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Honest (non-biased) opinion needed

2K views 13 replies 13 participants last post by  Cooper76 
I absolutely love my CVT MINI. It's no stoplight to stoplight racer, but performs well enough. I have noticed that when loaded down with people or weight, it does perform much much much better than any other small engined regular automatic car. By a long shot. Going up hills is first rate and could not be better as it just keeps pulling and it does this without the drama of other small engined cars having to downshift to a lower gear and creating a stressfull surge of power. Whereas the CVT is smooth and undramatic, just the way you want to get up a hill.

When I first got my CVT, I drove in the normal D mode, which was ok -- hey, it's a MINI so it's better than ok. Then, after 3k miles, I started driving in steptronic (manual mode) occassionally by shifting up and down just like a standard transmission, and it was really great. The off the line acceleration was not any better than in D mode, but the joy of driving was back big time. Lately I have been driving in the sport mode, which is just as awesome as the steptronic, but is faster off the line, so that is really cool. Sport mode just has more power, but is still an automatic mode. For freeway cruising, you can put it in D mode for the lowest RPMs. So, you have a lot of flexibility with the CVT.

Something you may not realize or appreciate until you drive it for awhile is it's extreme engine braking, which is just as awesome as going fast. The car slows down better than any other car I've ever driven, just by taking your foot off the gas, which is great for stop and go traffic as you only need to hang back just a little and may not have to hit the brake at all but still keeping up with the slow bumper to bumper traffic. That is the most amazing thing of all to me, as I live in a large city with a lot of slow traffic at times.

I recommend the CVT highly. For all the above reasons, I prefer this CVT to the auto MCS (although it's not out yet and no one knows how it will perform). I also have bad knees and cannot drive a stick for too long at one time, so I can empathize with your situation. I would prefer to drive a stick, but don't want to put myself in the postion of having to always drive one. With the CVT you can have the fun of shifting without the pain. One more thing -- the CVT in steptronic manual mode can be a quick shift, just like a sequential manual transmission, which adds immensely to the driving pleasure. It is not always a quick shift, but when it is it is marvelous, as you can accelerate immediately and feel it pull. To me, it seems to shift quick between 3k to 4k RPMs. When I shift at lower RPMs than that it is not as crisp for some reason. The CVT is definitely a great drive. :cool: Good luck in your decision. Whatever you choose, you will still be in a MINI. :D
 
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