[Willowtalk]

Hello everyone!

I'm new to the forums and we just placed our order for our new Santa Cruz last week we went with the fully loaded Sage Grey and with green on the inside to match! hopefully us Canadian will have ours in our hands soon we are so pumped as I have been watching this truck since 2015!

Now I have some question about towing with the DCT little bit of back story I used to have a 2019 GMC terrain with the 2.0T witch gave ups 3500 towing rating now with the GMC we had a tow haul mode so it made things easier as I didn't have to lock the gears or anything like that to keep the tranny out of the overdrive gears as it was a 8 speed sadly we where in a car crash and we lost our terrain so moving forward me and the wife wanted something a bit bigger and could tow more and since I was following the Santa Cruz close told the wife that it can tow 5000 and we should go test drive it after that it was history haha

Now what I want to know is we have a little 1300 pound tent trailer nothing crazy shouldn't give the Cruz any issues at all and I have looked around and cant really find much about towing with a DCT so here's my questions

1. Do DCT have overdrive gears and if so should you have it in sport mode to lock the tranny out of 7 & 8?
2. Creeping in R will this be a issue for the DCT? as you know backing up a trailer can be tricky at time and something you need to go slow is there a way to lock the DCT in R so you don't overheat the gear or dose the DCT lock itself in R when you put the truck in R? or how dose this work (New to the DCT world)
3. Backing up on a bit of a hill also will this be hard on the DCT as when I park my Trailer I park it on a driveway the incline is not very big at all
4. Going down and up hills is it smart to downshift when going up hills or will the DCT do this on its own or should I be doing this myself?
5. When towing the trailer I seen on the Santa Cruz manual it says to put the truck in Drive and go is this the right way of doing it Since there's no tow haul mode?
6.We will only be towing in the summer time so about for 4 to 5 months of the year will this put a lot of stress on the DCT over time or will we be ok?
7. We do plan on upgrading to a bigger trailer what do you guys think the max save loaded weight would be for a small travel trailer I would think 3000 dry and 3500 loaded would be kind of the max weight I would want to go after that i feel like your kind of pushing it there

Thank you everyone for taking the time to read over this and all the feedback you might have I really want this truck to do us good and last a long time for us and want to get as much info as I can as I cant really find much about towing with a DCT

 

[JMII]

I'm in the same boat... literally because the main reason I'm getting a SC is for towing a boat (2,500lbs). I've done this task for the last 20 years using a V8 Dodge Dakota 2WD auto with the tow package.

#1 - per the listed gear ratios 5, 6, 7 & 8 are all over drive. Not sure Sport locks out 7 & 8, the paddles should allow you to downshift if needed but the programming will likely up-shift soon after to save fuel.
#2 & 3 - are big worries of mine too. My driveway has a slight incline and I only have inches to spare when getting my boat back into my garage, thus I can't have any jerky movements or slippage.
#4 - I would leave it alone, its designed to work like a traditional automatic from the driver's point of view. The SC does have hill descent control.
#5 - see #4, your right no tow mode. I assume it will tow better in Sport mode just due to more aggressive shift points.
#6 - big unknown in my book, I've never seen any long term reports of towing with a DCT.
#7 - SC with the turbo and trailer brakes is rated to tow 5,000lb. I wouldn't push that limit, mid 3k to lower 4k seems reasonable. The SC weights 4k towing anymore then that is basically doubling the weight which seems unreasonable for a 4 cylinder uni-body vehicle regardless of its "rating".

A DCT is basically a manual transmission with automated clutch. I know several people who (back in the day) towed with manual (stick shift) trucks with no issues, thus I am not too worried about the DCT once up to speed and in gear. The problem will be slow crawling in 1st or reverse where the DCT has to automatically slip the clutch for you.

 

[Willowtalk]

Thank you so much for the feedback! a other thing I forgot to ask was because its a Wet DCT dose that system kind of act like a tranny cooler for the tranny meaning I wouldn't have to look to add a cooler to the truck later on?

