I've maintained a fleet of Mirages with the scary cvt since late 2014....I've seen a bunch of failures. The fleet cars are beat to **** everyday though. If we had 5 speeds I'd be replacing clutches, transmissions and axles. The theory is the cvt lasts longer in the Mirage cause it's lighter and has far less power than other cars that use the same cvt. Seems legit.
I finally broke down and bought a low mileage 2014 cvt about a year ago cause I needed something cheap on gas that wouldn't break down on me, and was cheap and easy to maintain. My engine is pretty ticky sometimes but so are a few of the 2015 Mirages at work and they've been like that for years with no sign of stopping.If it gets too annoying I'll just buy a used one for $500 and replace it one weekend. I've actually never replaced a Mirage engine. None of them leak oil or coolant and never have except for the odd one that took a rock in the rad by fluke.
In the fleet we also have some 2015-2020 Nissan nv200's and 2012-2013 Sonics. I prefer the Mirages over the other. The Sonics do have a lot more power and handle better on the highway but suck in every other way. Timing belt, non serviceable transmission, constantly wearing out sway bar links, axles, oil leaks, coolant leaks, just ****ty cars. The Nv200's are holding together drivetrain wise but just suck to work on, the belt is a pita to replace and so are spark plugs. And there are lots of little things that fail like wiper transmissions, heater motors, windows don't work in the cold.
If you can find a good deal on a Mirage I'd go for it. They probably won't drive as nice as a Versa but the cost of ownership will likely be far less than most other vehicles on the road. Except for insurance, they aren't the cheapest to insure.
As already mentioned, these are written off cause they're cheap cars to begin with and it doesn't take much for the cost to repair to be more than the value of the car. But these are easy to repair, the entire rad support just unbolts from the frame rails.
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View my fuel log 2014 Mirage SE wussie cvt edition. 1.2 automatic: 37.7 mpg (US) ... 16.0 km/L ... 6.2 L/100 km ... 45.3 mpg (Imp)