The Elio Automatic Transmission

[Coss]

To be completely fair - for those considering a Rogue or the Vibe or the big brother Murano, the 4wd is nice, gas mpg ok, I got used to the 'single gear' fairly quickly, its not as bad as it seems. Just NOT a tow vehicle. We were towing the previously mentioned load up I-95 from Delray beach to New England. We made it as far as North Carolina, (where 95 stops being perfectly flat). The first small hill loaded it right up. I was glad we didnt push it into west virginia/penn area where it gets really steep. Even on the flat areas though, the revs were running about 4k, I could not get them down below that (normal cruise is about 1500.) No other issues other than towing. It had about 50k on the miles when we did this, now it has 75k and is no worse for it.

4K at how fast? My Nitro that can tow turns about 2.3K at 75mph.
But then again, what's redline of your motor?

 

[Hog]

I was lucky to maintain 40mph over those small 'bumps' where the interchanges were. Redline is 5500 If I remember right.

 

[outsydthebox]

If my memory serves me, There were (at least) 3 reasons the CVT IS NOT being considered for the Elio. 1) Initial cost. 2) weight & size of the CVT. 3) The trans manufacturers ability to meet production volume.
And really, because of #'s 1 & 2, #3 doesn't matter..........Now, can anyone explain to me, what I just said?

 

[Coss]

I was lucky to maintain 40mph over those small 'bumps' where the interchanges were. Redline is 5500 If I remember right.

The redline is 5500 and you were spinning 4500 EEEKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

 

[Hog]

It was concerning to me, especially knowing much bigger hills were coming up in a few hours, I decided not to risk burning up the tranny so we pulled over in some small town (really small) and found a uhaul depot at an old antique shop, made arrangements to get the smallest box truck we could that would pull a car trailer and transferred the stuff to the box truck and hooked up the Rogue on the car trailer. This arrangement was actually even slower, but it wasnt my truck so I wasnt really worried. At the big hill, I think near the WV/Penn border (near Summit?) we were doing 20 mph all the way up, at times I didnt think we were even going to make the top, and it was snowing, which killed visibilty. We did finally make it, but I promised my wife never again.

 

[Hog]

Of course never again does not apply if I have to do the same to transfer my Elio up from Shreveport....

 

[Marshall]

I've see estimates the the Automatic would be about $800. Is there a basis for this or is it a wild guess?

 

[Sethodine]

Early on, the EM was estimating $1000, but Paul thought that $600 wss possible. Sounds like somebody split the difference and called it good.

 

[Marshall]

Early on, the EM was estimating $1000, but Paul thought that $600 wss possible. Sounds like somebody split the difference and called it good.

Would you mind giving a quick synopsis of the current state of the automatic. I really don't want to go through 86 pages of old posts.

 

[McBrew]

Would you mind giving a quick synopsis of the current state of the automatic. I really don't want to go through 86 pages of old posts.

Nothing has changed. It's an automated version of the manual transmission. It will clutch and shift using actuators on the transmission. This sort of transmission is more popular with smaller cars overseas. The only car I know of that has this type (but not the exact one) in the U.S. is the Smart car.