My 6MT vs Auto driving impression. Opinions please

UNKNOWN_370

Me personally. I love manuals, so I have nothing bad to say about them. That being said. I think nissan did an Outsanding Job with the 7at. It is the perfect evolution of the 5at that was in the 350z/G35, its super-responsive and feels equal to both 135 and EVO DCT's yet its merely a slushbox. There are no performance drawbacks except when you get the occasional exhaust drone related to slushboxes.
There's a little less going on due to lack of your use of left leg. Its harder to sustain long burnouts, and you can't skip gears. But DRM blips the throttle so you have heel and toe capability from an automatic. A huge technological advantage on an auto.
SRM is derived technology from the DRM that started in the original Z33 350z automatic. So for all those manual drivers who loooove there SRM feature. Thank auto technology for that evolution in manual transmissions.

FPenvy

i just spotted this thread and figured i'd throw in my 2 cents.

i got about 10k miles on my 7AT and i love it. i test drove both 6MT and 7AT before buying and the manual just felt rough to me and my goal is to have a GT-R soon anyways so getting some practice on the paddles seemed better to me (and not having $100k at the moment) lol

but performance wise i agree with people saying the AT feels like it has more torque. also the ECU learning is a real thing. i drive mine in manual mode 98% of the time and after awhile it feels like the car knows my driving style now on upshifts and downshifts. the only thing on the negative side with mine is if i'm not paying attention and let the revs drop too low from 4th to 3rd and downshift it will go straight to 2nd since it is already in the process of dropping it into 3rd for me for lettin the revs die too much. but thats a driver error not the tranny or ECU.

i recently raced my one friend in a 09' genesis with full racing intake and exhaust so we are about dead even HP and TQ wise. his being a 6MT mine being a 7AT he talked a lot of smack on it.....until i smoked him lol

don't get me wrong i love both manuals and autos but when you look at every major high performance car now and recent past they all have paddles and dual clutch gear boxes. a manual tranny has to be a custom order anymore. this is where i don't get where the strictly manual guys bash the auto guys.

cant we all just get along? lol

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hadokenuh

It's great to hear 7AT Z owners are happy with the auto transmission. I bought a 7AT G37 back in 2009 and what I experienced with the transmission was not satisfied.

During the first couple of thousand miles, there was a rough 4-3 downshift that happened around 30-20mph. It was fixed with a software flash about a year later. But it also introduced a new problem: downshift hesitation. It's best to describe with an example: if you go around 50mph and brake to around 35mph, then start to speed to again, there comes a huge hesitation for like 1 second, then the car starts picking up and accelerates like a rocket

On the top of that (1) the trans seemed to be confused in traffic, not know what gear to pick, (2) Transmission flare (upshift from 3-4, the rpm jumps up like 500). So Nissan came up with another flash (2nd) a year later, things got a little better but still not as great as the 5AT. The 2nd flash also caused the acceleration to be linear (more smooth and less sporty).

It's not just me. The problems have been documented well on myG37 forum. There is a huge thread that's still going. But from what I've heard, Nissan has finally worked all the bugs out with 2012 year model. I hope it's true.

By the way, that's how I wind up here with a 6MT 370Z

UNKNOWN_370

In all fairness, there is ONLY one person here that is making BIG negative statements off of a test drive. Obviously he went in hating autos from jump, so he has a jaded view, plus as an auto owner, we can do things in our cars you can't dream of doing on a test drive. So again, he won't know. Even if he drives it for a day? He can't feel the real auto characteristics. Like mentioned before. It takes time for throttle response to be in sync with the auto. Like a week or 2 or a couple hundred miles of driving. Once the car is broken in well. After 5k miles things really flow well together...
Most OG's here don't hate. And we do get along. Auto bashing, we hope ended in 2010? Don't take imports comment as bashing. Its more like serious misinformation and lack of any experience with VQ mounted jatco automatic transmissions.

FPenvy

nice write up. that 500 rpm jump on 3-4 i have had that happen a few times in 3-4 jumps and once or twice in a 4-5 jump. but when i'm hard on the gas and red line shifting it's a dream. those little jumps dont bother me since they are during low rev driving. the Z is just telling you to smash the gas and drive it like it needs to be driven lol

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FPenvy

i was just being funny with the getting along comment lol everyone on here gets along pretty well in my experiences. when i test drove both cars i had to do it at diff dealerships since the auto test drive i pissed the sales rep off since i was a bit "rough" with it lol luckily with the stick the dude just trhew me the keys and my friend and i took it for a 15 min test drive without the sales rep lol bad choice on his part. i ran that Z through the gauntlet to see if the manual was more me than the auto.

i'll stand by my auto all day

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Lug

brake hp and tq are at the flywheel, before the tranny and minus attachments to the engine itself. An automatic's torque converter can act as a torque multiplier but always has some efficiency loss. Article:

Torque converter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Felix 808

I use to be a manual or nothing guy, especially in the 4x4 world in which I lived. Since getting older & understanding a lot of advantages of an auto, I have appreciated an auto a lot more at times.

When shopping for my Z I looked to get an auto, because albeit few, there would be times that my wife would need to drive the car . Anyway I went shopping for the auto with some disappointment thoughts in mind. After a long spirited test drive in the 7AT Z & running throught the gears manually & seeing how it holds a gear, I was thinking to myself this could actually be really nice. I never got to drive a manual Z, but I have had no disappointed feelings while driving my 7AT. I'm loving it

YMMV

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UNKNOWN_370

I guess that kind of goes in line with what I said about manuals DYNO higher but autos are faster off the line...

Jordo!

Get a tune. have the throttle responsiveness remapped.

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wdkwang

One thing I don't like with auto's is that you can't clutch kick, for obvious reasons, when you want the back to step out for drifting. The ebrake is kinda sh1tty.

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shadoquad

I swear by manuals because that is my preferred method for controlling the car, but I understand many of the reasons for driving an automatic and fault no one for their preferences.



hai ak

cc370z

It's nice to see everyone being civil. I've ever understood people taking trash about the type of drive chain. Everything has pro's and con's.

b1adesofcha0s

Love my 7AT, but after learning how to drive manual I definitely want one for my next car. The one exception being the GT-R of course

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UNKNOWN_370

There's actually a diy on here for e brake calibration.