Z06 1of38

I need a cold shower......I may finally be in the market for a camaro!

NiteriderFRC

No joke, i feel the same way lol *shivers*

QKSLVRZ

I had a Camaro SS rental car, and in sports or track mode (it might even switch the transmission on it's own), and drove it from Santa Clara to San Francisco Airport up Skyline Blvd, at about 7/10th, and the transmission always seemed to be in the right gear, I'd see it holding 3-4,000 rpm mid corner.
And from cruising to full throttle, I though it felt like it took advantage of the converter torque multiplication, it was really fast.

F4 Phantom

Why did the driver get off the gas for long periods in the turns? A real race driver would never do that. And what is the fat passenger there for, ballast?

NoOne

The point here is, not upshift speed but overall the transmission itself.


My DSG in my S4 is the smoothest transmission I have ever driven, even in sport mode. Everyone complains about roughness in a DSG. We have the ZF 8 speed in my wife's SQ5 with the same motor as my S4 and my DSG is 10X smoother than my wife's SQ5. In fact its a terrible transmission but it up shifts instantly like the DSG at WOT.


Just everywhere else its crap.


I couldn't care less about upshift speed, I am looking at the overall performance of the transmission. Maybe my S4 is special because I am one of the few to talk about how smooth it is, especially at part throttle.


I don't have the creep issue, harsh start, or any of the things that DSG owners complain about.

NiteriderFRC

those were no race drivers - that was Mark Reuss, President of GM North America in the 2nd video .. Bill Wise who is an engineer is driving in the above

chevyfanatic

shift manually dufus. its still way faster then a the lousy long throw lousy take up m7. just not as fast on US as pdk or other DC. on DS very fast

chevyfanatic

it dont bang like a normal DC on US. still way faster then the POS m7. i really hated the LT bad takeup m7 i drove. on DS the A8 bangs nice as any DC i have driven

Woodson

Cool yo.

DAFFYDRUNK

Not fair to call the m7 a pos... or slow. Depends on driver ability. If you know what you're doing, you can seriously shift it almost as fast as the A8.

chevyfanatic

i own 3 manuals plus my a8. one is 09 balt ss. it puts the m7 to shame. m7 is better then my rspec but not by much. LT shifter needs a STS and clutch takeup blows as bad as my rspec. so its tricky to launch. not impressed at all with the m7.

Now seriously how could you compare a manual transmission to an automatic and shift times. think about what you're saying you have to engage the clutch and then you have to move the lever that's going to take at least two seconds or more. my guess is the a8 US is about 1 sec in sport mode to shift. possibly faster in track mode. The main reason I don't use track mode is because it seems to really stiffen the z07 suspension up too much but my guess is shifts are maybe faster. so the lousy LT m7 would be smoked especially on an A8 DS which seems instantaneous to me.

DAFFYDRUNK

Hard to quantify how fast I can shift but there are YouTube videos showing others doing similar. I'd say around possible to do a 1-2 in 1/10th of a second. 2-3 maybe a teeny bit longer since you're jumping over a gate. I can shift in about the same time you can start and stop a digital stop watch. If you're taking 2 seconds, perhaps more practice is in order...

jdhommert

Some unbiased thoughts and comments from someone who will argue both sides...probably gonna be a novel

I specifically asked Tadge about the A10 fitting in the Vette. I said you know we heard that the A8 wasn't needed or may not fit in the C7 early on, and you specifically said it's not needed when the C7 came out with the A6. So Tadge, you don't have to comment but I'm assuming the C7 will get the A10 soonish, because I'm assuming "it won't fit" is true, but you can easily make it fit by shortening the torque tube or something. He broke it down and explained to me that no it won't ever fit the C7 architecture because it's about 1.5" too long (never had that problem myself) and due to the way things are positioned and mounted, every piece in the driveline needs to be the right size/proportion/in the right spot or the axles wont line up with the wheels/transmission. He said you can't just adjust something else on the car to make the A10 fit, it's just too big sadly.

Take that for what it's worth, we know he's had to fib before or say things that people dont like to promote the current product or walk the company line etc

First- Not even going to address upshifts as thats not the issue and all tranmissions can shift super fast and that's never the issue and hasn't been for a long long time. People who defend the A8 or GM always says but its as fast as a DCT....ok thats about upshifts, again thats not the issue at all.
IMO-A8 is a great automatic transmission...its got its issues and quirks sure, but it seems to be a pretty damn good performer overall. I think the A10 is a big step up on the A8 and damn it sounds like that thing is incredible in the several videos I've seen of test drives in the ZL1. The thing is just cracking off shifts as fast as hell.

