissions, they'll go
up the hills and stuff, but a lot of them have a lot of lag,
which many people refer to as a rubber band effect,
you step on the gas and it's like winding up a rubber band,
it doesn't go, it doesn't go, and then it starts going,
but your going to find with many modern cars like this Nissan, they come only with CVT
transmissions, so what is there for you to do?
because the CVT transmissions are cheaper to manufacture, and get better gas mileage,
your going to be seeing more and more of them as time goes on,
so if your going to get a CVT transmission, listen to this warning,
do some serious research on the models your thinking about buying, for example,
I have never yet seen a Toyota Corolla CVT transmission go bad, not a single one yet,
but I personally have seen dozens of Nissan CVT transmissions go bad, especially in the
Altimas, and when the Altimas went bad, it was either spend $3,500 to $4,500 having them
rebuild, or buying a factory re-manufactured unit and
spending $5,000 to $6,000 to have it replaced, so in this case, if you don't mind the way
the CVT's drive, you would definitely get a Toyota Corolla
and you would pass on a Nissan Altima, now since CVT transmissions are being mass produced
now, more than they ever have been, I'm assuming in the future they will probably
perfect all the problems like they did with automatic transmissions,
but me, I'm going to stick with my four speed automatic transmission that's in this Toyota,
it's got 240,000 miles on it, and it's never been touched and it still shifts like a dream,
more quick fixes on the Scotty Kilmer Channel, so if you never want to miss another one of
my new car repair videos, remember to ring that bell!
