Car audio over the years (past, present and future)

With the new CVT transmission nicely installed in my 2007 Maxima, it's got that feeling it had as a new car. 👍

 
I'm thinking they probably upgraded the internals on these, so they have less risk of failures from here on out. Frequent CVT fluid changes will help also.

I wonder what made these CVTs so failure prone, though--it's essentially comprised of two adjustable pulleys and a belt. If you saw the myriad gears, clutch packs and hydraulic passageways in a traditional automatic transmission, you'd understand how much simpler CVTs are. Honda's CVTs have been notoriously reliable, and I'm glad to see the other manufacturers are finally getting the hang of it. It's not a bad transmission setup, but so many out there dislike the way they drive (and I understand that--the "rubberband" effect does take some getting used to, even with a CVT that is programmed to mimic shift points like a traditional automatic). For some cars, especially those with a turbo, the CVT allows the engine to stay right in its peak power band. I noticed that in the Civic I rented--when I *cough* took a detour through Mexico *cough* and punched the gas on the expressway, I was up to 90 MPH in only a couple of seconds.

They make CVTs for small gasoline engines now also. I just watched a video last week where a CVT was used on a go-kart. It's way simpler in execution (it relies only on centrifugal force), but the function is exactly the same...and with the cover off, you can see how the ratios change with the engine speed.

Watch the CVT as the engine accelerates:

 
I couldn’t believe when I saw this...now we can play our records in cars!!

Driven by Sound
Lexus Wax Edition



 
There were smaller record players for cars back in the 50s but like all of them, they make a lot of compromises to get them to be playable in a car (worst of all, a heavy tracking force so the stylus doesn't jump out of the groove). In other words, even with this new contraption, I wouldn't want to play anything but dollar store records on them.

SD cards and thumb drives are boring as heck, but I'll take any system that does not use moving parts. 😉
 
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