Reliable variator - a fairy tale or a reality? 4 Boxes You Can Live With in Peace (8 photos)

Variator - this is the name for automatic continuously variable transmissions (CVT). And if the word "mechanics" or "automatic" often form semantic pairs with the adjectives "reliable" or "indestructible", "eternal", then variators are often subject to epithets of the meaning "crappy" but much less censored.





The main components of a classic variator are cones, belt.

As soon as someone somewhere in the company dares to voice the idea of ​​buying a car with a CVT, they will be immediately spat upon by advisers, in the most radical cases offering to buy an “automatic” in a car with a mileage of almost 300 thousand.

The horror and contempt for this type of gearbox, which can be easily traced in the comments under any news about the release of a new car model equipped with it, however, does not prevent CVTs from taking up an ever-increasing share of the market. True, recently, given the expansion of Chinese automakers into the domestic market, it is time to add a series of stories about “terrible” robots to the horror stories about CVTs.

Why automakers “shove” this type of gearbox everywhere instead of the beloved conventional automatic is clear - this is both savings in production, and such a transmission is cheaper, and compact, and most importantly - economy and comfort when driving in the city (marketing tricks for an advertising booklet).

A transmission that allows smoothly changing the gear ratio allows for optimal use of engine power in any driving mode, compared to a box with a fixed set of gears - be it 4 or 9 (in the latter case, with modern multi-stage “classic automatics”, by the way, it is not yet clear who will leave for the other world first - such transmissions do not live long either).

Do reliable CVTs even exist?

A little history.

In general, the idea of ​​continuously variable torque transmission to the wheels has been toyed with since the mid-1950s, but the first production car with a CVT was the Dutch compact car DAF 600.



DAF 600 - (1959-1963). It is clear why the Moskvich 408/412 sold well in Europe in those years.

This model debuted in 1959, and it was a typical representative of the cars of post-war Europe, which had not yet accumulated “economic fat”. The small-capacity (0.6 l.) and low-power (22 hp) DAF 600 was driven through a “variator” in its essence, but extremely unlike a modern gearbox scheme, but in any case the main components - a belt and a cone were still present, or rather belts and cones.

The advantage of such a transmission was the ability, unusual for post-war Europe, not to use the left foot while driving and not to change gears manually, and the disadvantage was its zero service life. Due to the fact that the pulleys and belts were actually “on the street” and were exposed to all external factors, such as dirt, sand, water, at once. Since the belts were rubber, even taking into account the low-power engine, the service life did not exceed 30 thousand kilometers.





The first variator is clearly not yet compact, not reliable and not even "in the case".

Closer to the 80s, in the same Holland, the first steel belt was created, and as they say, off we go. Currently, variators are installed not only on small-capacity compact cars, but also on heavy crossovers with large-capacity engines (Nissan Murano, for example), and including cars with forced turbocharged engines (mainly Subaru). And if you are very afraid of the CVT on a used car, here are examples of boxes that you can not be afraid of.



Honda CR-V 5th generation with a 2.4 engine and a CVT is still a reliable combination.

Honda's own development - a CVT named BRJA for all-wheel drive).. This is a fairly modern box, produced since 2017. In our secondary market, you will find this transmission in the Honda CR-V 5th generation (RW body). The torque ceiling that such a box can handle is 250 Nm, it is adjacent to a 2.4-liter engine and has a resource ceiling of almost 300 thousand kilometers. As with other transmissions of this type, the main threat to the life of the box is dirty oil - here it is subject to replacement every 40 thousand kilometers along with filter elements.



The fact that the variator gets along with torque turbo engines is clearly demonstrated by the Subaru line, including the charged sports Levorg, Forester XT, WRX.

Subaru TR580/TR690 Lineartronic CVTs are also considered to be extremely reliable. These gearboxes are based on Audi CVTs, developed by Luk. They differ from competitors' gearboxes by the presence of a push chain instead of a poly V-belt, as well as the presence of a starting clutch pack (a la first gear). At the same time, the newer TR580 is designed for small-volume engines up to 2.0 liters, and holds torque up to 250 Nm, while the older TR690 copes well with both 2.5 liter engines and 300 hp "turbo twins" on domestic Japanese models such as Levorg or WRX. With adequate operation and regular oil changes, a resource of 200-250 thousand km is quite within their power.



RAV4 - 2.0 CVT and it works quite well.

It won't do without the Aisin product, used by Toyota on the Rav4 models (restyling 30 and pre-restyling 40 bodies) and Alphard, as well as for the domestic Japanese Mark X Zio. The K112 CVT was on the conveyor from 2005 to 2019 and has proven itself to be a very reliable transmission. Mileage of 250 thousand km on cars with such a transmission is not uncommon. The design is classic - based on a belt. The oil change schedule is 60 thousand km.

The Jatco JF016E variator, upgraded after 2015, can also be considered relatively reliable - it is found under its own different names on as many as 30 models of cars from Nissan, Renault, Mitsubishi and even Suzuki.



Mitsubishi Outlander after the second restyling - errors on variator overheating (though of a different model) on the first series of 2012, by the way, Japanese assembly, from which for some reason the standard gearbox cooling was "chopped off" are a thing of the past.

In this model of the box, it was decided to abandon the step-motor, its functions are now assigned to solenoids-regulators. Also, this is a colder variator, compared to the previous modification - the operating temperature is in the range from 75 to 90 degrees Celsius, which has a positive effect on durability. The disadvantages of this box include a very expensive valve body, by the way, non-repairable. The presence of a lot of copies like Qashqai 2 or Outlander 3 generation with mileage of 200-240 thousand on the market confirms good reliability. By the way, after 2014, Nissan Beetle received exactly this box, instead of the JF015, which managed to completely discredit itself.



A clear example of when a CVT really won't work - the rest have nothing to fear

Of course, if you often go out into muddy fields, are used to driving on the highway at speeds of 150+ km/h in cruising mode, and you also have a large boat that has to be moved on a trailer, then even the above transmissions may not suit you. But if these three points are not about you - with the above gearboxes, the chances of cloudless operation will be higher than with some "classic" automatic transmissions.