Rougue SL AWD. Location western Canada, flat as a pizza pan. Temperatures range from -10C to -25C. Driving surface frozen, packed snow, ice. Winter tires on car with 33PSI. Strictly city driving, some open road with 80-90kmh speeds. Not too much warming up, 5 minutes max. Computer is showing 14L/100 km or about 16mpg. Lucky if I can get 350 - 360kms on a tank of fuel. This is the Rogue that had knocking in engine and had a new one installed few weeks ago.
I am not sure how CVT is supposed to behave. Driving from cold, it keeps RPM around 2000 - 2500, less when coasting. After few minutes it warms up and it drops it down to around 1200 rpm. Gentle acceleration does not get the rpm up, it sticks to about 1500 and stays there. I have to go over half throttle, and it will eventually rev up to 2500 - 3000, even that will take 3-4 seconds of pedal down. Is this how it is supposed to behave? I am not sure that low rpm is actually optimal operating range. I can drive around if not accelerating briskly and it will never go over 1500. Perhaps I should drive a loaner and compare. Replies welcome.
New engine, gas mileage, and about CVT behavior
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kerrton
- Posts: 2161
- Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2008 8:48 am
- Car: 2008 Nissan Rogue SL FWD Gotham Gray
- Location: Southern Alberta, Canada
Re: New engine, gas mileage, and about CVT behavior
Hi there,
I'm in Alberta and drive mostly in the city so I have very similar driving conditions as you.
The CVT holding rpms around 1200 to 1400 under light accerlation and light load (i.e. flat road) sounds bang on and as I understand it is the primary reason for the excellent city mileage that most owners experience. It is the equivalent of driving around in a very high gear, such as 5th gear in a manual shift while going only 50-60 km/hr. This also produces a bit of a vibration that many have worried about and often complained about, myself included when I was a new owner.
BUT, if you step down on the gas peddle the rpms should almost immediately jump up over 2000 as the CVT very quickly selects a lower gear. The CVT tendancy to stay in a high gearing with low rpms is normal but if you step down even to half throttle your rpms should increase immediately and the car should take off. The 3 to 4 second delay that you are describing definately does not sound right, not even close. I'd report this back to your service guys and stress that it takes 4 seconds for the transmission to respond and I'm sure they'll see this as a major red flag of a problem.
Also if you could get them to let you test drive another Rogue on the lot I think this would really help you compare and most likely realize that your Rogue is not running correctly. Give that service dept. a call and please let us know how this turns out because I'm sure your car requires more diagnosis and repair to correc this.
I'm in Alberta and drive mostly in the city so I have very similar driving conditions as you.
The CVT holding rpms around 1200 to 1400 under light accerlation and light load (i.e. flat road) sounds bang on and as I understand it is the primary reason for the excellent city mileage that most owners experience. It is the equivalent of driving around in a very high gear, such as 5th gear in a manual shift while going only 50-60 km/hr. This also produces a bit of a vibration that many have worried about and often complained about, myself included when I was a new owner.
BUT, if you step down on the gas peddle the rpms should almost immediately jump up over 2000 as the CVT very quickly selects a lower gear. The CVT tendancy to stay in a high gearing with low rpms is normal but if you step down even to half throttle your rpms should increase immediately and the car should take off. The 3 to 4 second delay that you are describing definately does not sound right, not even close. I'd report this back to your service guys and stress that it takes 4 seconds for the transmission to respond and I'm sure they'll see this as a major red flag of a problem.
Also if you could get them to let you test drive another Rogue on the lot I think this would really help you compare and most likely realize that your Rogue is not running correctly. Give that service dept. a call and please let us know how this turns out because I'm sure your car requires more diagnosis and repair to correc this.