I've had one of these for 7 years now. Harder to find in manual in comparison to automatic, but with the ice and snow, it's totally worth it. Drove in a blizzard with at least 7" of snow and between the transmission, the AWD system, and the snow tires I had on it, it got through it without any struggle. Only downside is that some categories of OEM parts are getting harder and harder to find for it.
Hmm is there any restrictions on driving through these new construction neighborhoods (that’s what I assume it is anyway) because might be good for practicing manual there
You should skip 4th unless you're really picking up a lot speed really quickly. Just accelerate in 1, 2, 3 like normal, then keep accelerating in 3rd until you've picked up enough speed then shift directly to 5th. 4th is for when you're going too slow for 5th, driving uphill, or like I said earlier, picking up a lot of speed really quickly.
