I watch a lot of car reviews for fun and they all comment on cvt behavior. The only recent car I've heard of that actually acts like a cvt is the mitsubishi mir

I watch a lot of car reviews for fun and they all comment on cvt behavior. The only recent car I've heard of that actually acts like a cvt is the mitsubishi mirage (maybe all mitsus? I don't really see any reviews of them). Then there's the new impreza that sometimes acts like a cvt and sometimes fakes gear shifts. Apparently they used to behave to cvts but people hated that so they switched to faking gears. Maybe your car predates that, I don't know what year they started doing that non-sense.