General Transmission Question/Opinion

[Twain427]

My previous vehicle had a 4 speed auto, thus the "length" of each gear was reasonably long and usually unnoticed. On the Genesis, from a stop/1st gear to 2nd gear is all but a blip of time. That is to say, the shift from 1st to 2nd happens almost immediately after the car begins to move. Even if I really dip into the throttle the car does all it can to get out of 1st and into 2nd just as quick as possible.

In your experience with your Genesis is this normal operation? Is 1st gear just a granny gear, for all intents and purpose? I feel like I should be getting more from it.

 

[Mark_888]

In one sense it is a granny gear, since the main reason for having so many gears is to optimize fuel economy. The transmission on the R-Spec is the same, but is probably tweaked a little bit to provide better performance.

But in reality it is probably 2nd gear that is the granny gear, since on a performance car you would stay in 1st longer, and then shift to the equivalent of 3rd on the Genesis.

 

[GenesisCaptain]

Most modern cars have 7 or more transmission gears. They are geared for very quick acceleration which means that short blip in first and second. That is normal with every car I have driven recently.

 

[landtuna]

Modern passenger vehicles do not have "granny" gears. "Granny" gears were a very low (high numerically) gear designed to provide maximum pulling power and were not usually used in normal street driving because the engine revs were very high in this gear.

Performance vehicles should be geared so that under normal street conditions the car will accelerate as fast as possible without the drive wheels breaking traction. After launch the transmission should shift to next gear at the top end of the engine's power curve and maintain revs within that curve as speed increases and higher gears are selected.

The 8-speed in the Genny has five "normal" gears as you would find in most other cars and three overdrive gears. The overdrive is geared to allow the engine to turn at the lowest possible speed while still providing enough power to drive the car. Reducing engine speed results in better fuel efficiency, longer engine life and less noise.