Hi, I'm interested in possibly getting a Mirage to use for my business and much prefer a manual transmission. I went down to one of the dealers and they had a stick shift in the showroom. I began shifting the car, with the clutch depressed, and was completely turned off with how poorly it changed gears. It had a difficult time engaging 3rd and the shifter sometimes felt/sounded like snapping plastics as it went through the gates. I was so disgusted with the shift feel and the fact that there were NO salesmen around to offer a test drive that I left. What I'm wondering is if this car was an anomaly? How do manual owners in here feel their cars shift? Are these cars cable or rod linkages (I know the clutch is a cable)?

I really want to like the Mirage as its perfect for my food delivery business. Right now I'm using a 97 Saturn SL with 211,500 so she is on her last legs and I'm getting scared depending on her (I do have a Fiat 500 turbo as back up but that's my toy car). But compared to my Saturn's well worn but solid shifting cable shifter, the Mirage's just felt very sloppy and didn't like going into gear. It was bad enough that it would ruin my driving enjoyment of the car. I'm hoping you guys in here can convince me that car was just screwed up and to give it another look. I was also real mad I missed the cyber Monday deal that one dealer had here ($9968 for a red DE manual, of course that doesn't include their $799 dealer fee but its still a good deal).