To me, in the Mirage, it's not about manual vs automatic. It about reliability vs transmission anxiety. I actually do enjoy rowing gears and keeping the engine in it's happy zone. Getting the performance I seek from the engine by connecting my brain to the transmission it is enjoyable. See the last paragraph in relation to this.
Yet, when I get in my ole crusty automatic 2003 Camry, there is little to no transmission anxiety. And there is no (sub-conscious) wincing when the transmission shifts too soon to the next gear every time, or when it doesn't shift down in anticipation to what I see coming. The old school Toyota 4 speed automatic overdrive transmission is the best automatic transmission I have driven. I think that car too would be better with a manual transmission, but I find myself satisfied while driving it. This must have been the last transmission developed prior to the current race to the 100 speed automatic that get's fully into 100th gear by 9 mph, that is currently underway. Even my Lexus is completely annoying. It is an 8 speed, that I manually lock out to 6th gear for around town driving.
I hooked up my BT connector to the Mirage and looked at various data while driving. This car is doing a couple things I didn't expect. My understanding was that in a manual transmission, when in gear and coasting speed down, the computer is injecting 0 fuel when above idle speed (no accelerator). But according to the data I saw, this doesn't seem to be true. I believe this to be true to with a diesel (with no throttle valve), but with the Mirage, maybe it is not true. The point being that coasting down the speed in 5th gear is actually more fuel efficient than down shifting and coasting down. However the difference is going to be VERY small. And I noticed that this engine seems to be tuned to run just a hair rich under most conditions. Which is the safer / more powerful side to tune to. Gonna need a bit more time staring at my smartphone while driving the Mirage to know for sure. Getting off topic here, sorry.
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View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.0 mpg (Imp)