Lots of Euro cars and Asian cars also have stop/start. I have not heard of a single example that could not be shut off… each time you start the car, but at least it can be shut off.
Often the CVT is available on one option package of the car while a conventional automatic is on another. My '14 Audi A4 Quattro AWD has an 8 speed auto while the FWD version has a CVT.
Less expensive cars don’t offer that option. The only transmission available in my 2017 Accord I-4 was the CVT. Gas mileage is better than with the conventional transmission, unless it’s a ten speed, maybe. Then it’s a lot more complicated conventional transmission. Anyway, it seems to me that changing transmission fluid at 38,000 miles with repetitions at less than 40,000 mile intervals will go a long way to keeping it running well. Honda’s CVT isn’t know for problems.
Seems like this thread was resurrected a few yrs after it started. I am in the camp of “if possible stay away from CVT”, but then more and more cars are using them, it is like direct injection and turbo.
Now, recently on a trip we had a 2019 rental RAV 4 with the conventional transmission. This is apparently Toyota’s new 8 speed also used in Camry. I had heard complaints about it, but the first hand experience was eye opening. The thing would not shift up from 1st to 2nd, it was like someone was holding the clutch down and having fun with you. On a few rolling stops, on take off, the car would just stay still and as you would rev the engine, eventually it would slam in gear giving everyone a jolt. Even my kids in the back seat kept complaining of all the jerky movements. And mind you, they are used to riding in my 6 speed manual.
This made me wonder, that maybe a Rogue with a CVT, even if it doesn’t last 200K miles, might be a better choice factoring in the amount of money I would have to spend on therapy.
@galant. You brought back a memory of the original GM Hydramatic transmissions. These transmissions were used in Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Nash, Hudson, Kaiser and even Lincoln back in the late 1940s through the mid 1959s. I could shift a manual transmission more smoothly than the Hydramatic changed gears.
I did drive a Nissan Sentra on a 650 mile round trip to a conference some years back. It was a rental car. The transmission was smooth.
Even Rolls Royce used the Hydramatic.
It seems like the majority of new cars under $25,000 these days use CVTs.
Yet, it seem not all the makers have such a profound failure rate as Nissan…
I guess like everything else you have to look up who supplies the CVT. Nissan is a major owner of JATCO who supplies many of the CVTs for various manufacturers and it sounds like they chose to continue to use a design with problems. Others may not be so bad. In my case, Nissan would be off my buy list and I would hesitate with other CVTs and would prefer not to have one if I could help it.