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I intend to buy a new Honda Jazz for my wife with the CVT gearbox. Has anybody experienced problems with this type of gearbox. Are they reliable?
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I have had CVT problems before with a Rover Metro, 2 x gearbox rebuilds.
Ford are always having CVT / CTX gearbox issues on whatever cars they decide to fit the box on to.
But its a Honda so dont worry about it breaking & it will also come with a 3 year warranty so any CVT box issues will be sorted out under warranty.
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You would be better with a "proper" auto box, say one of the last corollas are available new in auto with good deals, or mazda 3
I've had several CVT's - all self distructed one way or another, would never touch one again
If you buy one dont keep it past warranty running out, or risk missing a service and falling out of warranty
Cheap gear boxes to build, the makers like them cos they are light and help them get good fuel economy figures, however they are unreliable and expensive to fix
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I had a 2001 Primera with a CVT box.
Had problems with the box changing up far too early causing the car to labour and pink etc.
Nissan could never sort it out, so Icut my losses and run, and p/exed for a Honda auto losing about £5 grand in 6months.
It was also horrible to drive, the pickup was terrible, and the whole "sensation" from the box was vile. A bit like "driving through porridge".
Also if you accelerated suddenly the box will initially "slip" with the revs rising very high, and then "catch-up".
You can't "nip into" gaps in the traffic, or pull out at busy junctions as the take-up isn't fast enough.
To be honest I would avoid the CVT auto, and maybe think of a slighlty older Civic-auto - My mother has one and it is a fantastic car, very nippy, autobox is a delight, and also does over 40mpg..
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I always found the Metro CVT very nippy, it was faster then the figures Rover published for it.
It was pretty nice to drive, just rev & go.
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CVT inside is just some metal bands which move up and down a cone, different positions on cone give different ratios
however when the metal bands snap they tend to smash into the gearbox casing also breaking it
causing you to be left stranded at the side of the road looking at an expensive repair
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My old Norton smashed the gearbox casing without any help from some metal bands...... The Honda CVT is de rigeur in Japan. I don't think the Jazz has any of the problems alluded to, and the reliability record of Honda is pretty good. Ask Honda sites.
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I gather the Japanese CVT's are fairly reliable. From an engineering standpoint the whole idea of a CVT is a bit dodgy (lot of power going through small contact area - any slip = rapid heat build up). I would never buy one.
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Aprilia
I know my question is very much a case of 'what ifs', but what, from an engineering position, would you expect the maximum useful life (mileage) of a CVT system to be?
In addition, what is the best way of keeping it in one piece - are regular ATF changes (using OEM fluid (Tutela in my case - Fiat Speedgear with 21,000 miles)) a good start?
Thanks
AA
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Really that's impossible to say because of the number of variables involved - I would only say "less than a manual or conventional automatic transmission". They certainly don't have a good reliability history.
Regular changes of fluid are a good thing. Things likely to kill them are hard driving (I twisting hilly roads, lots of braking an acceleration, towing etc) - basically anything that increases the load through the transmission will likely shorten its life. In the event that it does start to play up then stop driving the car immediately. Once the belt starts to slip then heat build up is very rapid indeed, swarf is thrown into the oil and the thing will catastrophically fail.
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Thanks, Aprilia. Very useful information. Most of my driving is a round-trip commute of c. 50 miles mainly on good, straight B roads and about 10 miles of motorway. Excuse my ignorance, but when you say 'play up', what warning signs should I be looking for?
AA
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