Auto 370Z...Is it Good?

gatorfast

How on earth would this thread make you decide? I dont even understand how its a hard choice. Most people know if they want a manual or an auto and if they dont, they drive them and then decide.

Endgame

I am already torn between the two. I know the upsides and downsides to both transmissions. This thread is not making me decide...... This thread is causing the inner voices and 'camps' to battle within.

I have my reasons for wanting an MT, but I can counter them with reasons I want the AT. I keep reading the back and forth in this thread and neither voice within is silent; they are louder.

I hope that helps answer your question. If not, then I can explain it in no other way. Sorry.

bluzman

Inner voices?? You're scaring me, dude J/K

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Endgame

you have no idea......

ZSPEED

I drove both MT and AT 2 different times at 2 different dealearships and still cant make up my mind. I am annoyed by the slow response in higher speeds when in high gears in the AT and the slow response in shifting to lower gears especially when doing successive shifts. I found that the the MT is a little more balanced when cornering at 50 + mph. I
Like everying in life, there are good and bad things to everything. In the end, I see it coming down to a coin toss !

Endgame

Aman brother! That is EXACTLY what I was talking about; you just explained it more so.

I think I may have to go to the coin toss method in the end also.

whoady4shoady

If it is down to a coin toss now, why not make it down to aesthetics? Which center console area is more appealing to your eyes. i think it looks better in manual, but what do you think? Just something else to throw out there. Do you find that you like the feeling of shifting with the paddles, or the stick? Just some other things to think about.

ZSPEED

I like the looks of the center console without the NAV. For some reason the knobs and whole interface looks more sofisticated than the center consol of the one with the NAV system, where things looked a little flimsy.

havasuwiley

i'm with ak370 buy what you like.my 03 zo6 vette only came with a 6 speed man,dealer said auto trans wasn't strong enough for 405 hp,that was then now u can get 436 hp vette w auto, i ordered the auto for my z ,love the paddle shifting.

XwChriswX

Being new to the paddle shifting community and not wanting to ruin the auto tranny, I asked the dealer some questions about it and I wanted you guy's thoughts on it.

When your in the 'manual' mode, is it primarily for the start, or can you jump into it mid drive on the highway?

The dealer told me that they dont reccomend shifting (up) until you get above the 3k rpm range... No comment on shifting down.

The reason I ask is based on what they said it was for the... 'When your behind someone slow and want to blow past them, you change lanes, drop a gear or two and blow past them..." I imagine that doing so would really put a strain on your engine initially? Or does it compensate for that so you can do so without having a lurch as soon as you get back into gear and push the pedal?

And lastly (and this confused me with manuals too) When driving, do you shift until there's no longer a strain on the engine to cruise, or do you go all the way to the highest gear and cruise there?

Sorry for all the noob questions, I didn't start learning to drive stick until this May. Primarily to be able to drive THIS car which I figured would only come in manual, but since they have an auto... it's more to my liking and I just don't wanna F*** it up driving home from the dealer lol.

wstar

Re: several earlier comments about the 7AT and drag racing (not that the 370Z is really a great drag-racing platform to start with...), there are both ups and downs. If you go forced induction, you're going to probably have to upgrade the 7AT's internals (and the torque converter would be a good idea too), and that can get pricey. If you don't, it will probably die earlier than it should. The upside is that yes, all other things being equal, an Auto tends to make the best times in the 1/4. It's not that huge a margin though, and with either transmission there's some learning curve and driver skill involved.

Don't listen to the dealer, he's just making up random things that have little bearing on reality. Ask him why, when left in the fully-automatic "D"-mode and driven at light throttle, the car shifts way, way before 3K

You can shift the 7AT any time you feel like it, in any direction. If you try to downshift "too far" (where the gearing would cause the rev limit to be exceeded at the current speed) it will simply refuse and ignore you. If you try to upshift "too early" (such that the RPMs would drop so low as to lug out the engine on a 6MT), it again will simply refuse and ignore you.

Within the usable range, it's all up to you. The higher you keep the RPM needle, the more available power (or engine braking as the case may be) you will have. The tradeoff is the higher you keep the RPMs, the louder the car is, the more the oil heats up, and your engine wear is accelerated a bit versus someone who drives like a grandma (but on the other hand, grandma's engine gets dirtier: hard driving keeps the engine cleaner).

And yes, you can switch between the D-mode and the M-mode at any time while driving. I recommend M-mode all the time, but that's me


The more you ask your car to do, the more wear you put on it. It's just like your body. You play sports, you get bad knees, etc

That aside, there's nothing wrong with downshifting and accelerating, and the rev matching on this car at least eliminates RPM errors which can be harder on the drivetrain. If you're in 7 on the highway in M-mode and you want to pass mildly, just double-click the left paddle to drop down to 5 and floor the accelerator (I'd start pushing the gas down as you are clicking, not after). If you want to more oomph, click all the way down to 4. 3 is pretty useless on the highway unless you're starting out really slow (like 50mph), in which case you probably weren't all the way up in 7 yet anyways.

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Alexus

Keep in mind that contrary to manual transmissions, if you do something excessively stupid, the computer will prevent you from doing it. I haven't pushed the car to its limits yet, but in my IS-F the computer will not allow me to shift past redline. Contrary to the IS-F, though, I don't think the Z emits an annoying beeping sound when you're doing something stupid.

Granted, some modifications to the computer can eliminate the restraints the ECU's map has.

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