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userbinator

Maybe their electric stuff will be better, but unfortunately my experiences with ZF transmissions have not been great.

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Maybe not your experiences, but, to me, their transmissions:

* hastened the inevitable transition away from manual gearboxes in cars

* gave a bit of a “last hurrah” to ICE powertrains in general

Quick-shifting, gobs of gears, lockup torque converters, and reliable to boot. I don’t hear the word “slushbox” being thrown around like it was previously to describe automatic transmissions. And I credit it mostly to ZF.

As an owner of an M4 with the ZF 8 speed, I can attest that it’s not a slushbox. It’s completely changed my mind about how a manually-shifted auto transmission with a torque converter can behave, and I don’t see any reason to ever go back to a true manual. My only real complaint is that 8 is too many gears so they are naturally narrower and the car ends up being designed around keeping your engine speed in a fairly small band, and low end torque suffers.

Out of interest, what issues did you have? Most of the time when I read a car review, they seem to praise the ZF 8HP 8-speed.

This is about their automatics, but parts availability (especially aftermarket) and service information is relatively scarce and expensive compared to e.g. GM/Allison. Their bus/truck transmissions also shift quite roughly, almost like a manual.

ZF is what I'd consider very stereotypically German engineering: optimised for efficiency and cost, at the expense of longevity and serviceability, with very little margin for overload.

> stereotypically German engineering: optimised for efficiency and cost, at the expense of longevity

I thought German engineering had the exact opposite image worldwide?

There's a difference between what the layman has been led to believe by Big Deutschland, and the reality experienced by those who actually have to deal with German designs. A lot of them are interesting and "elegant" on paper, but the good experiences usually end there. It feels like the fun factor of the design process is what's prioritized most heavily, which is great for the designers (and I don't say this facetiously; the fun is the #1 reason to do it at all, and I'm glad they make a living off it), and not-so-great for the poor fucker that has to repair a VW.

That's not to say that they always shit things up. I'll take Wago nuts over American style ones any day of the week. VW's VR6 engines are a simplification that would probably make my life a lot easier if I didn't have to buy them with the rest of the VW vehicle attached. There is so much more vision coming out of Germany in industrial controls than anywhere else it's outrageous. Life has its ups and downs, I guess.

Same here.

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