DSG: Problems, Questions, Likes and Dislikes

[Scourge]

I've had a DSG for about 4 years now - its a mkV but generally we are talking the same thing. I'd say that as an auto-shift its a great transmission - much faster shifting and more responsive than a regular auto, not to mention the power delivery and economy. The speed of shifting allowing for zero hesitation in acceleration is fantastic. However...

It still has the drawbacks of an autoshifting transmission. It consistantly chooses the most conservative and economic gear so quite often I find that entering a corner it won't downshift and I get no engine breaking and no power on the exit. Downshifts can sometimes be quite unpredictable - occasionally it will change down two gears and then change up straight away. There is one spot on my way to work where I pull out onto a main road at the bottom of a hill and the tranny hesitates then rev its guts out then upsift and down shift again - extremely annoying. Most of these quirks can be overcome by understanding the tranmission and knowing how to use the throttle to tell it what to do - such as letting the clutch engage just before take off by rolling forward.
As for changing gears manually I find that with 6 gears you have to look down at what gear its in which is a tiny little digit on the dash, then count the gears as you shift - a bit of a chore and still not the control of a manual. Sports mode will allow more revs, more engine breaking and better downshifts however I call it suicide mode as it is so over the top that I only see it as usefull on an extremely spirited drive or to use for ten seconds when you are about to do something aggressive.
I disagree that its more intelligent then a regular auto - I think its every bit as dumb as any auto I've driven. That said its still a big improvement and a no brainer if you drive in traffic. I'm not sure I'd buy another one though.

[Corey_R]

As for changing gears manually I find that with 6 gears you have to look down at what gear its in which is a tiny little digit on the dash, then count the gears as you shift - a bit of a chore and still not the control of a manual.

I never had an issue with that - however, I grew up during the F1GP and Indycar Racing era - so simulators with 6 speed semi-automatics were part of my upbringing - what gear I'm in, even with the flappy paddles, just comes naturally

[Sharkie]

For once I agree with Maverick .... there are literally hundreds of threads on DSGs on ths forum .... the search button is there .... use it.

But since I recently had a DSG expererience and this thread is new here goes ...

It may be a revolutionary technology for a gearbox but it is rubbish IMO.

Had a 118TSI Mk6 Golf DSG for 2 days last week and gave it every oppertunity to impress me. (I was still undecided whether to get the Golf R in DSG or manual).

The positives: Sometimes the gearchanges are super smooth and the only indication that you have changed gear is that the gear indicator in MFD increases ...

It changes gears amazingly quickly provided it has preselected the correct gear going forward ...

Had the following issues though ....

The pause is still there upon pulloff .... when you want to pull off nothing happens for about half a second, so you press harder down on the gas ... then all of a sudden it leaps forward, much, much more than what you wanted. Almost jerks your neck off .... (Later read that you can get around this by pumping the gas before take-off - which just seems stupid)

Going down hill in D it slips into D6 ... then as you want to go up on the other side .... it sits in D6 and nothing happens untill the car almost stalls ... it then decides ... OK, maybe D5 .... and nothing happens and the car almost stalls ... it then decides .... OK, maybe D4 etc etc etc untill eventually you have either reached an appropriate gear or crawled over the top of the hill ... in a manual you would have simply selected the proper gear and that would have been it. The position of my foot .... flat on it or not ... did not make any difference ...

Trying it out in S then to sort out the abovementioned problem .... yes ? .... NO ... in S it keeps the revs at around 3500 or higher at all times .... which is ridiculous when cruising ....

So you end up switching between S and D and the manually chosen gears all the time to "fix" the inherent problems of this "advanced auto" box.

Absolute waste of $2500 IMO ... I would have enjoyed relieving myself against a tree to the tune of $2500 more .... (If it was my car & money)

If the R comes in a DSG only then I will never ... ever ... ever buy 1.

Conclusion: It may be the best thing since sliced bread to some, but to me its not even close yet. They (VW) need to do more work on it before I'll be convinced to buy a product with it in it.

So the Golf R in a manual it will be ....

[Corey_R]

So the Golf R in a manual it will be ....

With all respect to you, I think that decision is a bit premature Sharkie

Firstly the Golf R is being reported (both by VW and auto press who've tested it) as having almost completely removed the 'lag from start' which is one of your complaints. Next, the R has 350NM of torque vs the 240 of the 1.4TSI - and it has a completely different 6 speed wet-clutch DSG. The hill issues that you reported never happened to me in my Golf GTI with the same gearbox that'll be in the R.

