I try to think about all the positives of CVT and tickets/accidents/stupid 5hIt it saved me from as opposed to driving a manual
Acceleration, whatever the trans, won’t get you a ticket. Over speeding will… which some will manage to achieve driving a Mitsu Mirage 78 HP CVT (like in a school zone) while a Ferrari driver won’t. It’s the driver, not the car.
Other manufacturers that use CVT such as nissan, subaru, honda, not sure if they recommend but from reading some forums some replace cvt fluid every 30k miles.
Nissan has 30K intervals, and it came after their first gen CVT debacle. Not all of those units would need replacement, but a bunch might have suffered initial damage from the bad firmware heat management and are at risk on the long term. It’s both a way to mitigate extended warranty expenses on those… and to finance it also by expanding the “requirement”.
Next time I'm there I'm going to push for a cvt oil change while it's still under warranty. This way if they fuk it up they're replacing the damn thing.
Whether required or not, that would be “maintenance”, not “repairs”, therefore not cover by warranty anyway. And if they F* it up (for instance by using regular AT fluid instead of CVT fluid like seen in some shops
) then their legal responsibility is engaged regardless of warranty. Warranty is for Toyota's responsibility (building the car), not the dealer/mechanic actions. Otherwise, it certainly can’t hurt!
Overall if you read forums these days, not only Toyota but most japanese ones there is a new trend and it's CVT this CVT that and a lot of it is people reporting problems.
Actually, not that many, considering there are more than 1.5 million of them on the road (and that’s just for NA Corolla!). Among them, some reporting “problems” believed to come from the “evil CVT” but not related (cruise control, rattles). Others are true costly horror stories with the OP coming and vanishing as quick, without any follow-up…
The conclusion is yours. That leaves us with no more trouble reported than for any human made object and certainly not more than some DCTs or 9-10 speeds transmission. To see what a “lot of people reporting problems” look like, check Nissan’s forums from 2007…
It’s not only a Japanese thing. Rumor has Chevy Cruze getting a CVT in an effort to make its real life MPG match the optimistic EPA rating obtained because of the turbo. Problematic first units were not only from Japan (Jatco) either: think of Fiat (GM Saturn), ZF (Ford) and Schaeffer (Audi). On the other hand, Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep, were also Nissan-Jatco. Even professional reviewers have gone from “this is a bad car because it has a CVT” to “it’s a good car but it has a CVT” and sometimes even to “I recommend the CVT option”.
Toyota needs to reach out to Koenigseg and take some notes on how to make a vehicle that doesn't use a transmission. I know hard to believe but they've figured out a way
Easy ! The 1500 HP Regera Direct Drive uses electric motors for initial acceleration, then some kind of “super” torque converter couple the ICE with the wheels. It’s a fancy hybrid. Yours for less than $ 2,000,000…
Not for tomorrow in a Corolla! Like the CVT it’s a simple concept but requiring exact and precise execution. I wonder if some people would deem the car as “slow” because they don’t hear constant up/down in revs like they do for CVT. Anyway, both might become obsolete if pure electric cars take the market.