dduelin
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Another iconic performance machine gets with the program.
Ford’s Shelby GT500 Ditches the Manual Transmission
Ford’s Shelby GT500 Ditches the Manual Transmission
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I think you hit the nail on the head with the Focus/Fiesta. Dual clutch transmissions are manuals that have a mechanism that shifts the gears without input from the driver. They do not feel or act like a torque converter automatic transmission that many drivers have experience with and since 94% of them never drove a manual they believe the transmission is faulty....this according to some stuff I have read was the basis of many consumer complaints against Ford's DCT in the Focus/Fiesta. Honda felt it and had to develop a hybrid DCT with a torque converter to get the smoothness they wanted.I wasn’t so much “concerned” whether the Mustang market was ready to accept DCT, man-card wise, but whether Ford was ready to gamble on building a DCT that can function correctly to the satisfaction of the potential buyers, without horrific warranty expenses and reputation damage. Some owners of the Ford/Getrag Powershift DCT were not pleased because the transmission sometimes did not behave like owners expected an automatic transmission to behave. Hopefully the Mustang DCT version is ready for prime time.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the Focus/Fiesta. Dual clutch transmissions are manuals that have a mechanism that shifts the gears without input from the driver. They do not feel or act like a torque converter automatic transmission that many drivers have experience with and since 94% of them never drove a manual they believe the transmission is faulty....this according to some stuff I have read was the basis of many consumer complaints against Ford's DCT in the Focus/Fiesta. Honda felt it and had to develop a hybrid DCT with a torque converter to get the smoothness they wanted.
A friend of my son owns a VW Passat with the Getrag DSG tranny. I rode around in it in San Francisco last year and I thought it was brilliant. You could hear and feel it shifting up and down those hills and it felt completely natural however VW has had their share of complaints with it. I think the market of high performance cars is more knowledgeable about DCT now after it's use in European sports GTs.
Wow. After all the headaches Ford had getting the DCT to work right in the Focus and Fiesta, I’m shocked they would even consider using DCT in what’s possibly the only “car” they’ll have in their future product line.
One cool thing about the Fiesta DCT, is that if your foot is on the brake, the clutches will not engage. When you engage Drive with a foot on the brake pedal, the car does not tug forward. You can be in Drive with your foot on the brake, and rev the engine freely as if a clutch pedal was depressed.