So that takes away both of your major concerns and only leaves the 'S' mode. I've never really understood the S mode. I think it's a 'put it in there temporarily for some very spirited driving or overtaking' for those who CANT use the manual mode for whatever reason - like in the Jetta where they don't have the steering wheel controls, or for people who are just too dump to change the gears manually. In any case - it's not meant for 'cruising' - but I agree - it's not the best of S modes I've used.

Anyway - my point is - wait until you try the DSG in the Golf R itself

[Tux]

Read what I wrote.



Strong likelihood of failure? Based on what? There are no widespread problems with the DSG and VW have sold over 2 million of them. They would have gone broke if the DSG had a high failure rate. Why do you think VWA don't keep stocks in Australia and instead ship them out by air?

So glad to hear that. What a waste of time reading all those other threads about DSG. See, I could've just read something from you and not wasted those hours poring through DSG threads! Oh, and when did I suggest there were no stocks of DSG units in Oz? Mmm, putting words in other peoples mouths..not like you at all.

Actually if you bothered to read I did give feedback and if you want to see what users have to say about it (which is pointless as you don't have a car with DSG - why is it that people order something and research it afterwards looking for flaws???)

I'm not 'looking' for flaws. I ordered it after driving one like most people do. It's then later that you read about DSG failures that you become concerned. I'd have thought there'd be no problems by now with DSG and that's what I'm hoping for.

you can use the search facility and this will show you every DSG made on this site which is going to be a hell of a lot more useful than looking at a few posts in yet another thread that contains little useful information.

Already have done that...and look at me still learning from you.

I've heard it all now. You're worrying about something that rarely ever occurs and that has been addressed already by Volkswagen. Your wife is more likely to run into Elvis so I'd worry about that before I would be concerned about something that is a non event.

If she did run into Elvis you'd just say it was just some old fat bloke who could never sing in the first place.

I doubt you've heard it all now. There'll be plenty more for you to rant and rave about to come. Some other poor bug*ar will post about something that sets you off again. Hey maybe you could rehash some of your quotes and save time. You're pretty good at cut and paste as we know.

So you're not concerned about your wife's safety? If I had concerns for my families safety (whether it was founded or not) I wouldn't be buying it.

Perfect logic and great way to twist my meaning...Thanks so much for your reply Maverick. You are playing your role perfectly.

[Sharkie]

With all respect to you, I think that decision is a bit premature Sharkie

Firstly the Golf R is being reported (both by VW and auto press who've tested it) as having almost completely removed the 'lag from start' which is one of your complaints. Next, the R has 350NM of torque vs the 240 of the 1.4TSI - and it has a completely different 6 speed wet-clutch DSG. The hill issues that you reported never happened to me in my Golf GTI with the same gearbox that'll be in the R.

So that takes away both of your major concerns and only leaves the 'S' mode. I've never really understood the S mode. I think it's a 'put it in there temporarily for some very spirited driving or overtaking' for those who CANT use the manual mode for whatever reason - like in the Jetta where they don't have the steering wheel controls, or for people who are just too dump to change the gears manually. In any case - it's not meant for 'cruising' - but I agree - it's not the best of S modes I've used.

Anyway - my point is - wait until you try the DSG in the Golf R itself

Admit, all that you said is true, coreying.

And, yes, I will testdrive the R before making a final decision ... on whether to get it at all ....

BUT ....given that I plan to make my R really quick, I'm not prepared to spend the $20K its going to take to get the DSG to work properly (and last) with 300+kw & 500+nm... ... with the manual, all I have to do is upgrade the clutch and that will be it ....

It will be a Golf R APR Stg 3 as soon as possible...

[Tux]

So will this thread give any new answers that are not covered in the other threads? If you read some of those threads you will gain a much better understanding of those issues and see how miniscule a problem it is in terms of the number of DSGs that are around

Cheers

George

How will we know if we don't wait and find out?

[Corey_R]

BUT ....given that I plan to make my R really quick, I'm not prepared to spend the $20K its going to take to get the DSG to work properly (and last) with 300+kw & 500+nm... ... with the manual, all I have to do is upgrade the clutch and that will be it ....

It will be a Golf R APR Stg 3 as soon as possible...

