Dry-clutch DSGs only last for four. :)

Happy New Year!

Assuming you mean gears rather than years, the main benefits are improved mpg, improved acceleration (especially with an engine without much torque). It will also mean cruising with the engine turning at a lower speed. On the minus side, having more gears can result in the engine constantly hunting about for the best gear for any given situation, which can be irritating (I believe some modern auto's have as much as 9 gears!). With a high torque engine, having many gears is not really necessary, but you can't avoid it with modern cars.

From the OP's previous threads, I suspect at least one of the cars in question will be a Kia Venga/Hyundai ix20, which has a 4 speed auto. As to the other car, with the 6 speed auto?, not sure, but possibly a Kia Cee'd/Hyundai i30. We had an i30 auto before the Jazz and it had a 6 speed (tc) auto.

If this is the case, going by what I have read, whether or not you will like the Venga/ix20 will depend on the kind of driving you do and how many miles you cover. The former because it is no fun at all unless driving sedately and the latter because it is rather thirsty. Probably be a good idea to try and get one for an extended test drive to see how you find it.

Hi Wantstolearn,

I have a 2012 Venga Auto (model 3 to be exact which at the time was the top of the range). Mechanically for running gear and such like these are identical to the Hyundai ix20. The engine on the auto is a 1.6 chain cam petrol. The cosmetics such as dash board are a little different and the suspension is a bit softer on a ix20 but essentially they are the same car. The auto was changed to a 6 speed Torque Converter late in 2016(iirc). The gearbox is a Hyundai design and supplied by them (remember Hyundai / Kia are sister companies a bit like Citreon / Peugeot / Vauxhall are since PSA bought Vauxhall)

The 4 speed auto around town is VERY thirsty. If you are doing short journeys ie: under 3 miles to go shopping etc you won't see anything more than 25mpg with the 4 speed auto ( I believe the 6 speed gives a little more but not that much to make any real difference), even driven sedately. On a run I can get around 38mpg - 40mpg which is nearer the official figures (which as we all know are at best "optimistic". From what I've read, the 6 speed auto should give a bit more mpg overall and be a bit less revvy at speed as the 6th gear has a higher ratio than the 4th gear in the 4 speed.

We had the Venga as my wife preferred the dash layout and we got the panoramic roof in the model 3.

Driven sedately they are very nice cars with good visibility due to the high seating position and a good size boot for its body size. They do have some "oomph" if you are prepared to work it and either manually hold gears or use kick down. The engine develops around 125 bhp and the torque band from what I have investigated is from around 2500rpm and peaks at 4800rpm. It does get a little noisy when worked hard but will pull a lot better (when needed) than all the "expert?" reviews would have you believe. If you are "pushing on" there is a little body roll but nothing to make you think it will let go and throw you in a ditch. Its all very predictable and safe.

We've had ours 10 months now and I've found that if you are pootling about on 30 mph roads it gives a better drive if you stick it in 3 instead of D as this stops it "hunting" at 28mph which is the 3rd to 4th change point on the 4 speed when driven sedately.

Depending what year you are looking at, they didn't have a spare wheel between 2012 and 2014 (just the useless goo pump thing)so could be a negotiating point on price. There is room for a full size spare in the boot well (just). We decided on a skinny spare. You can get them on a certain auction site between around £80 to £130.

Would we have another one? On our present experience that would be a big Yes. But then we only do around 3500 miles a year so mpg isn't a big concern for us and the seat height, visibility, boot size are all ideal for our requirements. It is badged as a "pensioner car" but if you want something that is easy access, easy to drive, has a decent boot and is known to be reliable you could do a lot worse than an IX20 / Venga

Edited by VengaPete on 01/01/2019 at 18:07

Have a Kia Niro hybrid and the DCT box is a large improvement over the Toyota hybrid CVT boxes - better mpg, quieter. Not aware of "... the engine constantly hunting about for the best gear for any given situation..." - think things have moved on from the early days of the VW DSG boxes

It is a bit early to start celebrating dual clutch gearboxes having been made to work reliably long term. While i may have a bit more confidence in the Niro's box, that is more to do with the 7 year warranty. If it is possible to make them reliable, why isn't Toyota using them?. To me, the answer to this is that Toyota have a reputation for cars which just keep on working, longer than most. They know this and are not prepared to compromise that reputation by fitting a type of gearbox they know will fail sooner rather than later. And why have the PSA group stopped using them and reverted back to TC auto's?. Ford too, i'm not sure about the rest of their range, but certainly the new Fiesta and Focus have reverted back to TC auto. As for CVT's, not sure about the current Prius, but the Yaris and Jazz (like what we have) are 'stepped' with 7 artificial ratios, to make them feel and behave like a good TC auto or even a dual clutch job, complete with manual control.

Regarding my earlier comment about the gearbox hunting about looking for gears, that really has nothing to do with the type of gearbox, more to do with the amount of ratio's and the torque of the engine.

My TC auto has 8 gears. It doesn't seem to hunt for gears even in slow traffic. It has a lot of poke too if needed. At 70ish it spins at about 1200rpm, which is low so very now then I blow out the cobwebs with a blast. For a diesel with 15K miles in 20 months I have only experienced 2 regens that I know of. Not bad. I tow a caravan and the auto is excellent and always finds the correct gear for the job. Very impressed as I have only had manuals for the past 25 years or so.

Cheers Concrete

You could ask the question of the cyclists on here. Bikes often claim 18 or 21 ratios by having a triple sprocket at the front and 6 or 7 at the rear. As no longer a cyclist, I have asked what possible circs might require that degree of fine tuning, as I can't imagine anyone changing from (say) 12th to 13th, only 12th to 15th.

Some drivers (I know one or two) aren't aware enough of their car's engine to need more than four, maybe five at the most. Those drivers with an auto may not be bothered if the thing is always hunting for the 'best' gear.

This is quite different and very easy to answer. A cyclist has a given amount of energy, they are comfortable with their legs going at a certain cadence, so the more gears you have available to you to keep your legs going at that cadence, regardless of the terrain, the better. The main issue is overlap, something which will be all too apparent if the bike in question has 3 cogs at the front. For the best, and most even spread of gears, if you can afford it, you need a Rohloff speedhub. This is the king of hub gears, offering 526% of gear range through 14 equally spaced, sequential ratio's operated by a single twist grip. Each gear is about 13.6% higher than the previous. Completely self contained, requiring minimal maintenance, it is an impressive feat of engineering. But it comes at a cost, a bike with a Rohloff will probably cost at least £700 more than with conventional derailleur gears!.