I just bought a 05 CVT convertible and noticed something strange about that tranny.
Taking off from a full stop makes the car hesitate as if someone is not using the clutch correctly on a 5 speed... but move the lever to the right for sport mode and the car takes off smoothly.
CAN the car be reprogrammed somehow so that the normal takeoff uses the same algorithm as does the sport mode?

 

I had asked the same question when I got mine. However, I notice a slight hesitation in either mode. Others here told me this was normal and this is the way it's spoda be. Why haven't any other automatic transmission cars I've owned in the past do this as well?

Anyways, I would like to know if this can be minimized/eliminated as well.

 

I went through this in March when I bought my daughter her first car... an '03 CVT.

Two things I've learned from others here:

1) the transmission will, over time, learn your style of driving and adapt to it... if you'll just go ahead and punch it a little (you don't have to do it a lot) on take-off, over the course of a couple of months, this hesitation will minimize itself.... show it how you want to drive and it will learn.

2) if you can't wait that long, you can take it to your dealer and have them "flash" the memory in the ECU... supposedly this will cause the car to completely forget about how it was driven in the past and learn your style of driving much, much quicker.

We went with #1 above... strange but true, that hesitation really did go away in normal mode.

And as most other CVT owners will tell you, yes, the hesitation is normal... nothing wrong with it or you.