DSG: Problems, Questions, Likes and Dislikes

[Maverick]

But the tiguan has a conventional Auto?

Stoney!

Doesn't mean it doesn't get discussed!

[Stoney!]

Strange... anyway.

Couple of Q's seeing the threads here and I'm looking at an R36, which well, has to be DSG.

Is it true even in D mode you can still change down with paddle shifter?

Has anyone else driven the R36 and noticed how much smoother this car is with dsg than anything else? on both take off and shifting (mind you most DSG's shift really well)

I took one for a test drive recently, and drove the Passat CC 3.6 at the VW day eat eastern creek, I noticed it tends to ride the clutch a bit on full throttle take off's, any one else noticed this? or can confirm others don't do it. I certainly don't remember it on the 103tdi courtesy car POS I've been driving the many times my cars been in for warranty work lol.

Which leads me to my story. I got so annoyed with how rough the transmission in this car was, sometimes even banging into a gear like a conventional auto in some EA falcon. I looked up online how to do a 'quick reset' with holding the throttle down and it worked!

But I find the combination of the slight turbo lag and gearbox pause is not only dangerous but just plain bloody annoying. The pause to me seems to be the clutch engaging before it will give it any revs, meaning no boost on a hurried launch at all!. I thought being a manual in disguise they would program it to be capable of such things, like the R36 does.

I have however noticed in the 118tsi I drove, it will actually rev a litte before it engages the clutch, I'm assuming this is because of the smaller engine, with stuff all power down low? I did however still find the DSG in that buggy and annoying in stop start traffic. I noticed that the 118tsi will launch at full power (thanks to teh S/C0 spinning the wheels and all with barely a delay to be noticed when flattening it.

I learnt to take my foot off the brake and let it start to roll before i pushed the go pedal at all, still not so smooth but didn't Leap like sharkie described. However if you off/on the brake then take off she's already engaged and worked ok, prob similar to sharkie saying to tap the throttle, which to me as a professional driver of all sorts of weird and wonderful buses, doesn't seem silly at all, the things you have to do in some of them to make them drive smoothly would astound people, specially the newer buses.

If anyone else who's driven the DSG with the 3.6 knows of anything else worthy of talking about lemmie know, I'll be very interested.

Stoney!

[simonm]

The only issue I have with the DSG is that the tiptronic +/- selector on the shifter is the wrong way around. + should be towards the back of the car, and - should be towards the front. The first shift with a manual box is always towards the back of the car, and a gearbox with an even number of speeds (4,6, has more front to back shifts on the way up the gears (an odd number of speeds results in the same amount of shifts in each direction).

Lancer Ralliart/Evo and apparently auto Falcons, get this right, Holden/Subaru/VW/Audi get it the wrong way around. Fortunately, paddles mean I don't have to use the tiptronic function, so I have ordered a DSG.

[Corey_R]

hey coreying, just a question: i heard that the 7 speed DSG's [as about to appear in the new polo gti] are less tolerant of high torque levels than the 6 speed- any insight? as in, from the stuff i've read, chipping the new polo gti will net 300nm, but the 7 speed will be hard pressed to take it?

Yeah, the 7sp DSG is a dry clutch model, whereas the 6sp DSG is a wet clutch model. There are many other differences too.
Some history, when the 6sp DSG came out, VW put a "350Nm maximum" on it. So initially aftermarket tuners would limit the DSG ECU's to 350Nm for fear of breaking the gearbox and the customers being up for HUGE amounts to replace it (replacement costs were many times the $2500 option cost initially). Over time they've realised it can take a heap more torque than that. There are many Stage III cars running around with 515NM. The Scirocco 24 hour race cars that VW run have DSGs. Even the APR Stage IV dev car has a DSG (no idea what the torque is, just that it's presumably more than 515NM). With this much power you need to be careful how absuive you are on stationary take-offs, but other than that it's fine. You could always upgrade the clutches though to help...

