My mom has a 2007 Saab 2.0T with 210 HP. Her Saab has a 6 speed manual.
I am pretty sure the the 5 speed used in the SS S/C and T/C was the same trans that was used in the eariler saabs.

Being the the T/C are a full year later then the 6 speed of the saab why didn't they switch to this trans?

I am used to driving a 5 speed(t5) Camaro which had a 3.23 rear end. 2000 rpms at ~68mph.

 

They said it was faster w/ the 5 speed was the official answer. I say they did it because they had already gotten the engine validated and designed to fit the SS/SC so they weren't gonna bother re-doing the whole thing to get 1 extra overdrive, too much extra cost for pretty much no gain.

 

6 gears are gay

as soon as u launch ure switching into 2nd=ftw unless your AWD

too much money to make an extra overdrive and for what? the car tops out at 155 all ready

 

Just because you have an extra gear doest mean your 1st gear is going to be shorter.

I would be thrilled to cruise on the hwy, toss it in to 6th gear and reduce my rpms by another 400 rpm.

I kinda dislike the huge gap between 1st and 2nd gear. when driving normally you either have to shift right away at 5mph or hold the clutch in for an sxtra second before it matches the rpm.

 

Weight, Cost, Size, and power within the same package.

 

yea 6th gear wood be nice. i dislike the fact that at 3000 rmp im at 80mph.

 

I'm with this guy. They (GM) had the F40 for the taking...

 

I AGREE

 

You guys haven't driven too many cars...LOL

3k rpm at 80 mph is very good!

My last two cars were at 3k rpm at 70mph.

The gearing is fantastic, stop bitching over the illusion of supremacy because you have an extra gear...

 

I'm still trying to figure out why they dropped the overall gearing to 3.82, I personally think that was stupid. The car would be faster with the 4.05, hell, I want to upgrade to a 4.45!

 

Just because you have a shorter final drive doesn't always mean it will automatically be faster.

 

I wish they made the auto's 5 speed, this 4 speed **** is annoying. Slower and less fuel effiecent

 

i have 6 gears on my gti and at 80 my rpms are at 3k

 

Considering that we are talking about the same car, with the same transmission, only difference being a final drive ratio, then that was a idiotic comment. OBVIOUSLY, the ss/tc would be faster with the ss/sc's 4.05 final drive.

 

A sixth gear would just give closer ratios, not a much taller top gear. You're not going to get 0.50 6th ratio like on the C6. I've heard some retards say the Civic Si is superior to the Cobalt because it has six gears... but the SS/TC makes bundles of torque at a wide range of RPM's (unlike a stock K20) and thus six gears are not necessary.

 

my car revs lower at cruising speed than my dads ms3 with 6speed...i prefer the 5 speed (especially when the overdrive revs no lower with a 6 speed) because its one less gear to shift into

 

my car has six cogs and its pointless, i hold steady at 3k at 80mph in 6th, too many gears for such a small powerband, and at full swing 1st through 3rd last all of 10seconds.

 

"i have 6 gears on my gti and at 80 my rpms are at 3k"

Correct, I've got the same E/DT package on my 07 Passat.

 

I'm sure cost and weight are the biggest as already mentioned. Plus... with one more gear means smaller gears, less room for the massive clutch they put in, and more synchros perhaps. I don't know a **** ton about trannies... but I gather info when I can.

Sometimes the only reason for 6 gears is for torque multiplication, not fuel economy.

Example.... I came from an Acura RSX Type-S which had a 6 speed. The base models had 5 speeds. Here is how THEY differed.

1st gear the same in both cars.
2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears shorter in the Type-S for better acceleration.

Type-S 5th = base 4th.
Type-S 6th = base 5th

In that case it had nothing at all to do with fuel economy. Which by the way... don't ALWAYS be fooled that an engine with less torque can't put the smack down. It had the gearing to multiply what torque it had very well. The engine had lots of breathing room in the rpms to stretch out the gears. So it was able to compete with cars that had more torque, similar hp. Although a stock SS/TC will eat it for breakfast.

The RSX-S was near 3000 rpm at 60 mph but it loved it. It got better gas mileage too though not by a lot.

Just listen to F1 cars... they switch gears like crazy but few things can keep pace with them. If anything...
It's all in what engineers want. For daily driven cars... more torque down low and less gears is great. For racing, more hp and more torque up high with more gears is usually the way to go. Generally speaking anyway...

 

It is for torque multiplication.

This is exactly why racing engines are usually tuned to produce max hp at a lost of torque, because you can always step the torque up through gearing but you can never alter the hp with gearing.

In addition, especially in racing, 1 more gear means 1 more gear to fail so you never want to have more than you need. It is especially risky wth racing (in most) sequential transmission as a failed gear can mean losing half of your transmission as unlike conventional gearbox where you can simply skip a gear and bypass the broken one.

 

... and when you make 260 hp at 2,000 RPM, 5 gears are just fine. I don't recall any pro reviewers requesting a sixth gear in the SS/TC. Some called for a more refined tranny, but not a sixer.

Edit: Sorry that's 260 tq at 2,000

 

lol i can vouch for that, my gawd is it awsome

 

Not necessarily. Tractive issues come into play with a higher FD ratio not to mention the necessity to shift earlier for the 0-60 can result in a pretty substantial amount of time being added because of the additional necessary shifting.

The other consideration was probably fuel economy.


You guys clamoring for a 6-speed are blind. You want it for vanity's sake and nothing more. The fact of the matter is this car is able to have fantastic acceleration in addition to great fuel economy all with 5 speeds and a 3.82 FD ratio.

Why bother with a 6-speed when you have these results from a 5-speed?

 

X2. Our cars actually have two overdrives already 4th=0.89, 5th=0.70. So there is no need for another gear unless you spend all your time cruising at 90mph+.

 

And what some people are not understanding is that a sixth wouldn't be on top of existing ratios to give you something less than 0.60... it would likely just move the other gears closer together to still end up with a top ratio of ~0.70.