I have the CVT and much prefer it to a manual. I had never driven a CVT before the Mirage, and I heard horror stories about CVTs in other cars. The Mirage CVT is programmed to work perfectly to suit my driving. In normal driving, it is not difficult to stay under 2000 rpm while accelerating, even up to highway speeds. Of course cruising at highway speed is at much lower rpm than the manual. Then if there is a need for quick acceleration for merging or passing, pressing the pedal to the floor brings 5000 rpm almost immediately and it stays at 5000 rpm to whatever speed you want by changing the gear ratio. Driving the CVT takes some learning though. With a manual transmission, you choose the gear ratio and provide fuel to the engine with the accelerator pedal. With the CVT, the accelerator pedal is essentially a computer input device. Using the position of the pedal, the current speed of the car, the slope of the road, etc. the computer decides what rpm and what gear ratio is appropriate. When you learn what the computer will do under different circumstances, you can provide the right pressure on the pedal to get the result you want.
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View my fuel log 2014 Mirage SE 1.2 automatic: 46.4 mpg (US) ... 19.7 km/L ... 5.1 L/100 km ... 55.8 mpg (Imp)