When I was car shopping, I drove an A3 with paddle shifters. I've always liked paddles… my friends Ferrari has them (hate him, obviously). They seem the best way to take advantage tiptronic shifting.

My '02 A4 has the button shifters, and I'm having a hard time getting used to them. Part of the problem I think is that they are such a small target to hit, and entirely too easy to hit + instead of – or vice-versa. And exceptionally hard to find when in the middle of a corner.

Anyway, I started thinking… would it be possible to get the paddle shifters off a newer Audi (not sure when they switched to paddles from buttons?) and have them retrofitted on my car?

Anyone gone down this path yet?

cheers
-Joseph

 

umm i dunno if its possibal but sounds like a cool idea

 

I have thought about a similar thing, however I dont think it would be possible or worth it... im sure most of the people on this site would just tell you its not worth it and get a manual...[&:]

if anything i think that ours with the button shifters are at least a step in the right direction between manual and standard non-button tiptronic...

 

I haven't ever really seen paddle shifters before, what do they look like? I have buttons too (obviously)

 

See the silver "paddle" next to the steering wheel?

 

My dad drives a 06 jetta tdi and it has the tip shifter where the normal shifter is you just shift it to the right and i found that a cool concept and a lload of fun.

 

and…

Tiptronic shifting is superior to manual in many ways (oooh I'm sure this will start a dialog!!). Hence to protect myself from any serious flames (haha) let me say that the following is my personal opinion and understanding, and if you have a correction I welcome it ;-) In no particular order:

Shifting manually requires perfect timing in taking your foot off the gas, depressing the clutch, shifting, releasing the clutch, and depressing the gas again. Obviously this can be done very quickly, but anyone who's driven a manual before knows damn well that occasionally, you get it wrong and your timing is off. Tiptronic is born of race cars, where the shifting is computer controlled. The driver still decides WHEN to shift, however a computer times the gas/clutch/shift combo perfectly. And in the Audi's, it's phenomenal. You can barely feel the shift at mid-to-high revs, the sign of a perfect switch. How often can you say that of a manual shift? Besides being smoother, it's far faster. You're into the next gear faster than you possibly can be manually. It's also faster because you don't have to move your hand from the steering wheel to the shifter before you can shift.

Shifting manually requires that you take one hand off the steering wheel. Which, besides in general being a Bad Ideaâ„¢, this means you can't shift mid-hairpin turn. At least you shouldn't because you have to take a hand off the wheel. If in the event of real-world driving you hit a corner that is sharper than expected, or for whatever reason need to downshift before pulling out of the turn, you have a pretty hard time doing it with a manual. With tipronic shifting with steering-wheel controls, you can make that shift without every taking your hands off the wheel.

Finally the third is a matter of convenience… I for one spend far too much time sitting in slow traffic, and know from experience that I can't stand driving a manual in these conditions. The ability to go full-auto is paramount.


Now as far as paddle vs. buttons vs. tiptronic on the auto-shift on the "normal" shifter… per my original argument, paddles are so much easier to hit and there's no mistake of going up vs. down, since one side goes up and the other goes down, unlike the buttons where each goes up AND down. And putting auto on the "normal" shift **** may be a nice transition for people who are used to shifting manually, and still gives you the speed and accuracy of tiptronic, however it completely missed the point in that you still have to take a hand off the wheel to shift. That said, I have found that in a tight corner it's preferable to slap that shifter than to take your eyes off the road to find the damn buttons because they're so small!!

OK this is fun… but time to get to work ;-)

 

lol... superior... DSG is superior to a manual, tip is not...

PS: Nice website jlinaschke - very useable...

 

Obsesive compulsive

 

Time to show my naiveté… I know the shifting is called DSG in the Audi, but isn't that their version, or type, of tiptronic? I always used tiptronic as a generic term but perhaps I'm incorrect. What I'm calling superior to manual is the clutchless shifting, or semi-auto, or whateva' you want to call it. I call it cool ;-)

So is referring to this type of shifting in an Audi as tiptronic incorrect?

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