Tiguan acceleration

[Refrigrich]

Hi folks,
Purchased my first Tig about 3 months ago. Love the little bugga, except for one major issue. The accelerator response time. I got sick of taking off from the lights only to find myself five seconds later, 20 metres behind the car I am following, without even trying.
Purchased a Throttle controller here in Oz (email if you want to know who), Fitted it yesterday in about 30 minutes, and now I posses what seems to be a totally different car. When I push down the pedal, things happen, QUICKLY !!!!
If you're finding the same issue, I can assure you that it is very fixable, and recommend you do so.

[Lucas_R]

Interested to know what brand throttle controller you used? I used to have a Sprintbooster in my old Golf R but found it was no longer necessary after i had the engine tuned for more power/response - so i sold it.

I now have a GTI which is also tuned for more power/response but the throttle lag in this car is so bad when changing gears (its a manual). Im contemplating buying another throttle controller to help address this lag as its very annoying.

[Refrigrich]

I like to spend my hard earned AUD in Oz so I went for a Melbourne company "Revhigh" . The unit is called a "Stealth 3".
I must add that Im not looking for more power, Im just looking for a way to deliver the available power in a smooth responsive manner.
My car is the little Tiggy 118TSI with 6Spd DSG.

[tigger73]

Yes I had a Sprintbooster in my first Tig. I used to switch it on/off depending on what type of driving I was doing. I'd switch it on for running around the city with a lot of stop/start driving. For hills runs I'd turn it off as it tended to come on too quick and it was a lot harder to modulate the throttle around corners.

[Refrigrich]

I havent gone far as yet, but most of my driving is city. Dashing, diving, swerving..... With the factory DBW I am constantly having to "pedal" the car to get a response. Turning right across the path of an oncoming semi was becoming a religious experience. I believe this is not uncommon for drive by wire setups and by no means restricted to VW, but this car is a health hazard, and to be honest with you if this throttle controller doesnt do the trick then this 3 month old Tiggy will be getting the boot.

[tigger73]

There's 2 things that slow down the standard Tig. One is the throttle response and second is gear selection on the DSG.

I ended up getting a DSG tune to fix the fact that the gearbox never dropped back to 1st once it was moving. Which meant if you slowed but didn't stop you'd be in second gear and if you put your foot down then the car would not pick up until the revs built enough and you got on boost. That's going to be less of a problem in a twin-charger.

[Greg Roles]

Remember the Tigs, like my Yeti have the hill hold setting which works on the flats for a full second or more also. Getting a Vag Com cable and setting it to minimal makes the standing start a lot better, and you still have the hill hold for actual steep starts, albeit for less time. .

[Dingah]

You could save money and attend to your driving style maybe.....gear selection, anticipation, paddles, sport mode.....
Failing that, have the DSG software upgrade and next time buy a manual gearbox.
It is a Tiguan and not a Golf R so perhaps your expectations are not realistic for a car of this genre.

Dingah

[nat225]

may be time to get a big capacity V6 car with conventional torque converter auto?

no lag. no delay. hit gas and off you go... just like in the new Kia Carnival I rented last week

[nat225]

You could save money and attend to your driving style maybe.....gear selection, anticipation, paddles, sport mode.....
Failing that, have the DSG software upgrade and next time buy a manual gearbox.
It is a Tiguan and not a Golf R so perhaps your expectations are not realistic for a car of this genre.

Dingah

there is still a delay in manual gearbox unless you have no clutch sympathy

a lot of people switching from torque converter to dsg always have this sort of complain for the lag or delay.

a golf 6 r is still a bit laggy due to the 1500kg weight.. unless you use launch control at 4,000rpm

a golf 7 r is likely better than the 6 r off the line with its weight savings and different engine.

[Creampuff]

Happy to say, no dramas with slow take off in the 155!

[Refrigrich]

Thanks for all the points of view. However, I dont agree with the attitude of "learn to drive a VW". The fact of the matter is that VW designed this vehicle, and Im sure some others ,to be economical. The problem is that they have poked economy in our face, at the expense of everything else. 1400cc motor, semi automatic gearbox, twin chargers.......etc. While that is all well and good, and Im sure their engineers are running around slapping each other on the back. Would it be too much to ask them to give the owner of the vehicle the option of economy or not. I spent a couple of hundred dollars fitting a throttle controller that should have been built into the car in the factory.
The very fact that we have a plethera of "mod chips and tuneups" for these cars demonstrates that people arent happy with what VW, and many other manufacturers are doing in design terms, where economy is all that matters.
I bought my Baseline Tig as a service vehicle. It very rarely leaves the city, and yes economy was a consideration, but the number of red lights I have shot because I cant stop in time and I cant accelerate fast enough, is getting scary. Just because I bought the base model does that mean I should accept an inferior product?
The way that VW has mapped it accelerator pedal signal is just WRONG. If youre considering buying one, be careful. The slow response time can put you in very dangerous situations.

[Dingah]

Bottom line - there are a plethora of vehicles to choose from and you had complete freedom of choice. You elected to purchase your chosen vehicle, in this case the Tig based upon it performing exactly as it does. To now complain in the manner you are appears, well.... a little absurd. You have selected a conservatively designed, pseudo SUV with a 1400cc motor ..... without having driven that model I would imagine that it was designed from the outset as an economy model and not a lights, sprint go kart.

Mods and chips do not indicate people are not happy - for goodness sake, sometimes the glass is half full - for the majority of us they are enhancements to a vehicle which may well have no issues whatsoever. Maybe the majority of folk ensured they knew exactly what they were purchasing before parting with a lot of cash.

Our Golf diesel, Golf GTi and Tig R line and now Audi SQ5 were all wittingly chosen and are/were great cars. Each in their turn were enhanced by different means to different degrees to suit this owner and not because we were not happy. There is no such thing as the perfect car and life is about compromise so we accepted the odd issue here and there because on balance the selected vehicle ticked the majority of the boxes.

Does it not appear odd that there has been so little expressed in this and other forums concerning the issue raised i.e. that of throttle mapping. That is why the recommendation of re-considering the manner in which you drive and the methods you employ was made. For the great majority the throttle settings appear fine.

Claims of economy being poked in faces .... really - the market for models consuming 50% more fuel would be economically sound....hardly. YOU do have the choice of options and the forum members have put them out there for you - consume more fuel and have more power = APR, and others which can offer significant and effective options.

Blaming shooting red lights because you cannot stop in time based in turn on throttle mapping........really. Like to see that one stand up in court.

Dingah

[Greg Roles]

Funnily enough about half of all the tuning queries I get on a weekly basis are " can you make it more responsive ". A large number of people could care less about peak hp, and more about how punchy we can make it. As a matter of point, the guys at RD Technik now spend as much time on the throttle maps as they do on the boost and fuel maps etc, which is a real point of difference, and requires it's own software to do in depth I am told. As an example here is the throttle map on my ladies normally aspirated Veloster, and just doing this alone made an incredible difference to the car. Red is the reworked throttle map.




A lot of the VAG range have very pronounced standing start delays, and this is both due to the brakes holding the car for hill hold - even on the flats, DSG and CVT operation lag, and the throttle map being terrible down low. To say there are not complaints is pretty off target, there's plenty, and when I started loading tunes in 2010 it was rare to be asked, now it's several a week.

[Dingah]

Let's not forget that the gearboxes default to starting off in 2nd gear if the DSG software is not modified.
More requests likely is as much media driven knowledge such as this excellent forum as it is about real need I'd wager.
As surmised previously, better use of the controls supplied like sports mode and paddle/manual shifting are simpler ways of overcoming some of these perceived issues.

Dingah