I spoke with a service rep at a mini dealer in Canada today and he recommended that I shift into manual mode while in the city and shift back to regular auto mode while on the highway (2005 mini cooper non-S automatic CVT).

He said that this would allow the CVT to adjust to the city / hwy driving and it may help to avoid future service issues, etc. (preventative). He mentioned that I did not actually have to manually shift the gears while in manual / sport mode, he simply suggested that it be shifted to the right.

Has anyone else heard of doing this? I'm all for anything that will help keep the CVT transmission healthy.

 

Nope, I've never heard of this and I've read every post in here on CVT's. Sport Mode is for quick acceleration and pulling away from some redneck in a pick'emup that's tailgating you. (Jaw dropping acceleration.) Just watch you don't go over 100MPH to quickly.

The only things I know of that you need to do is change the transmission fluid every 25-30K. This gets any metal particulates out of your fluid and keeps the CVT running smoothly.

I usually drive in normal mode unless I'm passing, accelerating into traffic, or leaving some butthead trucker in the dust. You'll get the best gas mileage in normal mode. (I get 32MPG City)

 

Better fuel mileage seems to make sense to me. I'm still trying to understand exactly why the dealer may have said this to me. Recently I've read on another forum that:

"Drive delivers the best gas mileage, period. As a result, I move to "D" whenever I'm cruising on the freeway, or driving calm city streets between stop lights. You'll observe the tachometer is almost 900rpm lower in D; lower revs uses less gas. Why spend ANY money if it doesn't do something useful for you is the thought here, but there are some counter arguments. But, the computer is trying to keep the rpms lower in "D" so more transmission adjustments are needed which may be the "catching up" you mentioned. That was my iniitial frustration with the car".

http://www.mini2.com/forum/cvt-autom...chnique-2.html

From this I gathered that maybe the CVT is having to work harder if you drive in regular mode while in the city? Could it possibly be more efficient in SD for city driving?

The above link discussing 3 distinct driving methods using the CVT

1- Drive (regular mode)
2- Sport (SD mode) - not actually shifting
3- Treptonic (Shifting)

I wonder how much gas mileage would actually be saved by driving in Drive rather than SD for a casual city driver? Also, how much improvements in the health of the CVT, if any for using SD for city driving?

 

I had a dealer recommend the nearly the same thing to address a problem with undesirable adaptations in the CVT. I had a problem where the CVT would suddenly move to a much lower ratio at highway speeds (60 - 70 mph) when I lifted the throttle. It would only go away if I got back on the throttle or slowed down below 60 mph. The dealer recommended I drive around in SD mode for a few days to resolve/prevent the problem. It improved the problem noticably, but did not make the problem go completely away. The transmission still lowers the ratio upon throttle lift, but not to the degree it used to (now 3,200 rpm instead of 4,200 rpm at 65 mph).