i went to the local dealer today and test drove a 5MT on a set route of about 80 kms / 50 miles, which included highway and suburban driving, with just a small portion in the city. afterwards, i drove my mirage, which is a CVT. both were SE trim with climate control turned off. although i did not do the test to the same level of quality as metro, i did do the exact same route and made sure to do the same speeds at all points (whenever i was able). traffic was the same for both trips. my mileage was based on the reading from the display, not at-the-pump calculations, so take that for what it's worth.
the manual beat the CVT by about 2-3 mpg for the combined trip. i was surprised to find that it even beat the CVT on the highway. in both cars i cruised at 120 km/h (70mph) with CC enabled on the highway portion of the route. the revs in the MT were about 800 rpms higher at this speed, but it didn't seem to matter as far as the mileage was concerned. At 70 mph, the MT got 2 mpg better than the CVT.
i would just like to point out that BOTH of them got excellent mileage, with the MT averaging about 47 mpg (US) / 5 L/100 km for the entire trip and the CVT averaging about 45 mpg US / 5.2 L/100 km (both solidly higher than the "combined" EPA rating). so they're both great cars! and in defense of the CVT, the acceleration is just sooo much smoother. but, if you are obsessed with mileage, you will want to try out both of these transmissions and disregard the sticker mileage.
the dealership offered me an almost across the board trade if i was interested in exchanging the MT for my CVT, even though i already have 1000s of kms on it. the sad fact is that nobody (around here) wants MTs. nobody wants to sit in rush hour with a clutch. i'm considering doing it though because i really like MTs.
Last edited by MetroMPG; 04-28-2015 at 01:50 PM.
Reason: (added to title; link to city MPG test; some metric conversions)
Whitey!
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