Automatic Transmission Types – AMT – CVT – DCT – Torque Convertor

Automatic Transmission Types: Welcome to vehiclemech.com, today in this article we will talk about Automatic Transmission Types.  How many types of automatic transmission are there and what is different from them and what are their uses? We will also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of all transmissions.

VehicleMech is promised to you, if you read this article completely, you still do not need to watch any other article or video to know about automatic transmission. Any questions related to your automatic transmission will be solved after reading this article.

My name is Akash and I write articles for VehicleMech. My team and I have done about 30 hours of research on automatic transmission types and tried to find out, how many types of automatic transmissions, which automatic transmission type is good, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of all automatic transmissions. So today I and my team will try to answer all your questions related to the automatic transmission.

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Automatic Transmission Types

There are 4 most commonly used transmission types in Automatic Transmission. Today we will learn about these 4 transmissions in this article.

1. AMT (Automated Manual Transmission)
2. Torque Converter
3. CVT (Continuous Variable Transmission)
4. DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission)

About Automatic Transmission 

let’s talk about automatic cars. Because lately in India, if you see the traffic situation has changed quite a bit, and I’m seeing a lot of people buying automatic cars also in our family just about two years ago, we had migrated from manual to automatic, but there are actually quite a bit of different types of automatic transmission cars available in the market. And in this article, I’m going to quickly talk about them because we have them in our family.

I think if you’re looking for an automatic car, you need to know what is the different type of transmissions that it has because it all affects how the car performs. And broadly speaking, let’s start from the lower end the cheapest, and then we’ll go to the higher end. (Automatic Transmission Types)

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1. AMT (Automated Manual Transmission)

The most what is affordable these days is known as AMT, the full form is Automated Manual Transmission. And generally, you’ll find this in budget-range automatic cars, for example, if you look at Maruti’s automatic cars, most of them will be AMT. And also Honda has also come out with some Cars that are having AMT. The thing with AMT is that it’s actually relatively a lot less expensive. In fact, it’s traditionally a regular manual transmission, but we just have a computer that actually changes the gear hence, it’s known as Automated Manual Transmission. 

Advantage of AMT

The advantage is that with the AMT is that the mileage is not affected that much, you will get the mileage as close to a manual car. (Automatic Transmission Types)

Disadvantages of AMT

But the thing is that you will notice the gear changes when it happened. For example, we have in our family. This is the Tiago AMT that we purchased about two years ago. And you do notice the gear changes on that. In fact, in the dash, it actually shows which gear you are so think of this one as just a computer. It’s a manual car, but just the computer is changing the gears. And I would say in city traffic empties are actually pretty good because you don’t go that fast because of the city.

But again, if you are an enthusiast about something when you are revving it, you will notice that slight delay in changing the gears but the good thing is that it does not cost a lot compared to other automatics.

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2. Torque Converter

Next, then we have this known as the traditional automatic and the US and stuff in 1965 and 1970s. Or while automatic cars were using this, this is known as the torque converter. And it’s just known as the automatic and this is the most popular and one of the oldest automatic transmissions it has a torque converter hand and because it’s so old, that technology has matured so much that it is one of the most reliable automatics that you can get.

Many of the automatics don’t specify anything like AMT, DCT CVT, etc. It will be the torque converter. In fact, some of the German brands still use this torque converter, for example, BMW uses that and it’s very, very reliable. 

Advantages of Torque Converter

This gearbox is really, really good. And again, in traffic conditions when I’m driving it, I hardly noticed the gate changes in slow speed, yes, but at high speeds, you will notice the gates and but again, it is not as jerky as AMT, it’s very, very refined and very, very reliable. And again, many cars actually use the torque converter. 

Disadvantages of Torque Converter

But the thing with a torque converter is that the mileage gets affected a little bit if you compare it with the manuals. Generally, I have the Hyundai Verna, which is actually a torque converter. And it gives me a mileage of about 9 kilometers. And I’ve heard that the manual variant might give about 10 to 10 and a half. So mileage gets affected.

