I love stick shift. All my cars were stick.
However, this one was the first stick in turbo. One thing I did not realise - on cold boost is limited and builds up slower than on hot. In addition, the gears are very short.
On my daily commute I must merge into two lane 55 mph divided highway from dead stop. It is about 1 minute from my house, so engine is barely warming up. There is lots of traffic. Without pushing it (MT) I can barely ever do it nicely (safely... whatever you call it). Imagine - first gear, goes gutless as boost does not have enough time to build up. Drop second (to not rev too much it must be at 15 mph). Second will take me to about 25, maybe 30 mph. That is already 3500 rpm. 3rd - to not go over 3500 rpm it would take me to 45 mph. And finally 4th gear arrives at 55 mph at about 3400. Of course most of the cars are doing 60 mph there.
And when I say cold, it means engine was started at maybe -10 C (that is what, about +14 F). Many times on winter is colder than that. Engine by the merge is at +15 C, sometimes +30 C.
Similar thing on the way back from work. This time 45 mph, so not so bad, but UPHILL. Each shift and if any boost was there - lost. So it works like gutless 1.6 from Rio... or even worse.
Finally, there is something about boost and throttle position. On cold boost is limited to about 5 or 7 psi. If you push the gas pedal to about 30-50% it pulls not so bad, but once you go beyond certain level, or go WOT - you can feel like it looses power.
So, I am not saying it is all wrong. I loved this car. It was quick (when fully warmed up) and was giving me great fuel economy even with my heavy foot. Tires were wearing down very quickly... I had it for about 10k miles and overall was happy.
I test drove 2016 SX AT. I was surprised how "rigid" the transmission was. How well defined shifts it had and how it pulled with each shift. On easy it is smooooth, on hard - it pushed your head against the headrest.
As a result I started looking and found one 2016 with a deal I could not refuse. For the trade in (2015) I got basically same what I paid for it 8 months earlier. Plus they gave me a discount that if I was doing math how much the car cost - it would be $24k OTD for brand new (25 miles) with AT, in pearl black and package. MSRP I think was $27.5k (with the accessories). After taxes and all that would be nearly 30.
So... I fell for it.
Plus it was brand new. I knew no one was "tinkering" with it. Maybe some of my "problems" were related to the previous owner...