Metro Gray
Member
Where are you pulling that 98% number from?
I shift smoothly in this car all the time. I also have bad days where I don't. More bad days than I do in my other comparatively soft Mazda3, but that's what happens when you have a clutch that is more of a light switch than it is progressive. It's not surprising that an aggressive, grabby clutch with limited feedback like in our car doesn't lend itself to easy shifting or that the driver needs to pay more attention to being smooth, but don't go around saying no one can shift smoothly. Many of us can. Many of us do. Many of us don't blame electronic nannies on days when we don't.
Sorry about the 5spd/6spd comment (doh)
You're right, the car can be driven smoothly but it really does require your attention to do so. Its not nearly as natural as other MT's I've driven although I will admit that its part of the cars charm. Seems every great performance car has its quirks and I think this happens to be the MS3's quirk. Even with DSC Off I've had jerky starts but it happens infrequently and I don't really need to pay attention to the shifting with the DSC off.
Maybe it is a placebo affect as somone mentioned before, doesn't matter because it works for me.