Gadgetory

a transmission is a sort of crutch your car's engine wants to rotate in a fairly narrow range of rpms but your car's wheels want to rotate over a much wider range so the transmission sits between them and makes peace matching up their different rotational needs the most common transmission today is a traditional automatic it's a hydraulic fluid filled thing that shifts like it sounds it's very hydraulic it takes into account engine rpm vehicle speed accelerator position and engine load and whatever the various computers around the car demanding of it and selects a gear to parts in particular the hydraulic valve body and the hydraulic torque converter give the automatic its traditional smooth but often flabby driving field hence the rather derisive name that enthusiasts and purists have given the automatic that of course would be slush box yes get away with Mirko Matic almost defies description it's so silky smooth you're scarcely aware of what's happening but their convenience made them the hero of the industry in the US well over 90 percent of new cars shipped with one now automatics used to have just three speeds then after the 1979 energy crisis a fourth gear became common as a fuel saving overdrive Mirko Matic goes into overdrive cruising affect you soar along smoothly quietly and without effort overdrive is any gear with an input-output ratio lower than one to one that allows the engine to run at low rpms while the car is cruising at a high speed today five and six speeds are common with eight and nine speeds at the cutting edge so if more gears are better why not an infinite number enter the CVT continuously variable transmission instead of a specific number of gears or ratios it uses variable pulleys to create almost any ratio as the pulleys change diameter on-the-fly they're turning a steel drive belt between them and that Brokers the RPM between the engine and the wheels on a continuum instead of via big jumps between gears conventional automatics hunt for the right here going up the hill jumping between third and fourth and you really need to be in say three and a half well because CVT chooses from a much wider range of ratios it can nail that in-between spot and hold it as you make a steady smooth climb to the top but knock-on CBTs is that they have tended to feel even more slippery and vague than a traditional automatic and can't handle the output of the most powerful engines but both traditional automatics and CBTs have made big strides in responsiveness and today automatics typically deliver the best 0 to 60 times and the best mpg at once but purists don't care for them there's nothing like a manual a manual transmission has typically five six or maybe seven speeds a clutch and a shift lever now manual transmissions have not changed much the 50s to be honest and all that makes it work is a clutch pedal down there a gearshift lever here and all those gears I mentioned are arrayed on a couple of shafts inside the gearbox you make all the decisions using the clutch to momentarily break the connection between engine and driveline long enough to grab the next gear without grinding everything diseases the benefit of them is simple they're direct they're really robust and they let you pick exactly the gear you want at exactly the moment you want it and hold it for as long as you want it they are completely personal in terms of driving but they're really an anachronism today manuals are pretty rare these days found typically on very bass cars or very cheap ones but the manual transmission is having a resurgence of sorts thanks to this guy this is a dual clutch automated manual transmission or a DCT here in this Audi rs5 it looks like basically an automatic and that shift Gatewood fuya but beyond the lever it's a very different animal a computer and some servos are in charge of operating not just one but two clutches and moving the gears around it's called a dual clutch because it actually has two clutches allowing one to keep hammering power through the current gear while the other clutch decouples and selects the next gear on a different internal shaft it's like having two manual transmissions in one box that hand off to each other the gear changes are so quick that the driver does not notice the transfer of torque into the other sub transmission during an upshift the result are lightning-fast shifts and 200-proof power delivery from high-end Porsches to hot Mitsu's and now everything Ferrari makes the dual clutch is the intersection of purism and tech the bottom line is you get the precision and the direct power connection a manual transmission with really fast shifts but also the convenience of drop it in drive technology and just two pedals to deal with choose a transmission with these factors in month your driving style automatics and CB T's win on convenience hands down dual clutch gearboxes can give you their convenience with a manuals responsiveness but had a cost and a manual transmission is great if you really like driving know how to drive one and miss things like the Cold War and Ed Sullivan mpg transmission joys can make a big difference in a car's fuel economy compared the mpg of each transmission offered in a new car you're looking at KAUST automatics tend to cost a little over a thousand dollars when optional dual clutch gearboxes can be two to three times then and serviceability automatics and CBTs are often maintenance-free sealed units these days manuals will need occasional clutch replacement but they're highly repairable you