Tiptronic for stick drivers?

[Kris Hansen]

I love my Tiptronic, you could say that I am a convert
for life, though if I was able to purchase an S4
Avant, I probably would get the 6 speed.

As for your questions regarding the operation of the
tip, it is very good, the shifts are a bit on the slow
side, but once you get used to it, it is actually a
lot of fun. For example, driving along under steady
state, and the engine rpms begin to dip, you just tap
the shifter down a gear, and the engine spings to
life, and you motor on. You can also per select
multiple downshifts, say from 5th to 3rd, going into a
sharp corner. It will shift down through 4th, all by
itself. Neat. Upshifting is the slow-ish part, and
under full throttle(foot in kick-down switch), it will
wait till the engine gets to redline before it shifts.


Off the line, I find it very snappy, much more so than
our 5 speed 12v A4 sedan. As for coming to a stop in
5th, it will shift down to 1st to start. It allways
starts in first though, which is a pain in snow, with
all the torque from the 30v V6 trying to spin the
tires. I often get the car moving and quickly shift it
to 2nd, just to get better grip in the nasty stuff.

The Tip will hold what ever gear you put it in till
you shift it, or it hits rev limit, or it starts to
bog, when it will unlock the torque converter and let
the converter slip till it ultimately will downshift.
The neat thing, when it downshifts in Tip mode, say
you are in 3rd gear, and it shifts to 2nd because you
slowed way down, it will think you want to be in 3rd
still since you didn't actually select 2nd, and shift
back to 3rd once you speed back up.

Bear in mind that this is my first automatic car, and
I love it. I seldom drive it in "D", only in bumper to
bumper traffic, or on the interstate, and even then
sometimes I leave it in Tip mode. It is great for
hills, on-ramps, everything. I can creep up my
insanely steep driveway, its first gear is very
flexible.

Try one, I think you wil love it, especially coming
from the slush-o-matic of previous cars!!

Kris
--- Andrew Duane USG <duane at hunch.zk3.dec.com> wrote:
> Are there any stick drivers out there that have
> switched to a
> tiptronic transmission and would care to share some
> of their
> thoughts on how well it suits them?
> 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/