Manual transmission Fan Club and BS thread (All Generations Welcome)

This IMHO is just a way for corporate America to kill the manual transmission to decrease production cost and increase the bottom line. Less tooling on the production line, less parts to produce and less people doing the work.

Gearing them so they are less efficient just gives them a leg to stand on when it is argued.

 

IMHO its much more Government Regulations than Corporate America. I was reading where Chrysler was going to offer a Manual in the Charger but then they would have had to do another series of crash test certifications because there would be a small floor pan change to accommodate a manual.

 

Corporate America and the Government are bed fellows. It’s all one in the same. Land of the Free???

 

if that were the case all the Manufacturers would just say so. What they're telling us though is 'no demand'. Corp America gets what it wants and there's more profit to be made from 'changes'. The '88 CRX got 42 mpg from a peppy 1.5L engine that I bet, didn't put out much more pollution than a new 1.5L (or could have had some 'tweaks' to make it so. How they charge 35K for a 30 yr. old design?
On the other hand look how many gripe about the Frontier being 'old' so maybe they are telling the truth. We demand high tech and less reliable.

 

Yea, I've always thought it's the lobbyists more than the politician making the call. And Green Peace doesn't pay as well as GM.

 

75mph is 2650rpm. Still, if you're not happy than you should consider lowering your highway speed or regear again so that you're RPMs are the same as on a stock 6MT.

 

Yes it does, but an MT would never have that problem

My first car was a 2005 Honda Civic with a 1.8L and 5sp manual and got 30+ mpg

I live in AZ and as soon as you leave a city traffic flow is 75 MPH in the right lane and 85+ in the left lane. Once a cop ran me over to the right lane because i was driving too slow. I was driving 80 MPH in the left lane.. I also thought the stock 6MT RPMs were way high already. 35" tires and a supercharger could make the gear ratios and power better too. But really i just wanted to gripe on the MT Fan Club page!!

 

Sure it would, keeping a steady speed w/o having to downshift is what it's having trouble doing. You would just lose speed then. It sounds like too tall of gearing for the auto's. I mean why did you regear lower if that weren't the case?

 

What I meant was in the MT you choose your gear so the car does not "hunt" for gears or downshift on you unexpectedly. You choose whatever gear is appropriate for that time. I re-geared entirely for 1st gear torque gains. The fact that the freeway rpms get worse is the price I was willing to pay for it.

 

D-Rock531....I don't get the problem here. You have a truck, of which you chose to lift, regear and add bigger tires for which I would assume was for better "offroad" performance, rather than better "highway" performance. Then you have an issue with how it performs on the highway? What am I missing?

Common sense says, "use the right tool for the job."

I agree with a previous response above, slow down and drive it like it's a truck. What's your hurry?

 

My original gripe is that the AT and MT in the exact same truck have vastly different final drives in 6th gear. I love my truck and it's perfect for almost everything I do. But there would literally no impact to any other performance aspect of the truck if the MT and AT had the same 6th gear ratio.

 

I think he means overall ratio. Final drives are 3.91AT and 4.30MT. He is right, they are way different. Our 6th gear overall ratio is lower than the AT 5th gear overall ratio!

 

Yea, i caught what he meant then deleted it.
Still sounds like the auto. is a dog then in top gear and can't maintain speed w/o further throttle openings. That decreases mileage whether it downshifts or not.

 

High throttle openings at low RPM are actually better for fuel consumption. The throttle plate is a restriction that causes pumping losses. We cant get to the lower RPM and higher engine load that put us in the meat of the best BSFC region at the lowest RPM. Again, the AT will be better for fuel econ if it stays in either 5th or 6th. So the AT will get better fuel econ until it downshifts to 4th.
I believe the MT is geared low, because most people don't understand this, and if they had to downshift to maintain speed on a relatively flat road, they would bitch. The AT does it without user input so its somewhat less noticeable than an MT. Although many AT owners still don't like it because they interpret it as "gear hunting".

 

So people who re gear after bigger tires and report better mileage are full of BS? Just wondering. I honestly don't know.
BTW, I love my stick shift!!!
Just to keep on topic.

 

Learned at 14 stuck with me ever since

 

Good point, and what I was saying was more of a generality. There is a limit to how low of RPM you can run and still be in an efficient BSFC zone. Larger tires probably push them down too far. I do think Toyota pushed it a bit far with the AT gearing. One thing the lower rear end (higher ratio) will do is to reduce the RPM spread between gears. That may mean that the lower geared guys running large tires are able to run a more optimal engine speed, where before it was downshifting to 3rd or 4th with the RPMS being on the high side (but the next gear up would be too low for example). The AT ratios seem to have a huge jump from 4th to 5th, so if they cant hold 5th, they are somewhat screwed in that respect. Honestly, a happy medium between the AT gearing and the MT gearing would be nice. And of course, a reverse that was 30-40% lower!

All that being said, I'm running 22+MPG tank average, so really the AT guys MIGHT get 1-2MPG over me if they are lucky. I'd rather have gearing a bit too low than too high!

 

Are you complaining about the RPM at 75mph, or fuel economy at 75mph?

I don't think it matters why MT and AT have different final drives. I'm currently getting better fuel economy than what Toyota rated the MT to get, which is also doing better than what the AT was rated at.

My truck is completely stock, completely original as it came from the factory with zero modifications. Now that it has 7500+ miles on it and getting broken in, I am seeing 23 to 25.5mpg driving it on the freeways around Portland pretty regularly now. When I first got it I could barely scratch over 18mpg on the same route. In town it was consistently around 15mpg, now it's hitting 19-20mpg on the same routes.

Note:
I don't drive over 55mph on the freeway and my 6th gear RPM's are holding right around 1900-1950. I'm not in any hurry and let everyone else drive silly speeds in the left lanes.

 

I think that is the crux of it.

Although, I had a motorcycle that was really buzzy at 70mph. I went one tooth up on the front sprocket which dropped the RPMs only about 400 or so. It was a night and day difference.

To me, for a truck, the Taco is quiet. Maybe too quiet? I can see how others would feel differently. Although, the fix is no where near as easy as slapping on a new sprocket.

 

Is your friends AT regeared to 4:30-4:88 and running 33's" as well? Or are you comparing apples to oranges?