Reply With QuoteI've had my MY 2012 118tsi for 4 months, just on 10,000km and today it's at the dealer getting a fan belt and idler wheel replaced after leaving me stranded.
I took the opportunity to ask them to look at the DSG with which I have several problems. I've just spent 4 hours reading this thread and shudder/clutch issues thread, so if something's already been covered can you kindly point me to where, rather than giving me a hard time
My DSG has been pretty good since new with very little shudder, but it's beginning to drive me crazy with certain 'characteristics'...
- moderate acceleration from stop is uncomfortable through the first two changes - it just doesn't get the changes right, and changes too early ... your body lurches forwards backwards forwards backwards as engine power doesn't properly match clutch take-up. Very light acceleration is fine, and flat out is not bad either, but the in-betweens are just uncomfortable and passengers say 'woo ... I thought this was a good car?'.
- going round corners in D is woeful, it wants to remain in too low gear even at 1100 - 1200 revs, just chugs without giving the required acceleration and without changing down. Unless you floor it, in which case after a delay it changes down a *few* gears and suddenly at full power does things you didn't want to do half way through a corner. If you manually change gears and use the same amount of accelerator it's fine, and in S it's fine, but in auto D it seems to have no idea when to change. It's got to the point I change from D to S before every corner, just so I can go round the corner in comfort and a reasonable gear, which is not exactly the point of an automatic.
- starting from rest up a steep hill *slowly* seems to be impossible. I got into a tricky and potentially damaging situation where i was at the bottom of a friend's steep driveway a few metres in front of their garage door. I needed to reverse away uphill, slowly enough that I could turn into a sharp, narrow, steeply downhill, badly cambered joining driveway that was edged with large rocks that you couldn't see. But as far as I could discover it was impossible - if I applied a moderate amount of throttle the clutch would start to take-up but then cut the engine and disengage clutch - so I'd roll another metre towards that garage door. If I applied enough throttle to get it to complete the take up and move uphill, it rocketed up, so fast that there was no chance of manouvering safely into the turning driveway. Very nearly a disaster, only saved by a dangerous but luckily successful complete guess at a high speed trajectory.
So I asked the dealer about these points. The head mechanic is a smug guy and just says it's normal, there's no adjustment, it learns your driving style (meaning: you're a crap driver so it's your fault), you're taking up my valuable time, please go away. The lesser mortals said there was a 'recent' applicable software upgrade that should fix these issues. I couldn't find out if 'recent' was actually recent, or if it's the 37G7 upgrade which is probably already applied to my vehicle, and if not which won't address these issues anyway.
So my questions please...
1. What exactly is this 'learning' capability? The dealer can't explain it and I've yet to find anything written that seems reasonable to me. Some say there's no such thing, that the 'learning' just refers to the fact that the clutch take-up points etc are dynamically variable, so the machine learns where the take-up is and the characteristics of the clutches (as it must do in one way or another).
But if there is a real 'learning' that affects when or how it changes gears, does it mean that if you drive softly for 10 minutes, it thinks you want to do that forever, so next time you come to a corner it won't change down? Or is it something that operates over weeks? What characteristics is it 'learning'?
2. How can a consumer with no VAG reset this learning process to the default starting point? I've read arguments that you can and you can't. If you can reset it, how would you best 'teach' the thing to change down and not stagger along at 1200 revs under moderate acceleration?
3. Does anyone know if there's actually a new software update for the 7-speed that hasn't been mentioned here yet? If so what does it address?
4. Is there a technique that will enable you to start up a steep hill slowly. By this I mean the equivalent of slipping the clutch with higher engine revs (in a manual), or using the torque converter to creep uphill (in a normal auto)? What should you do in the situation I describe above?
5. Can someone (Ryan_R?) tell me HOW they manage to install aftermarket DSG tunes without voiding the warranty? I asked my dealer at the time of purchase and again the other day and got an absolute "you won't be covered", but the description of the Harding Performance tune sounds exactly what I want. I can't afford to risk the warranty (and my ability to get an extended warranty later) so how do others get around this?
Thanks in advance, I really appreciate any help I can get to make my vehicle fun again.
Originally Posted by Allegiance
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