Have you ever even been in a luxury car. The trannies are as smooth as melted butter, even with “only” five speeds. Six speeds are even better and eight is just greased glass.

The engineering that goes into these devices is enormous. It is little wonder that there is any big deal being made at all about this subject. As for shift shock, that has to do with shift speed, how long it takes to shift gears properly, and ration spacing, how big a jump from one gear to the next there is. Using dual clutches helps with this cutting down shift response time and having the next gear ready to go ahead of time.

Yes you might feel it, it depends on the transmission settings and mode, as available, how you are driving (Like a racer, a cruiser, or “Driving Mrs Daisy”), and how it is built (Is it smooth or purposefully rough?).

Hear it? I suppose you will, but a good tranny sounds like the strings accompanying the engine’s brass in an orchestra. But will it be loud? I doubt it. This is going into some high mark luxury cars. Sound deadening is the order of the day. But it would be a bad thing to make the cars inner workings completely soundless. You’ll never hear the problem should one ever come up. Plus, you’ll never get some sense of enjoyment from actually driving the car.

I’m not sure about your disposition in you statement but it does come off as a comment lacking proper consideration for the subject.

Plus do some research before you next open your trap and find out how many gears Lexus now has. They are using a 8 speed so I don’t think mercedes will be the most gears. Hell even BMW is almost at 8 with the next auto.

Plus Mercedes may have the clap but it is only because they were banging chrysler over and over and over and over. Chrysler on the other hand has HIV and every other disese in the book. (Highly Incompetent Vechicles)

Further unless you are an ace Semi-truck racer or crazy good trucker, you will NOT have to worry about a straight manual 8-speed tranny. They will likely only be automatics with or without manual shift modes.

There have been a few Formula racing teams that have been working on CVTs that will handle their 1500+ hp engines.

Further Nissan has been using CVTs with over 200 hp for a while, though I think they have changed the models they are offered in. Used to be the Maxima, but I think they moved that tranny over to the Altima as an option.

Still I have yet to really hear how a Formula racing CVT has gone down. So I really don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. But I think CVTs might have a future.

They would be cheaper than an eight-speed tranny, and be more efficient as well. the problem is making them strong enough. I’m looking at carbon nano-tubes for than. Many times stronger than tempered steel, weighing next to nothing, this material could solve a lot of problems were metal, as we understand it just is not strong enough. But Only after manufacturing limtiations are overcome.

Very aggressive gears means you have to change very quickly, and very often. What I think these manufacturers need to invest in are CVT’s, in other words, infinite amount of gears (well, not quite but you get my point).

If they could get past the reliability issues, which I’m sure wouldn’t be a hassle, not only could it save weight, but economy and gear changes as well.

Anyway… holy ****ing **** batman… Ass-ton Martin is back and I actually agree with him! 8 speeds is totally unnecessary for todays engines. Five gears is more than enough for most applications even though six seems to becoming the norm. But all of these 7 and 8 speed trannies… I just don’t see the need, regardless of the manufacturer.

Where’s Stuart? I’m sure he’ll tell us why this is both needed and why MB is the greatest car maker ever for doing such a thing….

Yes, this was VW’s thinking but, just like Mercedes has created new technology on cars, Other manufacturers will try to perfect it and put in on platforms that even the DSG can’t. It’s a game of one-upsmanship.

Jon.