Kizashi Club

I just purchased and received a new 2011 Kizashi S CVT FWD. I've got a few issues I'd like to know more about:

1. When driving in a stop and go manner, the CVT has a tendency to jerk on starting. The jerk is doesn't push the car forward but is definitely noticeable. It happens as well if I'm starting from a complete stop hard on the pedal but occurs in stop and go driving regardless of how hard I am on the throttle.

2. The car has a tendency to settle into an RPM range of about 1300 to 1500 when I'm not accelerating and the engine has a tendency to rumble quite noticeably here. I can drop the RPM slightly by pulling my foot from the pedal to the point where the car is just barely maintaining its current velocity and it stops rumbling or I can accelerate more and push it to a higher RPM which also does not rumble. However there seems to be a fairly large range in the throttle that basically causes the engine to consume gas and rumble but not really accelerate the car.

Both are typical of CVT, which works the car COMPLETELY different than an old skool transmission.

With a CVT, the engine RPM can be set where it wants to be for either best efficiency or best power, and then vary the gear ratio to make the speed.

It will get better as you get used to it, and the CVT breaks in.

Unfortunately it's something you will have to live with, it drives me crazy!

If you are on the open road and can accelerate to a reasonable speed the CVT works fine, if you are stuck in traffic it's a b***h.

When I test drove the car I unfortunately didn't drive it in traffic (my mistake) and when I got my car I thought it had a problem!
When I pursued my concerns with Suzuki that the level of vibration I was experiencing wasn't what their advertising promised, a smooth sofisticated driving experience, I was told that it was a "characterisic" of the the car and there was nothing they could or would do about it.

I have resorted to driving my "auto" car in manual mode while in traffic and even then I have found that the ratios chosen for the manual shift points are poorly chosen, IMHO, with 1-4 being very close together, a big gap to 5th and a huge gap to 6th.

It's a shame that this problem (or "characteristic"), together with poor fuel consumption, has totally spoiled my enjoyment of an otherwise very nice car.

The tranny does seem to be a bit prone to getting "stuck" in either acceleration mode or cruise mode. I have found a slight blip of the throttle "resets" it, but then generally, the programming seems to match my driving style - I don't have to do that often.

I wonder if using the paddles perpetuates the problem because the ECU won't learn your driving style. I practically never use mine.

The stop-and-go jerk is a bit annoying. I commute into Manhattan where it is sometimes like that nearly the whole drive. I have tried manual mode, but I can't keep it in 2 for easy rolling. On my BMW, the Tiptronic would make 2 the lowest gear in Manual mode. Not so with the Suzuki.