Vauxhall CORSA EASYTRONIC RANGE

Vauxhalls Little Corsa Has A Clever Gearbox Option For Manual Moaners. Jonathan Crouch Reports

The next time you're stuck in a city traffic jam, think how much easier it would be if your car had automatic transmission. If you already have it, wait until an empty open road beckons and think how much more pleasurable it would be to have a manual gearbox.

You can't have the best of both worlds of course - or can you ? Vauxhall reckon so. Their clever new Easytronic gearbox, now offered for a modest premium of around £450 in the 1.0, 1.2 and 1.

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3-litre CDTi versions of their Corsa supermini (priced from £9,315), promises to offer all the advantages of an automatic with none of the drawbacks. It's a bold claim that carries the promise of a potential sales jackpot for the General Motors company if they really have got it right. Bear in mind that a driver often de-clutches up to eighty times in one mile of stop-start traffic, with a muscular effort of 10-15kg each time; so in one mile, your left leg may displace as much as 1,200kg. That's theory; this is fact. In the American emissions test, which includes 12km of urban driving, it's been officially established that the driver of a manual gearbox car displaces the equivalent of seven tonnes with his left leg. On the face of it then, the market in small cheap cars for a gearbox that combines the ease of an automatic with the satisfaction of a `stick shift` ought to be huge. It's hard not to be sceptical of course. There have, after all, been some woeful previous attempts at the `semi-automatic` concept. Twenty years ago, the NSU Ro80 pioneered a two-pedal arrangement, where the electric clutch was built into the gear lever. It cured early users of one bad habit; every time you rested your hand on the gearknob, it responded by jumping gears.

"All the advantages of an automatic - with none of the drawbacks..."

Vauxhalls two-pedal semi-automatic `Easytronic` system is rather different. Leave it in automatic mode and electronics determine the ideal gear ratio for the actual operating conditions and control the shifting process. Which is why youll use less fuel with Easytronic in auto than you would in an equivalent manual Corsa with the same engine. As with conventional automatic transmission, Easytronic lowers engine torque slightly during the shift, to give a softer, more comfortable gear change.

Theres a rapid response to kickdown commands and its possible to skip several gears for instance, to shift down directly from fifth to second when overtaking. The system also recognises unusual driving conditions (such as uphill or downhill gradients or towing a trailer) and reacts with a modified shift pattern. And, like a conventional auto, Easytronic has a Winter mode that makes it possible to drive off from a standstill with particularly gentle use of the throttle. If you want to shift gears yourself, its as simple as moving the shift lever out of the auto setting and pushing it forward (to change up) or pulling it back (to change down).

You can do that of course with many of the automatic gearboxes you find in luxury cars, but these are based on fully automatic gearboxes with their penalties of poor performance and higher fuel consumption. Easytronic is based on a fully manual set-up which is why the fuel consumption penalties are so nominal and why the option price is so cheap. Here, technology takes over the clutch withdrawal and engagement processes. Intelligent electronics rule out inadvertent abuse, such as down-shifts when the engine speed is too high or extended driving at excessively high engine speeds in low gear.

Should the ABS system be activated by sudden braking, Easytronic reacts just like an experienced driver. Regardless of which mode has been selected, it disengages the clutch. This decouples the driven front wheels from the engines drag torque and the available tyre grip is then used exclusively for optimum deceleration and maintaining directional stability. In braking, even in manual mode, Easytronic changes down through the gears in line with deceleration to avoid the risk of engine stall.

In automatic mode, down-shifts are made so that the car is in the most suitable hear for resuming acceleration. In either mode, when the driver brings the car to a complete halt by applying the brakes, Easytronic disengages the clutch. When the driver releases the brake, the car can creep forward, for easy manoeuvring at low speed and easier hill starts. So does it work ? Much to my surprise, the answer seems to be yes though there are a few reservations.

For a start, when you kickdown to overtake, the system does indeed change down a gear or two for rapid acceleration. The problem is that once thats happened, unlike a conventional automatic, the system doesnt resume its previous high gear which quickly becomes annoying. The second drawback is more predictable: 0-60mph times suffer by around a second in comparison to a full manual (13s as opposed to 12s in the 1.2-litre car). Mind you, thats a lot less of a penalty than youd suffer with a conventional automatic. The Easytronic system should be cheap to maintain too: the servo motors are simple window lift items, so replacements ought not to be expensive. Otherwise of course, the recipe is just as it is with anything else from the latest Corsa range where a re-sculpted front-end and updated engine technology have recently made a positive impact. The Corsa continues to prove extremely popular and the Easytronic system is about as good as these semi-auto systems get at the moment. Try it, you might like it.

FACTS AT A GLANCE

CAR: Vauxhall Corsa Easytronic range
PRICES: £9,315-£11,735 on the road
INSURANCE GROUPS: 2-4
PERFORMANCE: [1.2] 0-60mph 13s / Max Speed 108mph
FUEL CONSUMPTION: [1.2] (combined) 47mpg
STANDARD SAFETY FEATURES: Twin front airbags / ABS with EBA
WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE?: length/width/height 3817/1646/1440mm