Impressed with Dodge Caliber

"CVT" and "Shifting" (no matter how smooth) don't belong in the same sentence. Is it true that the Caliber CVT "fakes" shifts rather than just holding the RPM constant as speed increases? And if so, have you checked into the rumor that the controller can be re-flashed to make it

CVT's, those things are like big snow-mobile clutches......

Many people "expect" to fee some sort of "shifting activity" in their transmissions, whether CVT or not. CVTs also take a little getting used to in driving them, as some of our Nissan techs had to instruct Murano customers of how to drive the vehicles to let the CVT act as it should. A steady throttle foot during acceleration keeps things going as they should, rather than into and out of the throttle as some people tend to do when "the feel" is not right to them.

Even Nissan has "gear" selections in their CVTs, to mimic certain gear ratios for manual shifting capabilities. Not everybody is ready for (or used to) the ole DynaFlow feel of smoooooth acceleration with little engine rpm change.

I suspect that Chrysler's foray into CVTs will work better than GM/Saturn's and Ford's did. Nissan's had full CVT coverage for a couple of model years now, but not in the more powerful Infinity line. It doesn't seem to have hurt sales or have received consumer resistance, especially as it is now billed as a fuel economy booster.

Enjoy!

C-BODY

"Steve" wrote

The couple I've tested held a constant rpm with a constant throttle setting. Some models do, however, have an "autostick" setting which allows them to be manually shifted through 6 speeds.

I think they work great if properly set up. Plus they have far fewer parts than any other types of transmission, manuals included.

You will have to resist resisting change. CVT is the way of the future, it just makes sense.

You COMPLETELY boofed your understanding of what I was saying. Read it again, with feeling.

My whole point was that its looney to take a perfectly good CVT (which I agree is the way of the future apart from hybrids) and then program it to "shift" like a regular automatic just so customers won't think it "feels odd."

Ha. Not if Chrysler has their way. Dual clutch, here it comes:

Current CVTs can't handle as much torque as conventional automatics or manuals, but "manumatics" may just be a stopgap for heavier duty vehicles until higher torque-capable CVTs are developed. Then again, automatically shifting manual transmissions have been used for a long, long time on 18-wheelers. I was skeptical the first time I was shown an Eaton auto-manual on an 18-wheeler. I'd heard the driver pull it in, and it sounded exactly like a conventional 18-wheeler shifting. But it was all being done by the computer, not the driver, and he proved it to me by taking me for a turn around the compound in it. Very odd sensation to feel the engine drop to idle, hear the gears change, and then the power come back on without the driver moving a muscle. This was circa 1998, and it was a Freightliner with a Cummins N-14 and Eaton transmission and axles.

You're confusing the future with the present. CVTs aren't there yet for serious torque output -- I don't think Chrysler is using it for anything bigger than a 2.4? While I expect them to get there, I also expect it to take long enough that a new transmission family can be developed, produced, amortized, and regarded as "old" first.

I'm going by this statement in the article:

The transmission will be used with the Phoenix V6 to create one of the world's most advanced powertrains. If it works well, and sees customer acceptance, it could replace both conventional automatics and CVTs at Chrysler.

To me, that says that CVT's may have a short future at Chrysler, if customers like the dual-clutch transmissions.

I could be wrong, of course, because I don't know the background of the article's author and who his source is.

I've see it. More complexity, but useful for high power large vehicles.

I got your point, but what's wrong with shift points? You appear CVT negative, with negative feeling.

He said what's wrong with shift points in a CVT quite clearly: you're compromising the CVT -- the whole purpose of which is to better match the ratio to the engine than you can do with any number of separate gear ratios -- to provide an artificial feeling for customers who don't understand what's going on.

How exactly do you get from "the way of the future" to "negative"?

The whole idea of a CVT is to let the engine get to an optimum RPM for the power demand, and let it STAY at that RPM until the power demand changes. For example, merging on the freeway, the engine revs up to near its power peak, and stays there as the vehicle accelerates, with the CVT changing ratio so that it progressively gets closer to 1:1 but the engine speed doesn't vary. Then when you're at cruise speed, the CVT lets the engine RPM drop to a high-efficiency RPM while holding the vehicle speed constant. By putting in shift points, you make it act just like any old automatic would- engine revs up, and then lugs back down to a sub-optimum RPM and has to dig itself out of the hole all over again.

No, I LIKE CVTs.... provided that they're allowed to do what they're best at and not have "fake" shift points to make them feel like a regular automatic.