When a CVT starts jerking and complaining,, change the fluid in them. They are fringe trannys. They have been around for years but have never gotten anywhere cause they break alot.

Kinda like wankle engines. Great high output screaming engines and easy to get great hp out of. But the crank does 3 rpms for every rpm the rotor does. So if the tachs saying a rpm of 6k rpm the crank is at 18k rpm. Somethings going to give. Maybe less moving parts in a wankle engine than a 4 cylinder engine. but those fewer parts are takeing a much worse beating.

Same with a CVT. Sure the advent of computers have made them much better for control but you still have fewer parts taking a worse beating. In the most basic fourm of a CVT you will have two pulleys and one belt. One pulley is static. This would be the final drive pulley. The other is a varible pully. It opens and closes to very ratios. You drive alot on the frewway at 57 to 62 mph. The varible pully is going to wear a groove in the running surfaces in that area. It may only be a .001 to .010 groove but none the less the belt will try and track to it. You speed up the pully slowly closes to get you in the right place for the torque required and the lower ratio to move the car. The belt wants to hang in the groove. But then is forced out by the closure of the pully... Theres a pop. As you reach speed and the pully starts opening it gets back near it wear area then drops in... Theres a pop. So now we are at 62 mph and wow we are in our target wear area again. The belts happy and alls fine... Nope.... we want to go a bit faster to make a creeping pass so we let our speed drift up to 67 mph. The pully opens more for a higher ratio but the belt has to go down now past it common wear point. But there the bottom edge of the wear area the belt has to deal with. Belt see's that lower wear area and pops on that lower transition spot. Yet another pop felt by the drive and another shock wave that goes right thru the bearing and the acuator system.

There just not ready for prime time. If they where they would have replaced hydraulic gear and clutch trannys years ago.

The best thing you can do for a CVT is to very your driveing loads and speeds to wear the pullys even through out there running surfaces and for gods sake ,,, change the CVT fluid at a min. of every 3rd oil change.

CVT's are bad for long term use and useing one to get the most out of it makes it a bad FE choice in trannys. all there good for is to max a producers bottomline and max out margin. Fewer parts easy construction means more $$$ for them. and then they can sell it at a premium... Equals more $$$ for them. They really dont care about the end user. if they did they would have offered a 5 or 6 speed MT or standard AT.

Toyotas CVT if I remember right has two varible pullys which will spread the load over more of the surface area of the pullys. There both always moving looking for that perfect load curve and the tranny has less horsepower and torgue to deal with over all. So it may well last longer.

Shame on Honda for putting there intrest over excited owners of HCH's with whimpy whiz bang 2nd order tech.