 

[Walking Black Bear]

I believe that's the main reason Hyundai went to a wet DCT setup - there was definitely some overheating with the 7 speed dry DCT if you were doing anything offroad that needed slow crawling on inclines. I haven't seen anything at all about overheating with the wet DCT as of yet. I'm sure if it's going to happen, it'll be someone with a Santa Cruz pushing it there! LOL

 

[zroger73]

Thank you so much for the feedback! a other thing I forgot to ask was because its a Wet DCT dose that system kind of act like a tranny cooler for the tranny meaning I wouldn't have to look to add a cooler to the truck later on?

Friction is friction. A given amount of slip will generate the same amount of heat in both a dry and wet clutch. A wet clutch allows the heat to be transferred more quickly to the transmission fluid instead of more slowly to the air inside the bell housing. However, a wet clutch will still wear and shed clutch material while slipping just like a dry clutch, but the particles become suspended in the transmission fluid instead of accumulating inside a bell housing.

Both wet and dry clutches have a limited life which decreases as slip increases. More weight, more creeping, and more power results in more clutch wear and shorter clutch life. A torque converter like the one in the "regular" 8-speed automatic in the non-turbo Santa Cruz is a type of fluid coupling which generates heat when there is a difference in rotation speed, but it does not wear like a wet or dry friction clutch.

By the time a wet or dry clutch wears out, chances are you'll no longer own the vehicle.

 

[Willowtalk]

Friction is friction. A given amount of slip will generate the same amount of heat in both a dry and wet clutch. A wet clutch allows the heat to be transferred more quickly to the transmission fluid instead of more slowly to the air inside the bell housing. However, a wet clutch will still wear and shed clutch material while slipping just like a dry clutch, but the particles become suspended in the transmission fluid instead of accumulating inside a bell housing.

Both wet and dry clutches have a limited life which decreases as slip increases. More weight, more creeping, and more power results in more clutch wear and shorter clutch life. A torque converter like the one in the "regular" 8-speed automatic in the non-turbo Santa Cruz is a type of fluid coupling which generates heat when there is a difference in rotation speed, but it does not wear like a wet or dry friction clutch.

By the time a wet or dry clutch wears out, chances are you'll no longer own the vehicle.

Thank you very much dude that makes me feel that much better!

 

[modshack]

Ran the **** out of My Veloster with the DCT last weekend. Technical mountain roads, much downshifting and gear holding... No High Heat warnings at all.....

 

[zroger73]

Ran the **** out of My Veloster with the DCT last weekend. Technical mountain roads, much downshifting and gear holding... No High Heat warnings at all.....

Well, I would hope so.

Now, hang 5,000 lbs. off the back and perform that test again.

 

[JMII]

A torque converter like the one in the "regular" 8-speed automatic in the non-turbo Santa Cruz is a type of fluid coupling which generates heat when there is a difference in rotation speed, but it does not wear like a wet or dry friction clutch.

By the time a wet or dry clutch wears out, chances are you'll no longer own the vehicle.

Agreed. While a standard torque converter doesn't wear the fluid does become damaged due to the heat cycling. I assume that doing normal fluid changes (standard maintenance) on a wet clutch serves the same purpose as with a standard automatic - and thus will help in the long term. I know with my traditional automatic in my Dakota it often disengaged the lock up in the converter under even slight acceleration or elevation changes. In such conditions tranny temps would increase but the Dakota has a tranny cooler to help manage this. With the DCT it will just downshift in the same conditions. The DCT has a cooler, but its built into the unit and not a separate cooler like my Dakota has as far as I know.

Once again if you think of a DCT a just an automatically engaged standard manual using a friction plate clutch you can start to understand what the advantages and disadvantages are. I've never worn out a clutch in 75-100k worth of use in various cars. This includes my 350Z which saw 5 years worth of random track days. With that said I've never used a manual transmission for towing but know several people who did, none of them burned out a clutch either.

I believe most of the DCT wear and tear will occur in 1st and reverse, but once up to speed any gear changes should result in minimal heat or wear. In theory steady cruising with a DCT should be no problem at all, since the gears are engaged (locked) while the clutch itself is completely disengaged (just like any stick shift vehicle).