josh95se

I wonder if they'll do that down the road...the bmw's have it as does the acura tl......would improve performance quite a bit probably.

Keven97SE

Probably due to lack of space. 5spd autos are usually quite a bit larger than 4spd autos. With a front wheel drive package, there's just not that much room. All the 5spd autos you see out there are on rear wheel drive cars.

deathwish

I'm not sure it would improve performance all that much, it may give you more options in gearing, but would it be worth the cost of development? Not right now... Maybe when nissan is fully out of debt

Albertt

I thought the autos in the CL, TL and RL were the five speeds.

ZuMBLe

iTrader: (1)

TL, CL, and RL are front drive.

ZuM

WoodEar

it's not about FWD and RWD.
bottom line is Nissan don't think it's wise to spend money on R&D to offer a 5sp for Max yet, not until Camry and Accord has it.

Shingles

What Keven means is talking about is the space IN THE MAX. TL, CL, RL, are designed with the speed tranny inmind. Plus Honda has an obession with making things small.

-Shing

ZuMBLe

iTrader: (1)

Then they should have designed the max with a 5-speed auto in mind.. =( I think thats the main reason why the new TLs are pretty fast. The extra gear. If they had 4-speed autos 4th gens would eat them up. When MT or C&D.. forgot which.. Did a comparo between luxury sport sedans. The Q45 came up last in acceleration. Even though it had as much power as the rest of the cars. I think the STS was in the comparo too.. Didn't do well either because it too had a 4-speed insteal of 5.

ZuM

Shingles

That's a HUGE assumption to think that if they had a four speed the maxima would "eat them up". This is pretty much an invalid arguement.... you race what you brought. That's the way it is. TLs have more hp... not to mentions a better useable hp range. I am sure that if honda put a 4 speed on them they would optimize the gearing...

Q45 is VERY heavy. So is the caddy. You can not attribute why car is slow b/c of one thing. Maybe if they were the exact same car with that one thing different. Power band, weight, road condition, tires used, tranny programming, efficency of the mechanical parts, etc.

Have more gears is not a good thing neccesary... did you foget about time it takes to shift? Close gearing usually means more shifts. The only thing that would save this is high revs.

-Shing

Keven97SE

I'd agree with that also.

Why would Nissan build such a badass Maxima when it's designed to compete with Accords/Camrys? Not until 5spd autos become standard on those would you see them in the Maxima.

Nissan could throw all the fancy crap into the Maxima, but then it'd cost $5000 more and wouldn't be competitive. It's not about always "having the best".

ZuMBLe

iTrader: (1)

I guess I'd rather them spend the money on the sweet engine than the tranny. You're right though. You run what you brung. And if they did have to jack up the price 5000 dollars for the 5-speed auto it would put the car in another bracket. Assuming your engine's powerband is up top. The extra gear would help though. In the case of automatics. Shifting the extra gear doesn't matter that much if the tranny is efficient when shifting. In the case of the STS, peak power is 300hp at 6000rpm with a 6500rpm redline. I'm sure it would go faster with a 5-speed being that there is power up top. The Q45 maybe not.

ZuM

Slowpoke

I can't speak for BMW, but the five-speed automatic transmissions in Acuras don't have the same type of ratios you'd typically see in five-speed manuals, where 4th is 1:1 and fifth is overdrive. The fifth gear in Acuras TL and CL is an economy (cruising)gear, basically equivalent to taking our 4 speeds and adding a 5th gear while keeping the bottom 4 gears the same. Both 4th and 5th are overdrive. The 5th gear doesn't help with acceleration, only in fuel economy.

1st 2.563
2nd 1.551
3rd 1.021
4th 0.653
5th 0.470

Final: 4.428

focker2889

IMO, Nissan favors CVT way more than a 5sp auto. CVT used to be a dream for high power cars. But several auto manufacturers, including Nissan, are able to do it for those cars. Expect a CVT-equipped mid-size sedan from Nissan two to three years later in North America.

Shingles

CVT is really the ideal tranny to have... Hondas been selling a CVT car for years now... the Civic HX hatch back of the EG variaty(96+) had CVT tranny... now the Insight is going to be offered with one as well.

-shing

Radek

BMW's have always had a 1:1 ratio in top gear. Doesn't matter if you're talking 1978 530i 4-speed or 2001 540i 6-speed or 5-speed auto. Their 6th or 5th is not overdrive like 5th (manual) or 4th in the auto is overdrive in the Maxima.

It's nicer to spread out the ratios. With tractor trailers it's a necessity to have 13-speeds etc. With cars it's a luxury. If you notice Nissan does not overhaul anything. They take the same thing and repackage it. A new tranny costs money, more than what the factory saved by spending less on the paint process.

The Maxima is what it is, like Chris said. It competes with Camry and Accord. It doesn't compete against 528's (2001 530) no matter how hard you try to make it do so.