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3. CVT (Continuous Variable Transmission)

Now Next, move to the next one. This is known as CVT. This is known as continuous variable transmission. In most of the automatics, you will notice that it still has a number of gear, for example, they might specify five gear, seven gear, or nine gear, but on the CVT it’s not the number of gears because it has actually held by to pulley and it continuously moves based on the performance of the engine that is required. So again, there is technically it’s not shifting gears, for example, it doesn’t have a number of gears, it’s an infinite number of gears.  (Automatic Transmission Types)

Advantage of CVT

The advantage with the CVT is that it is very very smooth and city traffic when you’re not driving it very fast because it’s a very, very smooth and technical advantage of a CVT is that compared to most other automatic transmissions, the CVT generally gives actually a lot more mileage we do have Honda City with us, which is the automatic CVT and I would say in city traffic, it is very very comfortable to drive you hardly notice a jerk or anything when you’re driving. 

Disadvantages of CVT

But the problem with the CVT is that if you are an enthusiast driver, and you want to do quick overtakes, and stop there, you notice the downsides of a CVT, then you just floor it and you won’t overtake a person. It does not react very quickly. It’s there a sort of a rubber band effect. I would say sort of a lad that you will get for about one and a half against the engine nights goes really high but the car doesn’t pull.

It takes a couple of seconds. So that’s the biggest problem with CVT. And that’s the reason many enthusiasts do not like a CVT engine but again, if you’re driving mostly in the city, then CVT is very very comfortable and they give you actually pretty good mileage. 

For example, as I’ve told you, we own a Honda City that has a CVT, and city traffic mostly we drive it, and very comfortable and technically CVT are supposed to give the best mileage in my situation and we haven’t noticed some huge difference in mileage from my Hyundai Verna, which is a torque converter and a CVT because the traffic in Hyderabad is crazy. Maybe if we drive both of them on the highway, maybe the CVT would give better mileage. 

But again, it’s not for the enthusiast’s driver. And Honda in India generally uses CVT. For example, the Honda City, the new Honda Civic is also a CVT, I was looking to buy the Honda, what do you say, civic because I originally owned the Honda Civic earlier, but the new Honda Civic CVT and that’s the reason I’m not buying. Because I just don’t like that rubber band delay that you get sometimes when you want to do those quick old days. That’s the problem I have with CVT but apart from that, very good engines. 

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4. DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission)

Next, we have something known as DCT. These are dual-clutch transmissions. And as the name says, it has two clutches, not a single clutch. And the gears are defined in what you say the first let’s say the clutch will have 1,3,5,7 odd number of days and second clutch will have 2,4,6 like that. So it actually has two clutches. 

Advantage of DCT

And the advantage of this is, that it is very very fast to switch gears and you hardly notice the gate changes with a DCT. It’s very fluid very smooth, you hardly notice the gear change-up shirts, and even the downshifts are very, very quick with the DCT. 

So the good advantage of DCT, very lightning quick to shift gears, you hardly notice maybe when you’re in third gear, you shift to even fifth or sixth gear quickly, you hardly notice it’s very smooth, right? But again, yes, on the maintenance side, they are more expensive. 

Disadvantages of DCT

The downsides of a DCT As you have noticed are that it has a dual-clutch, and the engineering is a lot more complex. Hence DCT engines are a little bit more on the expensive side. And also if repairs are a habit, they do cost a lot more on the DCT. But most of the performance cars many of the German cars actually use DCT.

In India, for example, Skoda, if you’re looking for Skoda, with automatic transmission, it has DSD, it’s a variant of DCT, for example, many Volkswagen cars automatic also have a DCT. In fact, Bens also uses many of the cars that have DCT. 

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FAQ

So these are the broad four or types of transmissions that we have when you’re looking for an automatic car, the AMT we have then you have the torque converter, still a lot of actually, cars use it. In fact, BMW even in some of the new cars actually uses the torque converter, so good. Then we have the CVT, then we have the BCT. So these are broadly but again, guys, this is just the transmission part of an engine. The actual engine is also making a lot of difference. 

For example, what type of engine in your car do you have? Is it a naturally aspirated engine? Or is it a turbocharged engine? Then also, how much power does the engine produce? For example, we always talk about bhp the brake horsepower, but we don’t concentrate on the torque which is actually very important.

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