John Francis wrote: >On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 08:02:24PM -0600, William Robb wrote: > > >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "John Francis" >>Subject: Re: K100D SR >> >> >> >> >>>I want the car to shift for me, but only when I tell it to shift. >>>I guess you might say I prefer a hyper-manual transmission :-) >>> >>> >>Do they put Tiptronics into Porsches? >> >> > >As a matter of fact that's the only place you find one - Tiptronic >is a Porsche registered trademark. Other manufacturers have to >call it something else - on a BMW, for example, it's referred to >as a Sequential Manual Gearbox (or SMG). > >Several other manufacturers offer automatic gearboxes with an >option to manually shift the ratios - I've come across them on >Opel/Vauxhalls, Pontiacs, and even my wife's MINI. But these >aren't the same as a true Tiptronic/SMG; they still have the >fluid flywheel of the automatic transmission, not a real clutch. >I believe even the Honda Fit offers this on automatic models, >complete with paddle shifters on the steering wheel. > > > Chrysler introduced the manual shifting Automatics on the Eagle Vision TSi back in 1994, I forget what they called it. They're great on the upshift, but produce very slow downshifts, unlike the true clutchless manuals. IIRC DaimlerChrysler now sells cars with both types of clutch-free shifting.
Of course, if you know what you're doing, no clutch is needed for any gear other than first or reverse on a traditional manual transmission. But that does take a lot of skill do to without overstressing the gearbox. -Adam -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
