
Originally Posted by
palebeachbum
I can personally attest from first hand experiencing owning a Versa for 2yrs and 56k miles that although it may be the same CVT that's in our Mirage, it feels, sounds and behaves like a totally different transmission. At speeds below 40mph or so, the Versa CVT emits a soft whistling noise. When taking off from a stop, it sometimes makes creaking and popping noises. It employs automatic engine braking when traversing downhill while letting off the gas, and has a weird delay and kickdown sensation when taking off from a stop. It also feels like it has a locking torque converter at highway speeds. Engine Rpms don't vary at all when cruising on hilly interstates like it does in the Mirage. Its a much better highway car for that reason, but failure prone and a bad quality car. I suspect there are a lot of changes to the software that manages the CVT behavior, since they're the same CVT, yet behave so differently.
I agree with your assessment of differences in programming on the CVT. I think that Mitsubishi engineers obviously put some thought into the process and wrote some decent software for the CVT. Since the the JATCO CVT7 is used in a variety of small cars it has really been problem free for the most part around the world in the Mirage. Now in the Spark & Versa it has been a real problem with lots of premature failures and drive-ability issues. Could an extra 30 hp cause all the premature failures on it's own? It obviously might be a contributor but I believe that the primary factor is substandard software that causes over stressing and heating issues which of course will shorten the life of any transmission dramatically.
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View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 automatic: 40.5 mpg (US) ... 17.2 km/L ... 5.8 L/100 km ... 48.6 mpg (Imp)