DSG or Not?

Well, I decided to visit the AudiUSA site to price out my drem car, and this time i picked the A3 to play with.

I've seen a few of them on the street, and combined with the upgraded wheel and tire package, i think they look amazing!

now I came upon the point where I had to choose between the s-line with standard quattro and a v6, or the 2.0t and upgrade to quattro
(quattro is a must have, i dont care if your mario frekin adretti)

so, after some intense audiforum search action, and a strong opinion toward the turbo from car-and-driver, i picked the turbo.

ahh... drivetrain time...

my question to you now is, DSG, or 6spd?
some food for thought:
1. The DSG takes only 8 miliseconds (ms) to upshift, which is right on par, if not better than Bimmer's tranny on the new m3 (correct me if im wrong)
2. The twin Cluch adds smootheness to the shifts where the engine doesnt have to cut power, this gets rid of the super inefficeint torque converter (thank god)
3. However, the DSG also takes between 800-900 ms so downshift! 100x+ longer than it takes to upshift. (BUMMER!)

Now if im taking the usual nightly run up the local twisty, i would me much more concentrated on the downshift of my tranny rather than the upshift. I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that it is way easier to judge when to upshift, judging by how fast the rpm's are climbing, than to judge when to downshift because you have to worry about how much braking your applying. Taking that into consideration, which would you choose and why?

Question was debated and answered some posts ago. The DSG is absolutely amazing technology and the shift transition is super fast. You can always just tap the paddle and downshift/upshift on command so it doesn't matter that in "auto" mode it takes longer to shift downward. The true question is do you like to shift your car and drive a manual transmission or do you like the car to take care of the shifting most of the time. It's really that simple. If you prefer and automatic, buy the DSG. If you prefer the manual, then get a manual. Otherwise, manual drivers will become bored very quickly with the DSG. Cool technology, and you'll like it for a little while, but bored eventually.

Cheers!

Chef

BTW, I like to drive my car, not have my car drive me!!!

I concur with Chef. Left footers will always be left footers. I don't care if DSG could take you to the moon, I'd never give up my clutch.

Nudicles, I would actually take DSG if it could take me to the moon.

j/k

I'm a left footer who used to drive automatic before the A3.
I'm lovin' it so far.

i agree with chef, besides when i down shift, it's always two gears down for me instead of one gear down, so i don't know how long DSG takes to downshift two gears, and also with DSG, you always have to try to remember what gear you're in before you down shift, then remind yourself how many clicks to down shift 1 or two or even three, at least with manual......... well........ it's manual.

why am i babbling? neways i agree with chef.

this is true, that you can tell what gear your in with a manual, it just becomes insinct after awhile

but with dsg, you never know what gear, unless you look at the dash right?

I didn't think about shifting and skipping gears, but that just proves the manual v. automatic preference. I sometimes run hard through the first three gears then shift from 3rd to 6th. Occasionally, like audinam, I'll pull back from 6th to 3rd and rocket away. Not sure how smooth or quick this would be in the DSG? I test drove the DSG in the GTI and A3, but never went to those extremes. I also think your driving habits change with performance mods.

Oh well, I think we've beaten this horse to death again.

Cheers!

Chef

If I only had one car, it would have to be a manual. But I have other cars for Autocross, track, and backroad driving, so I'm voting DSG; The A/3 DSG is a superb daily driver/city bomber. I've noticed no downshift delay in manual mode.

does it have a "sport" mode like all the other audi tiptronics?

It's a little different. It will go into drive mode, which is full automatic or you can shift down one more to sport mode. In either mode, at any time, you can hit the paddles and the car will either shift up or down. The drive mode will shift very soon and keep economy high. The sport mode will take you to redline through every gear unless you shift on your own.

I have the DSG transmission on my audi. The past two cars I owned were both manuals. I thought I would always stick with manuals until test driving an audi with DSG. After owning this car for about a month there are a few gripes that I have. One, down shifting always takes awhile and its hard to anticipate when the power will come back while in a turn (dangerous). Two, getting sport mode to shift before redline is nearly impossible. Three, no launch control. And a few others...

I'm about 50/50 with the decision I made regarding transmissions. I'm a diehard manual fan but I still love the DSG. I guess what it comes down to is if your married to the third pedal or not. I divorced the third pedal for a younger sexier transmission

DSG is the way to go. In an ideal world, I would drive a stick. However, I live in Orange County (southern cal), where traffic is often bad. When you are creeping along in traffic, DSG is far more convenient than driving a stick. Once you hit the twisties I feel that DSG is only a bit worse than a stick. So you have to decide the trade off.

Corollary: The DSG transmission in the A3 has gear ratios which are quite low. You could cruise in 6th at 40mph. When you are at OC freeway speeds (80mph), the tach is over 3K, well into turbo range. Does the stick have similar ratios?

Assuming you believe (as I do) that automatics are a drag and manual transmissions are a blast, the DSG splits the difference: not as much fun as a good manual tranny, but much, much better than a slushbox.

I might be more of a DSG fan if Audi pumped-up the 3.2 by about 50 HP (or put the 3.2 on a serious weight reduction plan). It's a resonable compromise though, in a household where the spouse can't drive stick.

DSG is not just splitting the difference, it is not just the best of both worlds, it is BETTER than both worlds.

If you are stuck in traffic, you leave it in automatic mode, and get all of the ease, but better gas mileage and more power than you would with an automatic.

If you are carving corners, or road racing at a track day you can use the paddles like an F1 driver and have superior control and superior performance than a manual.

I'd love to use this at an autocross where a manual car can't shift down to 1st gear in tight turns because the time to change gears makes it not worth it on the short courses, with DSG you would save a lot of time.

