As others have said, you shouldn't get a jolt when it changes gear when in Auto, but if you have it in sports +, and in manual and you're giving it some stick then the gear changes can be a bit, i think the word is snappy. As for the 10 gears, the last four are for economy, on a recent trip to Portsmouth, 200 mile round trip i got 32 m.p.g, Ok i was driving at around 65/70 m.p.h, with the cruse control on for 70% of the trip, and no traffic jams, pretty amazing i think.