Yeah, CVTs have taken a lot of training to get right in passenger cars, and I'm not convinced they were there yet before about, oh... last year.

>...and the Flappy Paddles turn with the wheel. Which, um, I've got
>better things to worry about (like not getting pasted by an
>overloaded coal truck doing thirty-five in a twenty-five zone down the
>crammed full main drag) than having a panic attack because
>shiftshiftWHERE'STHEFUCKINGLEVERITWASTHEREASECONDAGO!.

Mm, yeah, it's an issue. I've noticed it when getting off the Interstate, where the not-very-tall gearing of the lower ratios in the Beetle means I really ought to shift out of first before I'm finished making the turn. I think that kind of thing is at least partially why the VW system has the paddles and the option to use the shift lever in Tiptronic mode. (I know the term "Tiptronic", as applied to a Volkswagen automatic gearshift lever that can do that, predates DSG, and I think also predates the appearance of wheel paddles in ordinary cars, so it's more that they just didn't get rid of that function when the paddles came in, but still, it's handy to have the option of either.)

>Next time I'll suck it up and learn to deal with Subaru's fiddly
>finicky manual shifters the way I'd originally planned to, and hang
>the milage.

It still messes with my head a little that modern automatic transmissions get better mileage than manuals. When I was a kid, the situation was exactly the reverse, often to a degree that was actually comical, thanks to the fact that automatic transmissions of the '70s and '80s generally had three or at the very most four ridiculously-widely-spaced gear ratios, and were generally about as efficient as transmitting torque through a barrel of yogurt. Similarly, I find it baffling on a pre-conscious level that certain hybrid systems (such as the ones in the Prius and the Ford Fusion) get better mileage in the city than on the highway. I know why it works that way, but instinctively it just seems like a violation of the laws of nature. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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