Posted on 12/10/2014 7:05:12 AM PST by Citizen Zed
I’m still not in love with this transmission. In general, it operates well and shifts quickly, but I had a pretty unsettling moment waiting for the transmission to engage so I could make a left turn in front of some oncoming traffic. Even with the throttle pinned, the trans turned what should have been a leisurely 20-foot trip into a small moment of terror. I actually had time to say, “Oh, come on!” before the car took off, and to be fair, crossed the lane before the oncoming driver even had to think about touching the brakes. As anyone within a mile of me at the time of that event would attest, it sounds incredible. I’ll be sad to see the 6.0-liter V12 replaced by something from AMG.
The only other problem with the Vanquish is that for some reason, the type of kids who spend hundreds of dollars at Autozone buying stuff to stick to their car will do anything to “race you” while you roll down the freeway with the cruise control on. Even if you never acknowledge them, they’ll risk their lives and the lives of everyone else on the road, to pass an Aston Martin, regardless of the traffic situation. If I were in a position to buy this car, I’d have to take that into consideration.
(Excerpt) Read more at autoweek.com ...
Never buy a car with more than your house. I you don’t own a house, never buy s car.
I’ve had that same “transmission lag” scare with the last couple of cars I’ve owned. It’s spooky sitting with your foot to the floor waiting for some electronic Fate to decide if you live or die that day.
My personal experiences with electronic controlled transmissions is that they offer few advantages,but do have some notable disadvantages. I’m curious how much could be saved by going back to the old systems.
While driving an '07 International 9400, I had several truly terrifying experiences. The computer would lock up, and refuse to shift gears.
For example: The transmission once faulted while I was on the interstate. Before I could find a suitable exit to pull over and pull the battery cable to reset everything, I came to a hill. Since there was no way to downshift, the truck came to a stop in the middle of the interstate (this particular hill provided a 3rd lane for slow moving trucks, unfortunately, the 3rd lane was simply the lane that should have been the shoulder of the road). I was very lucky that this occurred at 7 am on a Sunday morning, and there was no traffic on the highway.
A problem hardly unique to the Vanquish.
One was on an Infiniti G37 coupe. The other one was on a BMW 750i. There is a manual shift option for them, but that simply allows driver input into the shift points. It doesn’t fix the lag that occurs while the electronics are “hunting” the best power/gear combination.
My experiences were heart-racers. Yours sounds terrifying.
The Aston-Martin in the article works differently than a car with a torque converter. The transmission is copied from the F1 racecars. It has a manual transmission with a clutch. I believe the hesitation mentioned in the article is due to the computer shifting into neutral at the traffic light. When you step on the gas, the computer has to "press" the clutch, and then shift into 1st gear (or whatever gear it decides to start you out in after giving the matter some thought)
IMO, I'm getting too old to worry about all of these technological improvements. I think we all might be better off buying cool older cars and spending the money on complete restorations to make them as good as new (you'll definitely turn more heads and get more thumbs ups if you drive a classic).
It’s why my Frs is a manual six speed.
The “rolling stop” cures that. Not always an option, though.
I’ve driven several Porsches with their dual clutch transmission and it’s fantastic, it’s not only an almost psychic automatic, it has a real manual mode that holds on till,you shift it yourself. The only thing you really lose is the clutch pedal and you gain speed and efficiency.
That said, my Audi is a six speed manual...
Cheers,
Jim
Actually, I’ve found that I can avoid it better if I start from a dead stop. It’s like when I roll through, the system can’t decide whether to down shift for power or stay in the higher gear for fuel efficiency, even when I romp it. Sure, by time the twin turbos spin up, I’m shredding the tires, but there’s that heart-stopping hesitation that makes every low-speed turn a roll of the dice.
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