Photo: Auto Motor und Sport
A while back good automatic gearboxes were available only on luxurious cars with price tags way beyond regular people's pockets. Most people were bound to get manual ones or pay a lot for the ones that allowed you to be more relaxed.
These days things have evolved. Ever since Volkswagen introduced the dual-clutch DSG gearbox to cheap cars everyone started realizing that automatics aren't that bad. Sure, there are still some that claim that automatic gearboxes are useless and a 'real man' should only drive stick, but they are soon to be forgotten unless they keep up with the times.
In Europe for example, over 60% of cars are manual but things are changing rapidly. The new gearboxes are smooth and offer greater advantages than disadvantages, making themselves a worthy option over the classic stick in the floor.
The guys from auto motor und sport tested the best 5 gearboxes of our days to see exactly how good they are. No doubt they faced all of them before but now they did a sort of comparison.
One of them was BMW's 8-speed ZF gearbox, described by them as 'close to perfection'. This was actually the first gearbox that allowed them to say: I can have fun with this car, even though it's not a manual.
Due to its converter, the 8-speed automatic changes gears in 200 milliseconds whilst also keeping the ride smooth and allowing you to take advantage of the torque numbers every time you want to.
Dual Clutch Transmission (or DCT) is also a worthy challenger. Used in the M3, M5 and M6, this one is a bit more brutal but it will work so fast you won't even notice it.
Put your car in Sport+ mode though and you'll soon feel everything, just as you should.
The other gearboxes compared were Mercedes-Benz's dual clutch system, VW's DSG, of course, Skoda's automatic gearbox with actuator (it's actually a manual that just has actuators that position the gears before they are changed) and Nissan's CVT (Continously Variable Transmission) that is offered on the Juke and other cars and is also getting more and more popular.
Full story at: auto motor und sport
In Europe for example, over 60% of cars are manual but things are changing rapidly. The new gearboxes are smooth and offer greater advantages than disadvantages, making themselves a worthy option over the classic stick in the floor.
The guys from auto motor und sport tested the best 5 gearboxes of our days to see exactly how good they are. No doubt they faced all of them before but now they did a sort of comparison.
One of them was BMW's 8-speed ZF gearbox, described by them as 'close to perfection'. This was actually the first gearbox that allowed them to say: I can have fun with this car, even though it's not a manual.
Due to its converter, the 8-speed automatic changes gears in 200 milliseconds whilst also keeping the ride smooth and allowing you to take advantage of the torque numbers every time you want to.
Dual Clutch Transmission (or DCT) is also a worthy challenger. Used in the M3, M5 and M6, this one is a bit more brutal but it will work so fast you won't even notice it.
Put your car in Sport+ mode though and you'll soon feel everything, just as you should.
The other gearboxes compared were Mercedes-Benz's dual clutch system, VW's DSG, of course, Skoda's automatic gearbox with actuator (it's actually a manual that just has actuators that position the gears before they are changed) and Nissan's CVT (Continously Variable Transmission) that is offered on the Juke and other cars and is also getting more and more popular.
Full story at: auto motor und sport
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