I was browsing the Murano page over on Nissan's page and noticed that they're finally putting a CVT in to production! This has always seemed like a great idea to me, but I'm not an engineer - what's keeping this technology from going in to the entire line? Is there a lot of lost power in a CVT design, or just not proven to be reliable enough yet?
Heath
Xtronic CVT
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maxnix
- Posts: 22627
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- Car: 1995 Infiniti Q45
1995 Infiniti Q45t
2000 Infiniti Q45
CVT for us
Actually CVT is more efficient. The problem with real V6 and V8 engines is the stress on components do not allow the durability required. There are also some different designs being explored by the manufacturers.
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greg_atlanta
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- Car: 2008 G35 Journey Sedan, silver/black (no sunroof), 1992 Q45 (in a past life)
CVTs are kind of spooky when you first drive them. I drove a DAF with a CVT in Europe a bunch of years ago.
When you accelerate from a stop the engine revs like normal, but when it reaches a particular RPM the engine just stops and the car keeps accelerating. Very strange. When you are driving down the road and hit the gas, nothing changes but the car just accelerates. Very strange.
The DAF was a very small car by US standards (by anybodys standards) with a little engine. They used a belt drive CVT (I think) in the early 70s. Engine and road noise was so high I don't know if the transmission made any noise.
I suspect the CVT would work great with a small direct injection turbo diesel (VW?). It would make the limited RPM range of a diesel a non-issue and would allow the engine to run at its torque peak no matter what the road speed.
When you accelerate from a stop the engine revs like normal, but when it reaches a particular RPM the engine just stops and the car keeps accelerating. Very strange. When you are driving down the road and hit the gas, nothing changes but the car just accelerates. Very strange.
The DAF was a very small car by US standards (by anybodys standards) with a little engine. They used a belt drive CVT (I think) in the early 70s. Engine and road noise was so high I don't know if the transmission made any noise.
I suspect the CVT would work great with a small direct injection turbo diesel (VW?). It would make the limited RPM range of a diesel a non-issue and would allow the engine to run at its torque peak no matter what the road speed.
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Stoneage_Turbo
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Just about anything
saturn VUE and the late 90s civics were avilable with CVT trannys here in the us , Primeras AKA G20s in japan have had cvt for years , when the transmission in the G goes to the big missed shift in the sky it might get replaced with a japan takeout CVT along with a SR20VET , turbo and cvt in a 1996 G20 thatll be the weirdest car out there , need to build the 5 speed Q45a first tho , just need the Q45a and some other little things