We just took my wife's '20 Fit on it's first long highway drive and I noticed when driving up long hills at highway speed, the RPMs will fluctuate. For example, depending on the steepness of the hill, the RPMs will be at 2800 and then "wind up" to 3300, then drop back to 2800 and repeat the increase/decrease process the whole time that some extra torque is needed for the hill.

This is my only experience driving a car with a CVT, so I'm just wondering - Is this normal for the Fit with CVT?

 

Normal. Also wind affects rpms too.

 

No idea.... have only had one brief experience with a CVT in a cheap rental, Nissan Versa, perhaps, was a huge turnoff to me....our son has a’19 Civic Sport w/CVT, he likes it... it’s a nice car.... still rowing my own gears here on our ‘15 Fit LX. Am sure I can get used to a CVT, but it’s such an odd sensation for this old man

 

I've owned my 2018 Sport w/CVT for about 4 months now. I don't find that my CVT "fluctuates" outside of a few predicable situations.

1. If I'm driving on a flat surface, and begin going up a steeper hill. Even if I don't increase throttle, the RPMs will climb a bit even before the car has a chance to slow down from the climb (indicating to me the car is using an accelerometer to know it's now going up hill)
2. If I am using cruise control and start to climb up any hill that causes a reduction in speed, the RPM will climb as the car increases throttle to maintain speed.
3. If I'm cruising on a flat road, and increase throttle to pass, the RPMs will climb.

I'm pointing these out because I want to emphasize your use of the word "fluctuate". When you say that, I envision the RPMs moving between 2800 and 3300 several times on the same hill. While the RPM would climb on mine, it would go to 3300 and stay there until I came to the top of the hill and eased off of the throttle. It wouldn't bounce back and forth. If that's what you are experiencing, I would say that's a bit abnormal*.

*This is also my first CVT, so I'm learning as well. Take that with a grain of salt.

 

Yes, this one will have the RPMs go up and down several times on the same hill. It's as if I'm giving it a little accelerator pressure and then letting off repeatedly.

 

I certainly have not observed that behavior with my 2018 CVT. I think if mine was doing that, it would drive me a bit batty.

I'm curious for you to try something. Next time you come up on an instance where it would do this, what if you go into sport mode and manually select a "gear" with the paddle shifters? Do the RPM fluctuate in that case?

 

It's an LX so no paddle shifters. But I had thought of just trying it in sport mode where it just holds the RPMs higher. We'll be on the road again Saturday driving 800 miles straight through so I'll have plenty of opportunity to experiment.

 

I expect it's something that those who keep their revs up never notice. On another highway drive yesterday, I tried with and without ECO mode and the RPMs cycled up and down either way. But putting it in sport mode (LX, no paddle shifters) so the RPMs are held higher there were no fluctuations.