Hello all,
First off, this is my first Audi I have ever owned, and coincidentally, my first automatic I have ever owned. I formally drove smaller cars, I have owned a miata for a few years, prelude, civic coupe, ect. ect. I picked this car up for a decent price after the announcement of my gf being pregnant!

I love this car, it is a blast and is pretty quick. However I honestly dislike the transmission. I am wondering if my expectations for it is too high? I feel like first gear shifts way to quick, "tiptronic" or "drive," and down shifting in the "tiptronic" is a little rougher than I would have imagined, especially for 1st gear. For me, it feels like downshifting without revmatching, such as letting your clutch grab gear at too low of an RPM. Any insight or recommendations for this would be great.

tl;dr -- Is the audi automatic transmission sub par compared to the manual transmission?

 

It is a automatic. I would rest the TCM adaptions and then try driving it to see if the adaptions relearn to your driving style. If you want lighting fast gear shifts, you need to bump up to a 2011 2012 B8 platform with the 7 speed DSG. That thing shifts fast.

 

Just to follow up, I researched resetting the TCM via depressing the gas pedal three times with the car off, acc on. This did work wonders. I must have had an old lady as the previous owner lol

 

it does make a difference on those vehicles!

Good to hear it helped!