An automatic won't/cant ever be as fast as a DCT on a paddle/manual downshift from my understanding of how the two transmissions and technologies work. First a DCT is able to be instant, we know that. An AT will always take longer to downshift, and I think the diff here is if its in D or you're doing it manually. If you leave an A8/10 in D, it will do everything for you and downshift at the right times and be the brain for you. It will downshift super fast because it knows thats what it wants to do before hand/right before the shift happens. When you have it in paddle mode, it has no idea when a shift is coming and then when you tap the paddle it still has to go through the checks to make sure it's cool to do a downshift which will take some time, probably a very small amount of time. Then it has to do the downshift, which will take a litle more time than a DCT downshift, with the A10 it's probably a small difference. However I think that with the "thinking" and slightly longer shifting process, you'l never be quite as fast or feel quite the same as a DCT.

The flip side to that is-
1. Obviously maybe the A10 is getting damn close to a DCT for manual downshifts. I specifically found manual paddle downshifts in those videos and blew it up on the bigscreen and listened/watched for the tap and then the shift. I was very impressed and intrigued with how quick the A10 downshifted, but we need real world results to see how it performs in all kinds of shifts, not just a handfull you see in a video. Seems promising though.
2. If you leave it in D, who cares? It seems like some of the lap times being done are with an auto in D. Car seems to be able to do everything damn near perfectly and always be in the right gear for you so you can concentrate more on other driving stuff. Less involvement and fun, sure. I get it because I want a car/transmission where i have that video game thing where i touch a button and boom it downshifts before i even get the button all the way pressed down. But again, the car seems to be able to perform incredibly if you just leave it in D. As long as there aren't overheating issues, but that's another issue. I think the A8/10 are about as good as you can possibly get for a true automatic with a TC, but it's not fair to compare it's performance as far as heat and response/downshifting time to a true DCT. A TC has some advantages on the street that is tough for a DCT to replicate. Not a knock on either choice.

I'm really looking forward to what the A10 can bring, but I don't expect it in the C7. I might buy a Camaro when it comes with an A10, but I'll probably just get a CTS for a daily instead. I'd imagine they will have the A10 for a base automatic, and then finally have a real DCT available in the Z06/ZR1/Zora or something.


Guys-lets keep this civil and not get mad because somebody else likes a different kind of transmission than you do. All choices in life have their pros and cons, it's what you personally want and are willing to live with. I was pretty anti-auto and really didnt want my dad to get one as we have always been manual guys. I test drove an A8 and I was pretty impressed and he was happy as all hell. Good for him.

Hopefully that wasn't too awful or long to read lol

pdiddy972

Except you don't have to do that. The Vettes and Camaros have "no lift shift" technology. Which means after you take off in 1st gear you simply leave your throttle foot planted and when it comes time to go to 2nd (or 3rd, 4th, etc) you push the clutch (leaving the throttle fully depressed) and swap gears quickly. The ECU keeps the RPMs where you left it (or near redline (without bouncing off the limiter) if that's where you were shifting) so you enter gear still in the power.

DAFFYDRUNK

And it's easy to use. You just gotta shift a little early relative to the laggy C7 tach in the first couple gears or you blow the shift. So far in my noob track experiences, Ive used NLS all the time. Slick.

...now back to the A10 discussion, which I suspect will magically fit into the C7 for '18. Kinda like how we were told the A8 wasn't gonna work in 14.

JoesC5

I was reading a test report on the 2017 Ford F150 with the A10 this morning. This is a remark they made about the transmission.

"The transmission shifts about as undetectably and at the driver's will as one could hope for, but it seemed to be more sensitive after a cold start as it stuttered along in the lower gears. Once warmed up, all was well."

Same transmission as used in the Camaro.

JoesC5

GM had the same technology back in the 1960's. I never lifted when shifting my Muncie 4 speed. It just used a different computer to do the job. The one in my head that controlled my right arm and my left foot.

Always worked great back then, but I've noticed the computer seems to lag a bit today in my Muncie equipped 1956 Corvette.

68roadster

Yeah, we ain't getting any younger.

dead of night

I can live with the A8 delay, as long as it's reliable and durable. As long as the torque converter is reliable and durable for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Maslo

2 thoughts on the discussion from a layman:

1. If the A8 shifts roughly as fast as a DCT once the actual signal is received by the transmission and it's the computer lag delaying shifts in the A8....it seems like the computer just needs to send the signal quicker. Then, the A8 and DCT are once again roughly as fast as each other. So faster computer and it's leve playing ground.

2. It doesn't make sense that the computer waits for the paddle shift in S mode, then runs the checks, and spits out either a green light & shifts or a red light and doesn't shift. Why doesn't the computer be proactive and continuously make calculations to assign a green light or red light, so that when a shift is made the "green light" or "red light" is already decided and it passes through nearly instantly?

Criticism encouraged with my post - someone please chime in. I can't be the first person that's thought of this.