What's the difference between Manual tranny and Tiptronic?
 

Hey,
I had a conversation with a customer at Pacific Mall and apparently this dude drives a Lexus IS300. Now he says it's an automatic with what he claims tiptronic, steptronic, semi-auto (you get the idea) tranny. So he has a choice between fully auto or semi-auto.

Now, whats the difference between a manual tranny and tiptronic? Besides the fact that there's no clutch on the tiptronic.

Tiptronic basically uses the auto gear shift lever or paddles to shift up and down much like a motor cycle, one gear at a time (ie you cant jump from gear 4 down to gear 2, you must go 4-2-3, etc.) Also tiptronic does not use a clutch it relies on the torque converter.

well a true tiptronic uses a clutch and requires the use of a clutch to start off/launch etc...then when changing gears in sequence the ignition and fuel are cut off for a fraction of a second allowing the tranny to switch gears...also there is no reverse, reverse is actuated by a switch and the clutch pedal is needed again to use this gear...this kinda thing can be found in rally cars, F1, british/australian touring cars lemans cars etc

what the common tiptronic is, nothin more than fancy buttons or paddles or a gear shifter that u can "control" the automatic tranny pretty much like puttin it in "1" and then goin up to "2" then "D" etc...its nothin really that fancy but works pretty well in a race application with the right tranny mods

any disadvantages of tiptronic?

Yeah, you cant preselect the gear that you want, you must go up or down through them in sequence.

Cynical is right...

other disadvantages is in the common "tiptronic" gear boxes used in street cars you have a automatic rany, a slush box in there. so you are geting lass power to the ground. also the auto trannies ussually have less gears then the manual... (for example if the car comes with a 6 speed then the automatic version is ussually a 5 speed) anyways this means the gearing is taller in the automatic so accleration is slower...

now if your geting a true tiptronic gear box like what is used in racing then your practically getting a manual transmission that is shifted electronically by the computer. And these would be worth the money to get in my opinion.

sequential the same as tiptronic then?

no i think sequential is the good tiptronic, no the crappy one, hense "SMG" for M3's and ****. I think it stands for sequential manual gearbox or something along those lines.

manual good ---tiptronic junk made for soccer moms

just in my opinion

I believe Subaru developed a tiptronic geabox that allows you to skip over gears while up****ing/downshifting. I remember watching a rally a year or two ago in which the Subarus had an advantage because they could downshift into coners faster than the competition. IE they could smack the lever to the right of whell three times and have it dowshift from 5th to 2nd as they came down a straigh and into a corner

But judging by what was said above, this concept has been applied to racing vehicles already, so maybe I'm completely wrong or something...i dunno.