My wife and I drove My 2010 Patriot sport from Detroit Michigan to Orlando Florida and back a week later. It was in December 2010 and the weather was cold so there were no problems with the CVT, or anything else either. I will say that the cloth seats are not comfortable on long trips, after about 3 to 4 hous of driving your lower back will feel it a little because of the lack of lower back support. We did use a small pillow for lumbar support and it helped. It was just me and my wife with 2 regular suitcases, 2 duffle bags , a cooler to keep food in while traveling, 2 winter coats on the back seat ( they had snow down south and it was below freezing in Florida) and some misc. stuff to entertain ourselves during the drive. I know that we could not have taken 2 other people with us and there luggage. It would have been very crammed with only the 2 extra people not including their luggage and probably blocked the back window with everything we had packed in the vehicle ourselves. We brought back alot more stuff then we took, so the back seat was pretty full on the way back. Its perfect for 2 people and maybe 2 kids for a long trip but I would never do it with 4 adults.
