puisseguin Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 The first car that I drove had 3 forward gears, and it wasn't enough. It wouldn't pull its own weight in top gear and 2nd was way too low. My second car had 4 gears and managed just fine. Then it was on to 5 speed boxes. My last car had 6 forward speeds, and when I replacedthe car the new model had 7. You seem to spend all day changing up and down trying to remember what gear you are in. I know some 4 by 4s have dual speed transmissions and therefore double up on gears, but I'm talking about gears that you are expected to use just driving to the supermarket and back. How many gears does a car actually need? I've come across one with 8 gears. Any advance on 8? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Buy an automatic then it feels like just having one forward gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyrad29 Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 how about a truck with 16 or 18 gears? high and low box too then you would be struggling! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vwkittie Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I'd love a 6th on my car, a nice cruising gear to get some better economies on the motorway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddycoffee Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Cars nowadays are designed with fuel economy in mind which is one reason to have more gears so that the engine can be using less revs and therefore less fuel at a bigger range of speeds. Having said that some engines nowadays seem to have more of a powerband with a smaller capacity now so you need to change gear more to get any kind of performance. The alternative would be to have a bigger V6 or V8 engine which would pull at any revs, therefore you could have just 3 widely spaced gears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mart Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Years ago, well in the 1960s at least, there were cars around with a device called “an over-drive”. This was the position that you selected after you got to the top gear. Right or wrongly , I always assumed it was pretty much like having a 5th gear, as most of the cars had 4 gears + reverse at the time. The cars I had in the 1970s- mini 1000, Escort 1100 mk1, mk3 cortina 1600, all had only 4 gears + reverse. My first car of the 90s (1235cc Nisan Micra ) was the first car I had with 5 gears + reverse. The 2.0 Granada I had at the same time also had the same gears arrangement. I looked at a new Toyota Yaris T spirit 1.3 recently and that had 6 gears plus reverse. I would guess that there are not many (if any) new cars these days that have only 4 gears + reverse. Maybe manufactures are very conscious of the good economy required by most drivers, (like Muddycoffee has said). It was once said that a manual box makes the driving experience more interesting. Manuals tend to be more fuel efficient than automatics too. I have noticed that a lot of large cars tend to have auto-boxes for some reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 What car has 8 forward gears? My current car has 6, purely for efficiency reasons as it can break the motorway speed limit in 2nd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mart Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 What car has 8 forward gears? My current car has 6, purely for efficiency reasons as it can break the motorway speed limit in 2nd. What is it? (I want one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 What car has 8 forward gears? My current car has 6, purely for efficiency reasons as it can break the motorway speed limit in 2nd. I suppose the most efficient (and astronomically expensive!) solution would be a car that is constantly changing the gear ratio as the speed changes - if such a thing were physically possible at all, that is. I wouldn't know, but I'm pretty sure that even if it is possible it would be hopelessly impractical on cost grounds. I've heard of cars with seven forward gears, but never before of one with 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 What is it? (I want one) Our 1.4 litre engined Vauxhall Meriva can reach over 50mph in second gear, if ever we were daft enough to want to do it. I don't suppose it has to be a monstrously powerful engine to reach 70mph in second. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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