Subaru transmission question

My daughter is looking at used Subarus a few years old. Her concern is how reliable are the CVT vs the manual vs automatic. She would go with the CVT but concerned that they have not been out too many years.

She has an old manual Nissan now and would go with a manual transmission.

Her main interest is regarding reliability. I personally have driven one with a CVT and the touch and feel is just a little different.

I'd like opinions that I can pass on to her about the three types of transmissions.

Regards,

Dave C

Reply to
dcardarelli
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All types have pro's and con's.

CVTs are efficient and allow for better use of the engines power. They feel different as you remark.

Autos are pretty common, but they have many pieces that can fail, seals, control valves, clutches, solenoids, switches, etc.

Manuals are pretty reliable but clutch wear becomes a weakness.

With subies, the 1995 auto tranny failed within a few years. The 2003 outback is going strong.

Good luck,

AS

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Reply to
AS

Thanks, AS, that is very helpful and just what she needs to decide.

Regards,

Dave C

Reply to
dcardarelli

That's a good question, how is the reliability of the CVT's, they haven't been around long enough to have a track record yet, I would guess. I think the earliest mass-market CVT's came from Nissan, and they didn't have such a good track record. But then I'm not sure if you can extrapolate reliability from another manufacturer's track record.

Yousuf Khan

Reply to
Yousuf Khan

The Subaru Justy had the CVT lang before Nissan. And they were not terribly reliable either. The dutch DAF was the first commercially "successful" automotive CVT.And that goes back a few decades.

Reply to
clare

A co-worker of mine had designed a CVT in 1957 as his senior project in Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Tech. When he heard about the DAF he had to go out and buy a used one. The first thing he learned about the CVT in the DAF was that you could start the engine with the transmission in gear; he learned this when his wife started it up and it smashed into the back of their Mercury. This happened sometime in the early '70s. The last I heard about the DAF was that it was parked at the curb in front of their house with weeds growing up around it.

Reply to
John Varela

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