lsxjunkie

Indeed. They went all in on developing their CVT tech. I have had three of them now, and they continue to get incrementally better. The 13 Legacy was really rubber-band like, with no simulated gears. It may have been more efficient, but it was really terrible to drive. We returned that on a 15 Legacy, which was mostly inoffensive. I now have an 18 Impreza, and the CVT pretty much behaves like a lazy automatic. The only gripe I really have about it is that the car is tuned to leave the throttle open when you let off at highway speeds. The coasting took a lot to get used to and I find myself using the brake more often than I like, because people around here cannot pick a constant speed to travel down the interstate. As I understand it, that behavior is intentional to improve fuel economy. I wish I could control my speed like I could in my manual cars. Lift=Deceleration.

Honestly, I'd be happy with a good rev-matching automatic 8 spd, like the Aisin in the Lexuses or the ZF 8HP in everything else. I really like radar cruise control. It takes a lot of the fatigue out of a 90 mile per day commute, especially when I hit stop-and-go traffic on the highway. Manuals are incompatible with 0-mph radar cruise control.