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Comment by crunchlibrarian | Hacker News Reader

I've tried lots of autos and CVTs and still haven't found one that isn't terribly confused about what gearing I want. The worst is when you floor it and it thinks for two seconds before actually downshifting, it can be outright dangerous. And if you're in a powerful car an unexpected upshift that shifts the weight around in bizarre ways, cuts power, and kicks the traction control into overdrive while cornering is a pretty terrifying experience as well.

Some of the paddle shifters seem decent but I often like to change up where I grip the wheel on track days and on sharp turns in mountain driving, so I often can't choose my gearing at all with them.

I can see the appeal of the autos in high traffic tedious commuting situations where you're in some underpowered econobox, which is zero percent of my driving, so I'm sticking with a manual as long as I can keep finding them.

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I used to think the same way. But, Mercedes have auto boxes absolutely nailed - and I say this as a car enthusiast from the UK, where most cars are still manual, and almost every car I've owned has been manual. My last car was an E350, and the transmission was amazingly good - every time I would have shifted, the car did it for me. I've a BMW now, and the gearbox is good... but it doesn't quite have the 6th sense that Mercedes have figured out.

I have an E350 and the transmission is very good. I do think you need to make the effort to learn how your transmission responds, no different to a manual really.

And for extra whizz while overtaking use the paddles to preempt the move by changing down a gear or two - exactly as I would in a manual.

I say this having owned numerous manual cars, including BMWs, gen 1 and gen 2 Minis and a ‘74 TR6.

Mind you it didn’t like driving over the Sierra Nevada last week. 9000 ft. saps a lot of power on a normally aspirated engine and it unbalanced the engine and transmission.

Edit: some words

I have not driven any Mercedes in a looong time, I'll have to try that. I also live at 8000 feet and regularly drive up to 10000 feet so that might be part of why every transmission seems horribly confused. Some car makers don't seem to test for thin air at all.

Can you elaborate on this? I understand that engine combustion is affected, but how does that impact the transmission? Is the torque curve skewed? Are ambient air changes not compsensated by the O2 sensor? Or does the transmission oil change in viscosity or something?

I don't know the details about how different engines detect air flow and oxygen (and I doubt anyone outside of a few dozen engineers who work at the companies do) but some of the auto transmissions seem to randomly upshift and downshift for no discernable reason, even when not applying throttle at all.

Some brands are just known to throw sensor and airflow codes by mechanics up here, like Kia & GM, while others compensate fine, like VW & Subaru. I don't know how the engine software talks to the transmission software so it's hard to say how related they are.

I've been very happy with the Audi DSG. Absolutely no complaints. Though when I need to pass on a narrow road sometimes I use the paddle to downshift before I hit the gas just to save the car from the split second it takes to realize I'm serious about accelerating (when not in sport mode). But that's not a big difference in actual acceleration time.

I've had the same experience on my Audi 8-speed. When I want spirited driving, sport mode will tend to just be in the gear I want. Responsiveness in my car centers around turbo lag, not gear shifting.

I like the automatic cars that allow you to choose your gear using the stick. I have a 2010 Impreza, which has the god-awful 4EAT, but you can avoid a lot of the issues if you just downshift manually when you'd like to.

Did you try using Drive instead of Overdrive?

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