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[–]Destresse 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

No, I don't. I don't know anything about my own car to be frank, friends of mine gave me frantic advice about my driving when they rode with me hahaha

I drive a manual, uh, how do you say it? A manual car. So there are lots of things to be aware of to avoid straining the engine/consume too much oil among other things. And I used to, err. Be a bad driver on that front lol. I'm better now that I'm that tiny bit more knowledgeable, thanks to my friends' loud offended yelling about how I treated my car 😂

I'm not very interested in fixing cars I admit. I fix cellphones and computers instead haha

[–]Anniesworld[S] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I have a story to tell you. When I went shopping for my first car I wanted a manual since they now sell for a little less( not popular), but have reliable transmissions if your treat them nice.I also wanted one since I thought it would be fun and I don't want my family members who have no idea how to drive stick borrowing my car. So I went to a few dealerships saw a few cars and came to one I really liked the price and mileage of (Toyota Yaris manual and hatchback). I went and test drive it with my father and the salesman was watching. I must have stalled the engine twenty times . I barely figured it out and by the end of it and the guy asked if I'd like to see another car.😂

We came back in the morning the next day and I bought it. I had trouble understanding what was being said by my father on how to drive it cuz he is not the best teacher when stressed, and it was very dark out that night. I still had trouble with stalling it out sometimes during the week, but after that it got better. You'll get better just takes practice and maybe look up someone on youtube with a calm approach to teaching.

That cars first gear was extremely torque-y so it took a while of driving for it to be smoother. If your car is new to you it could be that the individual who had it was taking off from a stop on 2nd gear and the clutch pad has uneven wear.

Oh and that has got to be the best car my entire family has ever had. It's not given me one problem since i bought it ten years ago. A little proud of it cuz that's exactly why I wanted this car and not another my father tried to convince me to get with a cvt transmission. Which after some research I realize it's probably not something anyone should purchase if you want to keep a car longer than five years.

[–]Destresse 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I have a Toyota Yaris too! I really like it honestly, I find it's an easy car to drive, for a manual one. I live in France where 90% of cars are manual lol, so I learned on a manual.

I'm not sure what torque-y means haha, but I do find the first gear a bit hard getting used to. Especially since it's a "new" diesel, and you have to switch the gears really fast compared to others, at 50km/h (30 mph, which is the speed limit in cities) I'm in 4th gear already. I was told to stay around 1500 rpm for motor speed, I used to over-revve the engine so badly before hahaha poor car.

Do cars with cvt transmission have more problems? I thought since it is regulated automatically it should be optimal.

[–]Anniesworld[S] 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

By torque-y I mean that you have to be careful with letting of the clutch and hitting the gas. Like it easily over revs and causes you to have more torque than needed for taking off.

Oh and being in forth gear at 1500 rpm( 30mph) is good for flat road driving on lonely roads but you should really be in third gear if there is traffic or any hills. If you don't have enough torque to respond to emergency situations where you need to accelerate and get out of the way you could put yourself in danger. I used to under torque by driving in higher gears and it is dangerous in bad traffic but I live in one of the most dangerous road driving areas in the states so I might need to accelerate to get out of something more often.

A few quotes from quora.com since I'm not the best at explaining this.

"So, for most engines the real operating range for normal driving is something in the range of 1500 - 3000 rpms.

If you're accelerating normally then shift at the lower end of that range — 2000 to 2500 rpms is usually appropriate. If you are accelerating faster then maybe 3000 rpms is a good shift point.

At normal driving speeds, say anything above 45 mph, the vehicle should probably be in high gear. Constant speed driving would favor around 2000 rpms as an ideal rpm.

If the vehicle doesn’t have a tachometer then your hearing can prove useful. Listen to the engine and shift before it sounds like it’s racing too fast."

"In a stick shift car, shift as per the speeds 1 gear 0 to 20 mph, 2 gear 20 to 30 mph, 3 gear 30 to 40 mph, 4 gear 40 to 50 mph, 5 and 6 above for cruising speeds. RPM depends upon engine type, fuel type and could be as pee the said speeds. If climbing a hill make the speeds 1.5 times more to compensate for the incline."


The general idea is that you adjust your driving style to what the situation is.

Automation doesn't mean that it's more reliable. It means ease of use and a smooth ride and possibly savings in fuel economy. With a cvt if you look at how the physical mechanics of it, you can see why they are kinda a bad idea. It's actually a steel belt in the middle of the entire transmission that rides inside two V shaped pulleys. The problem is that it's prone to wear on those v shapes and the belt. If there is too much wear in one area the belt starts to slip and can break off pieces( not good because it's in the middle of a super complicated transmission so you have to replace the entire transmission there is basically almost no mechanics who repair it).

A notoriously bad application of cvts is putting them in midsize cars. Nissan rogue has a really bad one. Since cvts are smart for fuel economy, car manufacturing of economy sized cars are moving to cvts. It's ok in a small car that won't carry or tow anything. In a nissan rogue however it's branded as a family car with the ability to pull loads. That causes massive wear on those v pulleys and failure of these cvts can happen within four years of ownership. Not great in my opinion.

Automation is not always better depending on what your talking about. Automatic transmissions have very very complex innards. In which many things can go wrong. With manual transmissions there is much less that can fail since it's simpler and mechanics can work on it easily if one part needed to be replaced. So longevity wise a manual transmission is better than an automatic and much better than a cvt. And if you are a smart driver you can save on fuel by rolling to a stop in traffic.