What about the earlier SMG type transmissions, like the ones BMW, etc...offered in cars like the E46 M3? How have they held up over the years, now that they've had 10+ years to prove their reliability...or lack thereof.
What about the earlier SMG type transmissions, like the ones BMW, etc...offered in cars like the E46 M3? How have they held up over the years, now that they've had 10+ years to prove their reliability...or lack thereof.
And this is why I drive only manual trans cars as a DD. My only two auto trans cars(Actually trucks) had a Turbo 400(Chevy) and a C6(Ford).
My previous car was a Buick Regal that used a GM 4T65-E. It was maintained by the service schedule, but by 70,000 miles I was looking at replacing the transmission because it would just click instead of shifting out of first (I should have fixed it, but it had a lot of other problems too, and I was fed up).
My current car has a 6-speed automatic. According to Mazda there is no service required and the unit is sealed. That makes me nervous, but at the same time, anecdotal evidence suggests that they are OK without service up until or maybe over 100,000 miles. I'm at 53,000 now and I'm thinking I'm going to let it be.
I figure if I make it over 70,000 without another catastrophic failure, that will prove that modern transmissions are better. Right? 
Thing is, that's different tech. Completely different. It's a manual gearbox with actuators for shifting and clutch. It's not even hard to convert that gearbox to a traditional manual.
Klayfish wrote: What about the earlier SMG type transmissions, like the ones BMW, etc...offered in cars like the E46 M3? How have they held up over the years, now that they've had 10+ years to prove their reliability...or lack thereof.
alfadriver wrote: OEM's care. But there's a limit to how much many can spend on robustness. IMHO, something that is NOT part of a routine maintenance schedule (which the trans is) should last without being taken care of in a special way. It should cover 99.99% (R/1000 of 10) of owners without issues. That's ALL owners, not ones that treat the trans within a small boundary of usage. But that's just me, at the moment.
Practically all ZFs are "filled for life", you don't change the fluid ever. You just buy a new car when the trans fails.
As pointed out upthread, if you ignore that and actually change the fluid, life expectancy improves greatly.
So does not using that crappy fluid that ZF seems to love specifying. A good synthetic Dexron VI helps them last much, much longer.
"Lifetime fluid"=Warranty period fluid, halve for severe service.
In reply to BrokenYugo:
Practically everywhere in the US qualifies as severe service, between cold, or heat, or hilliness, or dust.
A cvt that could handle real power would be pretty wicked for performance.
This entire thread is one of the reasons why I always buy used. The main reason is because I'm a cheapskate and I want someone else to take the depreciation hit, but the question of "is the new stuff reliable" can't really be answered until they're not new for a few years.
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