[Miller88]

With no modification other than max PSI on stock tires!

We picked this car up for my fiancé as a DD in January 2020. It replaced a 2017 Sentra, we were planning on keeping the 17 but it got rear ended and fixed when it should have been totaled.

We all know what happened a few months after January. Fiance is permanent WFH. The car sits a lot. 19 months in and it has 5600 miles. Most of which I have put on.

Lately I have been using it to make a 140ish mile round trip to my parents every weekend to help take care of my father. I take the same route every weekend and fill up at the only gas station in town that won't cause my debit and credit card to get shut off.

It took a while, but I've learned to use and like the CVT. Of course Nissan wants to make it act like a stepped automatic but there's ways around that.

First, eco mode is useless. Like most vehicles it makes the pedal less responsive. But too much. Once you get to a point , it will just go crazy and Rev up and fake shift
That kills it all.

I've found to take off, the best thing for fuel economy is to take off as light as possible to get the torque converter to lock at 7MPH. Then increase throttle to low/moderate levels to get to speed, then let off hard once at speed.

Light throttle doesn't always work. I think it's programmed to think you're going to want to take off quickly so it'll hold higher revs. Low/moderate throttle will hold lower revs and act as a CVT should. However much more and it will fake shift.

Heavier throttle right from takeoff doesn't work because it will keep the torque converter unlocked until after the high range shift or it will unlock, shift, lock- yes this has a 2 speed planetary. Low / mid throttle it will shift with the converter locked. And the fake shifts , high rpm thing that nissan CVTs love.

This car can coast great! The tac doesn't really react well but as far as I can tell it keeps the torque converter locked most of the time at highway speeds. The car is light, relatively aerodynamic and the terrible continental tires have lower rolling resistance.

I don't have a way to tell if it does DFCO, but longer coasting does help a lot. It has NO engine braking and seems to immediately go to a higher ratio when trying to slow down. That allows it to roll further.

I have also found if I stay on the pedal the least little bit and slow down, it'll hold 1100 RPM at 35 through towns!

The route I'm taking has about 10 stoplights and goes through Rome NY. Relatively flat except a climb of elevation from Rome to where my parents are.

There's quite a few speed zones. But I canslow into them and ease out of them at low RPM.

All state highways. Max speed of 55mph. If I keep it at or under 55 it works out well.

The last four times I've made the trip I got
43
46.3
44.1
42.8


Without trying or knowing how to drive the CVT I used to get 32 to 35 out of the car doing this.