Legendary Auto Transmissions that Were Truly Reliable

It’s quite difficult to imagine a modern car without an automatic transmission. Today, the vast majority of buyers primarily focus on vehicles with automatic gearboxes. However, the reliability of "automatics" still leaves much to be desired, at least relative to the old reliable manual transmission systems.

The question arises: are there cars on the market with automatics that are significantly more reliable than the average? The answer is yes. However, finding and acquiring such a vehicle might not be easy.

Mercedes-Benz 722.4

Today, this "old timer" is perhaps the most reliable automatic in automotive history. At least for now. Finding the 722.4 gearbox will be very challenging. The fact is, they were produced only until 1996.

This 4-speed automatic could be seen in cars such as the Mercedes-Benz C-Class (models W201 and W202), Mercedes-Benz E-Class (models W123 and W124), and Mercedes-Benz S-Class W126. The lifespan of the 722.4 gearbox exceeded an unbelievable 700 thousand km by today’s standards! There are known cases where certain units ran up to 1.5 million km. Yes, they don't make them like that anymore.

Jatco JF414E

Good automatic gearboxes are made not only by Germans but also by the Japanese. In the land of the rising sun, there is a company called Jatco. This company has helped manufacturers worldwide develop and produce "boxes" many times. Jatco has many creations, some are remarkably unsuccessful, and others are exceptionally good.

One of the best is still considered the JF414E automatic transmission, designed to work with 1.3 and 1.6-liter engines. This gearbox is quite reliable. The normal lifespan is 300 thousand km. The JF414E can be found in cars like the Nissan Almera, Mazda (models 2, 3, 5, and 6), Ford Focus, Ford Fiesta, and Ford I-Max. Additionally, the Japanese transmission was installed in the Datsun on-Do and Datsun mi-Do.

GM 5L40E

However, there's something truly worthy in the portfolio of engineers from the USA as well. In 2010, General Motors introduced its new 5-speed automatic transmission, the 5L40E. And surprisingly, this thing turned out to be incredibly reliable. The lifespan is no less than 400 thousand km.

Furthermore, the gearbox works relatively quickly. This pride of William Durant can be seen primarily in Cadillac CTS and Cadillac STS cars. Additionally, the gearboxes were fitted for some time in BMW cars: the 3-Series E46, 5-Series E39, and Z3 E36.

Aisin U340E

If anyone has come to think that truly high-quality automatic gearboxes are primarily found in expensive cars, that’s not the case. A bright example of this is the hydromechanical automatic Aisin U340E, which was developed with the involvement of Toyota specialists.

This 4-speed gearbox was produced from 1990 to 2013 and was installed on a wide range of medium and budget-priced vehicles. The most notable representatives were Toyota cars: Yaris, Avensis, Matrix, and, of course, Corolla. The gearbox worked with 1.3 and 1.8-liter engines. The transmission's lifespan was no less than 300 thousand km.