Have a chat to Guy_H about that.
He's personally told me that they've done several Stage 3 upgrades on the Audi S3's with the S-Tronic (same as the 6sp DSG in the Golf R) gearbox. The Scirocco 24 hour cars were also DSG (no upgrades), the APR Stage 4 GTIs are using DSG (much more than 300kw and 500NM), and Guy himself has said that he's probably going to get his Golf R with DSG 'just for fun'....

[Maverick]

So glad to hear that. What a waste of time reading all those other threads about DSG. See, I could've just read something from you and not wasted those hours poring through DSG threads! Oh, and when did I suggest there were no stocks of DSG units in Oz? Mmm, putting words in other peoples mouths..not like you at all.

It was a question, did you see the question mark after it. The reason why VWA don't keep DSG parts locally is because the failure rate is so low contrary to your wild claims.

I'm not 'looking' for flaws. I ordered it after driving one like most people do. It's then later that you read about DSG failures that you become concerned. I'd have thought there'd be no problems by now with DSG and that's what I'm hoping for.

Everything fails at some point, you don't have one yet so read up and don't worry about something that is likely to never occur and for which you have a warranty.

I doubt you've heard it all now. There'll be plenty more for you to rant and rave about to come. Some other poor bug*ar will post about something that sets you off again. Hey maybe you could rehash some of your quotes and save time. You're pretty good at cut and paste as we know.

No point in even responding to this. If you can't see how pointless this thread is and have to resort to petty personal attacks you should reconsider posting.

Perfect logic and great way to twist my meaning...Thanks so much for your reply Maverick. You are playing your role perfectly.

I didn't twist anything, one minute you're concerned for you and your wife's safety and the next you're continuing with your order for the gearbox of death.

[G-rig]

I agree plenty of threads on DSG and no point asking after you've ordered.

paulcito may help to be more specific with questions and also do a bit of searching first. I guess people get annoyed when the same topics are regurgitated over and over. I sometimes just choose a relevant thread and ask there.

Sounds like the MK6 DSG is a bit better - apparently doesn't roll backwards if you are facing up a slight hill and going from reverse to D.

Btw - I had a Stage II APR GTI. So there was ~430NM and ~205KW going through it - still very smooth...

Have a chat to Guy_H about that.
He's personally told me that they've done several Stage 3 upgrades on the Audi S3's with the S-Tronic (same as the 6sp DSG in the Golf R) gearbox. The Scirocco 24 hour cars were also DSG (no upgrades), the APR Stage 4 GTIs are using DSG (much more than 300kw and 500NM), and Guy himself has said that he's probably going to get his Golf R with DSG 'just for fun'....

Yeah he mentioned that APR in the US have a stage IV car running DSG. Would be interesting to see how many years it lasts.

and i still think anyone wanting to put a lot of power through the car should get 6MT. Proper DSG upgrades (not just flash) cost just over $5k (APMitchells HPA DSG upgrade).

I think the 'Just for Fun' meant that they haven't bought a DSG car yet, all been 6MT hmm.

[Tux]

I didn't twist anything, one minute you're concerned for you and your wife's safety and the next you're continuing with your order for the gearbox of death.

Classic Maverick

[Corey_R]

I think the 'Just for Fun' meant that they haven't bought a DSG car yet, all been 6MT hmm.

He was talking about his personal car. The company has had plenty of DSGs over the years from what I've seen.

[G-rig]

That's what i meant, his own cars are usually all 6MT.

[Sharkie]

Have a chat to Guy_H about that.

I did just that during this week ..... in order to reliably run a 300+kw 500+NM long term you need to do a DSG gearbox upgrade. Thats hw and sw ....

If you don't, its you choice, but don't say you haven't been warned .... Guy himself was hestitant on getting the DSG for his own R on order because of this very fact ....

DSG will return the best 0-100km/h times using launch control, thats accepted by all, however you can't use that all the time on the street and if the lag is still there, even though they claim its not, it will ruin the experience for me in a std R.

Since I plan on having a REALLY powerful R, it the R gets the nod, then I will stick with the tried and tested 6MT, thank you.

However ....

Since this thread was not about the R initially, I stick by my evaluation of the DSG7 in the 118TSI .... its rubbish IMO.

[G-rig]

I agree with sharkie, If you are after the fastest 0-100 times get DSG and do the DSG hardware and software upgrades (not just a giac flash), just like the MK5 turbo R32 has done as featured in Motor Mag. Otherwise 6MT can handle a bit more punishment.

I would stick to manual in small motor cars, just like you wouldn't get auto as you lose power.