DSG: Problems, Questions, Likes and Dislikes

[logger]

logger, as far as I'm aware, all sequential gearboxes in race cars are push forward to shift down, pull back to shift up. This also matches the forces of gravity on your actions at the time, and also matches flight yokes, motorbike gearboxes, etc etc.

Can only comment on the flight yoke..... it is done that way to be intuitive in the dimensional sense. Nothing to do with longitidinal accelerations. In any case if you pushed the yoke forward the aircraft will (generally speaking) go faster. All the other multitude of flight controls like throttles, mixtures, pitch, reversers, speed brakes, flaps and so on are forward for faster, aft for slower.
I can appreciate how you find it unnatural. I suppose it is a different paradigm to what you see.

[Super]

logger, as far as I'm aware, all sequential gearboxes in race cars are push forward to shift down, pull back to shift up. This also matches the forces of gravity on your actions at the time, and also matches flight yokes, motorbike gearboxes, etc etc.

That was my thinking as well, that the direction of the change should match the g-forces of acceleration and braking ie changing up should be a movement towards the back of the car, and changing down should be forwards. The standard across many manufacturers seems to be gear up/forwards, and gear down/backwards though.

This issue actually came up on a recent ep of Top Gear. Jeremy was reviewing a new BMW where they've actually flipped the configuration, and he commented that the BMW boffins had lost their marbles for switching it...

[Ryan_R]

From the responses so far, I think it's not so much what way makes sense more, but rather the first way a person used it. I have a racing wheel setup on my computer which is why I'm used to pulling back to change up. Those that were never familiar with that concept probably have no difficultly pushing up to shift up, and might find it harder to switch afterwards.

If I'm stuck behind a slow car in the hills, twisties, I'll switch to manual mode so that the gearbox doesn't keep choosing a lower gear when the car in front prevents me from needing more power. When I approach an intersection I stick it back in drive so that I don't accidentally shift the wrong way. I got a good chance to use Sport mode today when driving from Leongatha to Trafalgar (VIC) today - great fun as always.

[Corey_R]

I have a racing wheel setup on my computer which is why I'm used to pulling back to change up.

Yep me too... but there is a reason that they had it that way... because it's the way all the race cars/superkarts/motor bikes in real life have them! This "forward to shift up" is really only something that appeared with these "tip-tronic" automatic boxes and has unfortunately carried over to the DSG.

[Ryan_R]

Yeah - I've seen that in plenty of V8 Supercars, BTCC, and rally races
That, and the G25 has a symbol showing which way the sequential should be orientated

[REXman]

I would love a mod to fix the shifter the right way around. (forward to shift down, back to shift up) wish VW thought of it more. Even normal BMW cars have it like that in the tiptronic setup they use. So when I first used the R box it was something that stuck out a bit as "huh?"

[dave_r]

I would love a mod to fix the shifter the right way around.

Hey rex, you know what to do.....

and the reason I've done things like start the S2TPP DSG Paddle Shift group buy to avoid using the shifter at all costs.

[Corey_R]

lol yeah - doooooooo iiiiiiiiiit

(I should be getting commission on these things! lol)

[logger]

If one was to get the flappy paddles, is it possible to alter them to work in the correct sense, so that the left one upshifts and the right one downshifts

[Corey_R]

If one was to get the flappy paddles, is it possible to alter them to work in the correct sense, so that the left one upshifts and the right one downshifts

Lol... I presume you're just trying to stir the boat?
Are there any cars which do actually have the left paddle as the upshift?