About the only downside is no burnouts or clutch kick drift initiation, but on FWD and AWD cars that kinda stuff is already pointless anyway, and clever software hacking may make that stuff possible anyway.

If you think that pressing a clutch pedal and rowing the H-pattern is actually "Fun" rather than an annoying feature of 100 year old gear change technology, well, I say get over it. Flicking the flappy paddles is fun too =)

My A3 is only the second automatic I've ever owned.  The DSG is ok, but I have to admit, sometimes I really miss that clutch.  Shifting with the paddles just doesn't feel right.  Though the car is fun to drive and the DSG is fast, in my personal opinion, driving enthusiasts really prefer a manual shift.  I don't regret my purchase, but I will probably go back to a manual for my next vehicle.

i still "prefer" manual, but i didn't like the clutch on the a3 at all.  i tested the DSG just for educational purposes and freaking loved it.  i also grew up on video games, so the paddle shifters are a blast for me.  as far as downshifting, i give it a double tap and it feels great and keeps the revs up going into turns.

tshoe, if you don't like shifting with the paddles, have you tried the +/- setting on the shifter itself? It's still not the same as driving a manual, but it does feel a bit more natural to be working the shifter with your right hand...

(someone discovered the 'more smileys' button today)

wow i'm surprised dsg's beat out manual in this poll...i love my 6 speed manual. i got so used to the A3 clutch that when i drive my golf, it feels COMPLETELY different.

I'm the ultimate authority on this subject; I own one of each, and I'm a hardcore manual guy from wayback.
 
The answer is , I love both; The DSG is better in the urban environment, and uses less gas. The 6MT is more fun for suburban or open road use. I'd be happy owning either by itself. DSG has a learning curve just like MT driving, takes a while to master - but it's a superb advance in tranny technology that is only going to get better with development. Not yet perfect, but lots of fun.
MY only reservation about this debate is that I have several manual Porsches to drive when my left leg gets bored or restless; If I didn't, I might be tempted to own the 6 MT car for a daily driver.
Yuppie - the DSG and MT ratios are very, very close; for all intents, the same.

My $.02:

The A3 DSG is my daily driver.  I have a modded EVO for track and sport driving.  If the A3 was my only car, hands down it would be a manual.  Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the DSG but for performance driving it leaves a lot to be desired.  The point no one has touched on so far that really irks me is the auto shift at redline.  If you're mid turn at the track or on an autox course and come up to redline, you either have to back off the gas or let the car shift and completely upset the car.  The fact that Audi put in the autoshift logic leads me to believe that they don't expect a large portion of their A3 market to drive that hard.  That's too bad.   This really limits how hard you can drive the car in my opinion. 

So if you really want the most performance out of the car, no question: manual.  If you want most of the performance and the utility of the auto mode, DSG.

I'm completely agree with you about the redline shift.  It was one of my reservations about getting the DSG.  After autocrossing the car it hasn't really become an issue.  That being said I do prefer a manual for autocrossing, but I also prefer rear wheel drive for autocrossing.  I purchased the A3 as a daily driver and do a lot of road trips ad the DSG has been great for my needs. 
 
Someone said earlier that the Sport mode shifts at redline which is only a true statement if by sport he means moving the shifter to the right into the +/- gate.  Otherwise if he is talking about moving the shifter down to S, it shifts around 4k rpm under light throttle (D mode shifts around 2k rpm).  BTW, D and S will both shift at redline if throttle is to the floor.  The +/- gate will only shift at redline unless shifted maually by the driver.

quote:

ORIGINAL: hesaputz

I'm the ultimate authority on this subject; I own one of each, and I'm a hardcore manual guy from wayback.

The answer is , I love both; The DSG is better in the urban environment, and uses less gas. The 6MT is more fun for suburban or open road use. I'd be happy owning either by itself. DSG has a learning curve just like MT driving, takes a while to master - but it's a superb advance in tranny technology that is only going to get better with development. Not yet perfect, but lots of fun.
MY only reservation about this debate is that I have several manual Porsches to drive when my left leg gets bored or restless; If I didn't, I might be tempted to own the 6 MT car for a daily driver.
Yuppie - the DSG and MT ratios are very, very close; for all intents, the same.

WOW! one of each?! that would be pretty awesome...im jealous!!

quote:

ORIGINAL: luvin_the_rings

now I came upon the point where I had to choose between the s-line with standard quattro and a v6, or the 2.0t and upgrade to quattro
(quattro is a must have, i dont care if your mario frekin adretti)

I think you guys all missed this part of the initial post... 
It doesn't matter what everyone prefers cause "luvin the rings" is stating the car must be the Quattro.

I haven't been on this forum that long... but this is one debate I have seen discussed over and over again and it all comes down to personal preference...  Personally, Audi wouldn't let me have it my way as I would have liked a 6-Speed Quattro...  but choose to settle for the FWD 6-Speed.

quote:

ORIGINAL: robertmrome

quote:

ORIGINAL: luvin_the_rings

now I came upon the point where I had to choose between the s-line with standard quattro and a v6, or the 2.0t and upgrade to quattro
(quattro is a must have, i dont care if your mario frekin adretti)

I think you guys all missed this part of the initial post... 
It doesn't matter what everyone prefers cause "luvin the rings" is stating the car must be the Quattro.

I haven't been on this forum that long... but this is one debate I have seen discussed over and over again and it all comes down to personal preference...  Personally, Audi wouldn't let me have it my way as I would have liked a 6-Speed Quattro...  but choose to settle for the FWD 6-Speed.

How do you know s/he's not in Europe?

BAMF, good suggestion.  I've alternated between the shifter and the paddles.  For me, my brain just can't shift with the right hand without punching a clutch with the left foot. (You know us older folks...)  So, I choose the paddles over the shifter.