I'm thinking of ordering an S6 but there are a couple of things I'm trying to find out about the transmission. No dealers around me even have the car so a test drive is out of the question. Hopefully someone here can help, either specifically with the S6, or even the S4 as the S tronic should behave similarly?

1. Does the transmission hold the gear that you select without exception? What happens if you hit redline / what happens if you drop below minimum revs for a gear (i.e. 6th gear at 10 mph)?

2. Is there a noticeable delay between the time you hit the paddle shifter and when the transmission acts upon that command? I'm not referring to the actual time to change gears as that's quite low (100 or so milliseconds?).

Thanks for any comments

 

1. My S4 is only a B7 but it is an auto with the paddle shifters on steering wheel and tiptronic on the shifter of course. If you have it in shiftable mode then it will stay in the gear you select unless it reaches redline or drops below a certain rpm mark to protect the motor. Otherwise it gives you complete control over the gears. I usually just drive with the stick in tip tronic and shift with the paddles full time.

2. There is pretty much zero delay on the shift time with the paddles. Just the time it takes the transmission to change gears. I am actually pretty impressed with it, having had a 6 Speed manual in my old B5 S4. No clutch time is nice but has several disadvantages as well, especially when launching from a dig.

That will be a bad *** ride man! Let me know when you get it! I'm looking at an older 08 V10 S6 later this week actually. Might have to sell both my babies to get it though :/.

 

Thanks. As there weren't any other replies it seems like I'll need to go and at least test drive an S4 with S tronic first before proceeding.

 

My '07 S6 will hold a gear until the revs become too low at which point it will downshift automatically. I have taken it to redline and it will stay until I shift gears manually.

There is a noticeable delay from shift initiation to transmission reaction. I'm willing to bet this has been improved on the '13 S6 since VW and Audi like to "share" technologies. If it has anything similar to the DSG gearbox of the VW 2.0T, shifts will be instantaneous.