So with the 7sp DSG, VW put a "250Nm maximum" rating on it. How much can it take? Who knows! APR's 118TSI update gives 317Nm and I've yet to hear any APR customer complain of DSG failures related to that....

Is it true even in D mode you can still change down with paddle shifter?

Yes. Even in D you can override it and start shifting with the paddles. Once you've done shifting with the paddles, it will either put itself back into D after 15 seconds, or if you hold the right paddle (+ / Off) it will go back into D quicker.

The only issue I have with the DSG is that the tiptronic +/- selector on the shifter is the wrong way around. + should be towards the back of the car, and - should be towards the front.

Very true! This is a frustration of mine. There should be some way to reverse the DSG tiptronic so it matches the direction that a traditional sequential gearbox uses as you mention (as with race cars and motorcycles etc).

[AdamD]

I took one for a test drive recently, and drove the Passat CC 3.6 at the VW day eat eastern creek, I noticed it tends to ride the clutch a bit on full throttle take off's, any one else noticed this? or can confirm others don't do it.

I've driven several CC V6s, and quite hard (including full throttle takeoffs, with and without launch control). There certainly does appear to be a little slip in the clutch on takeoff - even on a very gentle throttle in fact, when I find it more noticable - but I wouldn't call it bad. It's quite a different feeling to the same gearbox in my GTI. But remember that the CC and R36 are much heavier cars than a FWD Golf, and have huge 4Motion traction, so it's understandable that VW would calibrate the gearbox in that application to induce some clutch slip in the interests of driveline longevity. Remember also that the 6 speed uses wet clutches that are designed to slip.

[logger]

Didn't really get the whole idea behind S mode, as D+ [gear selectable] mode was more fun, and why would one not use that to change gears at their discretion anyway, when booting it?

Because S is quicker.
At least it will be for most drivers. As good a driver as I am (not), S mode allows me to 0-100 in 6.8sec. Skill level required is minimal to zero. OTOH if I was to try same in D+ I'd probably be a second slower even if I did get the timing right and not stuff it up.
I agree D+ is more fun though.

[Corey_R]

Yeah - even in the Autocar video between the DSG and the manual, the S mode was used. I mean, this guy was talented enough to do flat-shifting in the manual, yet in the DSG he chose to let it pick the shift points.
Having said that Buller_Scott could have been referring to regular driving, rather than the traffic lights GP

[djooz]

Hi All,

Well my 1st thousand km are done so I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a lil fun in S mode....
Anyways, I understand there is no launch control system in these (or is there?) so with a lil brake pressure, got the revs to bout 2.5k rpm and popped the brake, after a bit of fuss from the TC, she got underway quite nice ( well for me anyway) but for the 1-2 and 2-3 change I got this clunk/vibration (could feel it thru my body), is this the electronic diff lock engaging? it wasn't the most pleasant sound...DSG box btw

[logger]

No its not the electronic diff lock engaging. There is nothing to engage because this diff lock is simply a sub system of the ABS, that applies applicable brake to distribute the torque. It does not actually manipulate anything in the diff. Perhaps the clunk/vibration was the DSG doing a rough job of the changes, as it is not "expecting" you to drop the clutch with 2.5k rpm. You should not be able to get it to 2.5k with your foot on the brake and it in D or S. From memory mine is limited to a bit over 1k when in stationary with foot on the brake and D or S selected. But about to go for a spin so will re check. Maybe they have changed things with the newer builds, but the DSG7 does not have launch control and allowing launch from 2.5k would go against the design philosophy of the clutches lasting the life of the car.

[Maverick]

Very true! This is a frustration of mine. There should be some way to reverse the DSG tiptronic so it matches the direction that a traditional sequential gearbox uses as you mention (as with race cars and motorcycles etc).

There is, pull the shifter assembly out of the car and make a simple change on the horizontal PCB. There are two separate hall effect sensors used for the gear up and gear down. Changing the operation of these will not impact on any other area of the operation of the gearbox nor throw any codes.

Should take less than 2 hours start to finish to make the mod and most of that is getting the assembly in and out of the car.