The Japanese-made trucks have gained a cultlike following, attracting small-business owners seeking affordable alternatives to traditional pickup trucks.
Wow. The remaining 7,950,999,999 people on this planet now have something to be thankful for, because none of them are as wrong as you.
You clearly did not actually understand what your mechanic told you.
A transmission cooler is exactly what it sounds like. It is built exactly like a radiator and works the same way. It is mounted in front of or next to the radiator for the engine. On a lot of newer cars it is actually part of the main radiator. Transmission fluid flows through it and excess heat is dumped into the air. On many vehicles it’s also served by the radiator fan, i.e. for situations where the vehicle is not getting airflow because it’s not moving.
The torque converter is part of your automatic transmission literally operates by moving the transmission fluid. There is no separation between the transmission fluid used in the torque converter and the rest of the transmission where the hydraulic valves use it to actuate the clutch bands, etc. to shift gears. The same bath of transmission fluid is circulated through the torque converter, the rest of the transmission, and the transmission cooler.
This is not a truck thing. Even my dinkum Saturn SL I had when I was a teenager that was so pathetic it was literally made of plastic and did not crack 100 horsepower had a transmission cooler – as designed from the factory. The vast majority of passenger vehicles made in the last half century or more with automatic transmissions have transmission coolers built in. It has nothing to do with towing, either.
Your torque converter absolutely can be locked under acceleration and in fact, nearly all vehicles equipped with a locking torque converter do so as part of their normal shifting pattern when moving up through their gears. This is observable from the driver’s seat if you know what’s happening. The locking and unlocking of the torque converter feels like an “extra gear” in between the gears. Some Japanese cars from the 80’s have a “TC Locked” light on a dash that illuminates when the converter is locked and you can watch this happen in real time. The usual pattern is 1st gear, shift to 2nd gear, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 3rd, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 4th, etc. A traditional automatic transmission only has 4 gear ratios, but it will feel like it has seven. Guess why.
Think about it real hard for a minute. A locked torque converter is the same, mechanically, as a fully engaged clutch. If you could not lock the torque converter during acceleration, by the same logic you would not be able to fully release the clutch pedal during acceleration on a manual transmission car, either. It is glaringly obvious that this is not the case.
I am not a “random lemming.” I have four decades of actual real world mechanical experience and have disassembled and rebuilt more transmissions, engines, and vehicles in general than you have probably sat in throughout your entire life.
Tell us you didn’t read what I just wrote without telling us you didn’t read it.
The engine will only stall under load if it is at so low of an RPM that it is generating insufficient torque to overcome the inertia. Which if you are moving and in the correct gear for your speed is never.
Which is why your transmission has more than one gear.
Remember back 30 seconds ago when I told you to think? Actually try it this time. Or maybe plug some of your bullshit into Google first before continuing to make a fool of yourself in front of everybody.
Which is why automatics have torque converters and manuals have clutches. It’s almost like we’ve come full circle or something!
Millions and millions of vehicles are driving on the world’s roads right now, happily tooling along under the sound mechanical and physical principles known as “reality,” completely heedless of your apparent inability to understand it.
Yes and a manual can slip the clutch, it’s built for that. A torque converter can’t slip the lock, it’s not build for that, it has to stay open. And that generates a fuckton of heat.
And? Come on, you’re almost there. Just two more neurons to put together:
That’s why the transmission cooler is there.
Wrap up: Your original claim that Americans “can’t” tow due to predominantly driving automatic transmission cars, in addition to being an uncreative and tired thinly veiled attempt at insulting Americans, is not only wrong but also prima facie absurd.
And is the cooler in cars big enough to have noticeable towing capacity, or do you need a bigger one that only really fits a truck? How much additional radiator area do you need per additional ton of towing capacity (overcoming momentum, not tongue weight that can easily be zero just get a four-wheeled trailer)? For manuals, that’s zero additional radiator area. For automatics, I’ll leave the maths to you.
And is the cooler in cars big enough to have noticeable towing capacity
Yes, it is. Do you realize that manufacturers publish a maximum towing capacity as part of their specifications for every vehicle? This is publicly available information, right there on the internet. It’s not a secret. The required surface area for the cooler is designed right in by the manufacturer for the transmission to work for the vehicle’s application. This not a case of something “extra” being added. It’s just how cars with automatic transmissions are built to begin with.
The published towing capacity for most vehicles that are available in both automatic and stick are exactly the same. Would you care to guess why that is? You could have figured it out for yourself if you would bother to actually do some extremely minimal internet research instead of continuing to shoot your mouth off on whatever this ill-informed little crusade of yours is.
Your initial claim is false. End of discussion. Just stop. You’re making a fool of yourself.
