The 8-speed ZF is a dramatically better transmission than any 5-speed I've ever driven.

 

I love this black and white interior in this ES F-Sport. It really took me by surprise. Really nice

 

I’ve encountered a problem with my 2019 Civic Sport Touring and that’s that the air conditioning is failing. I never expected to have this issue with a car that’s not quite 4 years old. It is a Honda issue and there’s a TSB recommending replacement of the condenser. There’s an extended warranty (10 years, unlimited miles) on the a/c. Honda has left themselves lots of reasons to not cover this though. We shall see if they fix it.

 

I agree. It's silky smooth and always seems to be in the right gear and quick to downshift when needed. It's widely recognized as one of, if not the best out there.

 

Sure but it's just an EV and slower plus way more boring. I'll never spend as much on gas in 10 years as that car costs you to own

I don't really care about fuel costs and it would need to get to over 15 a gallon for me to begin to care. If that happens there will be other more severe issue anyway

 

the ZF 9-speed however really isn't good at all... when my parents 2014 MDX lease was replaced by the 2016 i was immediately disappointed with the transmission

confused clunky shifts at times and just too many gears in general... with the previous 6-speed you just needed a quick 1-2 on the left paddle to go from 6th to 4th and be in a great passing gear for the highway and the 9HP ruined that

it also didn't make any appreciable difference in mpgs, and actually was slightly slower in a 0-100 acceleration comparison i did (on the same road going the same direction of course)

 

yea not a huge fan of the one in the GLE450... it's smooth if you drive in a boring linear manner, but try to be sporty and it quickly falls short

the real clunky downshifts happen if you're in M shifting mode but in regular D it's generally not bad

considering how broad the powerband is with the inline 6 turbo + ISG (and especially with the V8tt in der sonderklasse) i genuinely can't see a case for having so many gears... i'd be happy if all ratios remained the same but 6th and 8th were simply removed lol... when full torque is at 1800rpm there's just no need to be shifting that often

 

The 9-speed MCT transmission in a lot of the AMGs is excellent in aggressive driving. Super smooth and quick downshifts and upshifts when driving quickly - the shifts are quicker than the 8HP actually. The problem there is more sedate driving - the wet start up clutch action isn't smooth unless you have an appreciation for how manual transmission works and some cars suffer from low speed jerks. The latter has never been a problem on mine though. The ZF 8HP is definitely the best all 'rounder in my opinion and I've been happy with it in every car I've owned.

 

Agreed, it's not a fantastic transmission to begin with, and it was even further hobbled its first few years by absolutely horrible programming, particularly in Honda/Acura products like the 2016 MDX you experienced. I had the exact same experience, and found it infuriatingly annoying even as a passenger.

The ZF9 is much better now that the shift logic bugs have been worked out, but still nowhere near as good as their 8 speed.

 

I think the ZF9 still sucks in any application. It behaved poorly in FCA products and Land Rover products. Volvo rejected it during evaluation and pivoted to the Aisin 8-speed that BMW also chose. Really, I can't think of a worse transmission for transverse applications. It's telling everyone has ditched that transmission as soon as they could, including Stellantis when they refreshed the Jeep Compass. I'm curious to see if the Pacifica also ends up switching to the Hyundai 8-speed transmission during its next refresh.

 

absolutely the MCT in the AMGs is great... my dad's 2015 E63 has the 7-speed MCT with the wet clutch and it feels like a 30 year leap forward in technology from the 5-speed in my E55 in basically every regard

haven't driven the 9-speed MCT, but the 7-speed has super quick satisfying full throttle upshifts (like near dual clutch quick) and does these lovely rev matched downshifts with just enough of a throttle blip to make you grin mischievously every time haha

when the car was brand new it could be pretty juddery between 0 and 5 mph, but once the wet clutches got broken in a bit it's been pretty smooth ever since

 

Its horrible. Having a Pacifica now with the CVT and having had 2 with the ZF9, you really see how horrible it is.

 

Oh I love the old school 5 speed. It's indestructible, made for the V12's torque. It's not as smooth as my LS430 transmission but I don't think it's supposed to be in an SL. But it's a total luxury car transmission and powertrain.

As you can see how I revved it out, it wouldn't be nearly as fun if it shifted the way the Yukon does (which is insane) in a fun roadster. I love the long gears and you get a muscle car soundtrack.

 

oh don't get me wrong i love the old 722.6 trans, i think it perfectly compliments the E55's character of old school thug that's ultimately still just a "regular" car underneath

also when paired with a torquey V8 it rarely even needs to downshift when passing people... and when it does shift it's smooth but you get an impression of heavy duty, beefy mechanisms at work

but i gotta say, an additional 6th gear would be nice for mpgs sake considering at 80 mph the engine's doing about 2500 rpm when it could easily be another 500-1000 rpm or so lower with no adverse effects

 

I can't imagine how powerful your car feels with all that extra power, but mine does even NA. I've never owned a car where I have to let off the gas because it's too much when you hammer it. In normal driving it just usually finds 3rd gear and that's plenty. MB 5.0 noticeably stronger than my Lexus 4.3, feels like considerably more than 12 extra hp and 19 ft/lbs torque.

And oh I think we talked about that, I noticed the exact same thing.... 2500k at 80ish. But that was for a reason. Up past 100 which is what these were designed for it realllllllly wouldn't need to downshift. That said, yeah, at 85 my LX is turning like 1900 lol.

And yeah our transmissions can handle 738lb/ft of torque so we are good!