I'm about to possibly purchase a B6 S4 this week and it is equipped with a Tiptronic. I have always been a die-hard stick shift guy and have only owned 3 cars in the last 26 years with an automatic. The last one I had was an E320 Mercedes that ate a tranny at 130k. I am very wary of this investment. Could someone please give me some feedback on this transmission? The car only has 45k on it, but I put about 35k a year on my cars commuting between the Youngstown, OH area to Pittsburgh, PA every week.

Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

The Tiptronic is extremely solid. Almost all of the tip tranny's are stronger than the manuals and stock a tip is faster than a stick regardless of the extra weight. One thing people really like about the tip is if you feel like just cruising, keep it automatic, but if you're racing around town or in the mountains pop it into tip and its almost as if you're driving a stick, just without the clutch . If you're in "manual" mode you can ride the RPMs all the way to red line and it will automatically shift for you, where in other car makes with a feature similar to tiptronic it will just stay on the rev limiter.

Overall a Tiptronic is really solid, a lot of fun to drive, and adds to the S4 mix of performance and luxury.

 

Thanks for the fast reply and the information. I've heard good things about this gearbox but I just wanted to get some hands-on confirmation about it.

 

I like the Tip in my '04 S4, but when I took my car in for service recently I was given an '04 S4 6-speed for a loaner, and I liked it too. The 6-speed is definitely easier to drive angry...maybe because learning to make the most of the Tip takes more time than I have given it so far. My biggest issue with the Tip is it is a little bit slow on the downshift (this is in manual mode btw), so when coming down from a long, high speed straight into a tight corner, threshold braking and wanting to grab a low gear to pull out of the corner, it can be a bit of a time crunch issue trying to get the tranny to grab all the lower gears in time (it shifts through all the gears in order everytime...like a sequential shifter would, just not as fast).

Launches are a little quicker with the stick because you can get the revs up a little more and drop the clutch to get a little bit of wheelspin. With the Tip you can bump the throttle a little bit with the brakes still applied to get a few more revs and load everything up, and with the traction control switched off the car does ****** you up to speed quite nicely, but I always worry about the extra wear and tear on the torque converter (then again, I'm sure the wear and tear on the torque converter is less than the wear on the clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, u-joints, etc. when launching the 6-speed with wheelspin).

But as far as dependability, I have not heard anything untoward regarding the Tip. And I must admit, I do like having the option of just selecting "D" and forgetting about it sometimes.

IMHO, FWIW...

 

I have never heard of an Automatic being faster then a manual...

 

with turbo cars autos can easily at times be faster than manual, boost wont fall off as far between shifts with a auto as they will with a manual, found this out in 2 supras, one decently modded manual, and another slightly modded auto, the auto was just as fast....

Does anyone have a low 13's daily driven s4 2.7with tip? i'm looking into buying a new daily driver and just sometimes get tired of shifting...

 

I've been driving this S4 for a little over a month now and compared to the manual ones I drove when I was shopping this car is definitely quicker, especially when in automatic "Sport" mode. It just flies through gears faster than I could ever hope to manually shift a transmission.

 

sorry if i affend anyone with a tip ...but to me tip is for girls....6 speed gets you more respect enought said

 

That's ignorant.... whatever. Also it's spelled "offend."

 

I think for the "average" diver tiptronic is faster. But ya ur right with a good driver in the car manual is faster in virtually all cases.