Wow. The remaining 7,950,999,999 people on this planet now have something to be thankful for, because none of them are as wrong as you.
You clearly did not actually understand what your mechanic told you.
A transmission cooler is exactly what it sounds like. It is built exactly like a radiator and works the same way. It is mounted in front of or next to the radiator for the engine. On a lot of newer cars it is actually part of the main radiator. Transmission fluid flows through it and excess heat is dumped into the air. On many vehicles it’s also served by the radiator fan, i.e. for situations where the vehicle is not getting airflow because it’s not moving.
The torque converter is part of your automatic transmission literally operates by moving the transmission fluid. There is no separation between the transmission fluid used in the torque converter and the rest of the transmission where the hydraulic valves use it to actuate the clutch bands, etc. to shift gears. The same bath of transmission fluid is circulated through the torque converter, the rest of the transmission, and the transmission cooler.
This is not a truck thing. Even my dinkum Saturn SL I had when I was a teenager that was so pathetic it was literally made of plastic and did not crack 100 horsepower had a transmission cooler – as designed from the factory. The vast majority of passenger vehicles made in the last half century or more with automatic transmissions have transmission coolers built in. It has nothing to do with towing, either.
Your torque converter absolutely can be locked under acceleration and in fact, nearly all vehicles equipped with a locking torque converter do so as part of their normal shifting pattern when moving up through their gears. This is observable from the driver’s seat if you know what’s happening. The locking and unlocking of the torque converter feels like an “extra gear” in between the gears. Some Japanese cars from the 80’s have a “TC Locked” light on a dash that illuminates when the converter is locked and you can watch this happen in real time. The usual pattern is 1st gear, shift to 2nd gear, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 3rd, lock converter, unlock converter and shift to 4th, etc. A traditional automatic transmission only has 4 gear ratios, but it will feel like it has seven. Guess why.
Think about it real hard for a minute. A locked torque converter is the same, mechanically, as a fully engaged clutch. If you could not lock the torque converter during acceleration, by the same logic you would not be able to fully release the clutch pedal during acceleration on a manual transmission car, either. It is glaringly obvious that this is not the case.
I am not a “random lemming.” I have four decades of actual real world mechanical experience and have disassembled and rebuilt more transmissions, engines, and vehicles in general than you have probably sat in throughout your entire life.
Drop the mic, bro. You earned it.
Which stalls the motor under high torque load.
Tell us you didn’t read what I just wrote without telling us you didn’t read it.
The engine will only stall under load if it is at so low of an RPM that it is generating insufficient torque to overcome the inertia. Which if you are moving and in the correct gear for your speed is never.
Which is why your transmission has more than one gear.
Remember back 30 seconds ago when I told you to think? Actually try it this time. Or maybe plug some of your bullshit into Google first before continuing to make a fool of yourself in front of everybody.
In stop and go traffic it’s practically always. The car needs to be able to handle that, it can’t be rated higher than that situation.
Which is why automatics have torque converters and manuals have clutches. It’s almost like we’ve come full circle or something!
Millions and millions of vehicles are driving on the world’s roads right now, happily tooling along under the sound mechanical and physical principles known as “reality,” completely heedless of your apparent inability to understand it.
Yes and a manual can slip the clutch, it’s built for that. A torque converter can’t slip the lock, it’s not build for that, it has to stay open. And that generates a fuckton of heat.
And? Come on, you’re almost there. Just two more neurons to put together:
That’s why the transmission cooler is there.
Wrap up: Your original claim that Americans “can’t” tow due to predominantly driving automatic transmission cars, in addition to being an uncreative and tired thinly veiled attempt at insulting Americans, is not only wrong but also prima facie absurd.
And is the cooler in cars big enough to have noticeable towing capacity, or do you need a bigger one that only really fits a truck? How much additional radiator area do you need per additional ton of towing capacity (overcoming momentum, not tongue weight that can easily be zero just get a four-wheeled trailer)? For manuals, that’s zero additional radiator area. For automatics, I’ll leave the maths to you.
Yes, it is. Do you realize that manufacturers publish a maximum towing capacity as part of their specifications for every vehicle? This is publicly available information, right there on the internet. It’s not a secret. The required surface area for the cooler is designed right in by the manufacturer for the transmission to work for the vehicle’s application. This not a case of something “extra” being added. It’s just how cars with automatic transmissions are built to begin with.
The published towing capacity for most vehicles that are available in both automatic and stick are exactly the same. Would you care to guess why that is? You could have figured it out for yourself if you would bother to actually do some extremely minimal internet research instead of continuing to shoot your mouth off on whatever this ill-informed little crusade of yours is.
Your initial claim is false. End of discussion. Just stop. You’re making a fool of yourself.