I’ve driven a zf8speed for a while and it’s pretty great, more fun to shift a bunch with the shorter ratios it makes you feel like the car is actually fast. But I work Amazon and these ford transits have a 10speed.
My issues are:
1)it always over up shifts. It never uses second gear ever. It will always go to 3rd and you’ll be in fking 4th by 12mph. So I find that it has to constantly down and upshift when I need the slightest bit of power which coming from driving manuals just feels bad. Like bro stop working so hard just wait to shift till 2.5k rpm. Im always hitting the gas then if I have to let off for one second even on a big uphill it will just upshift to like 6th or seventh. And then all the way back to 3rd one second later when I need to power up the hill again.
- this is the biggest issue imo, the final gear ratio doesn’t even reduce rpm comparitevely to my 8speed at say 80mph the revs are almost the same. Bro if your gonna add two gears make it the same ratio as the 8 with two extra so I’m at like 1k rpm on the highway. Why bother with the 10 speed if I’m still gonna be at 2.5k rpm at 80mph.
Ok random rant over, this is what happens when you drive on vehicle too often for an annoying job. You start really nitpicking everything that gets slightly on your nerves lol
The issue isn’t 10 gears. The issue is shit programming. You could make a 100 gear transmission glorious with the right programming. Or it could be an absolute shit pile.
Yep, the biggest issue with automatic transmissions of any number of gears is the shift logic.
What people want and expect the gas pedal and transmission to do are at odds with what the powertrain engineers have to program the thing to do to game the fuel economy tests.
Some of the best shifting transmissions I’ve experienced were 4 and 6 speeds, some of the worst I’ve experienced were 4 and 6 speeds. We’ve got an 8 speed in my wife’s car and it is ok but could be great if it had a sport mode - I’ve driven other 8 speeds that fought you at every turn.
There’s no reason a 10 speed can’t be good too but the logic of shift logic that says upshift as quickly and highly as you can and hold the highest gear you can for as long as you can and ignore requests to downshift for as long as possible get in the way of enjoyable driving and as long as fuel economy (and emissions) are the biggest factor in transmission shift programs, that’s they way it will remain.
On the other hand, I think 10 speeds is well into diminishing returns in practical use in normal cars. 4 gears with well chosen spacing, well chosen torque converter looseness and a lockup TC clutch can provide a perfectly adequate driving experience (if not ideal for economy) and 6 or 8 should really be more than enough when we’ve got engines with fat, wide and flat torque curves thanks to optimized airflow, fuel injection, VVT, direct injection, etc. We really needed these multigear transmissions back when engines had narrow torque and HP peaks and it was hard work staying in them.