Last week I traded the Exeo with our Sister title AM for their long term Grand CMAX.

The reason for this swap was a long haul trip to Scotland for the school holidays and I needed the space of a 7-seater for the six people plus associated winter luggage for the 1000 mile round trip. The change of car gave me a chance to compare the CMAX automatic gearbox to the multitronic one fitted to the Exeo.

The Exeo wins hands down. It’s not that the CMAX’s auto box is bad, in fact it is very good and behaves just as you would expect a modern automatic to the Exeo’s however is just a step above, in all but the fastest of acceleration there is no obvious change between gears, it really is that smooth, in stead the power is delivered in a constant monotone wave with only a light change felt if you really have your foot planted. This got me wondering about how it does it.

Multitronic offers a stepless automatic transmission in which the ratio between the input shaft and output shaft can be varied continuously within a given range, providing virtually an infinite number of possible ratios* This means that the engine should always be operating at its most efficient. Clever stuff.

Something that the CMAX offered that the EXEO doesn’t (and something that I’ve really missed since being back in the EXEO) is the keyless start. It wasn’t that long ago when having a remote fob with flip out key was enough but having used the CMAX for a week and just being able to get in and press a button, it now feels such a chore to flip out the EXEOs key, put it in the ignition and turn it, how quickly things move on.

*Source Wikipedia

Author: Luke Neal