re: tiptronic

[Eliot Lim <eliot@u.washington.edu>]

> 
> There is an upgrade available for the A8 to get the tiptronic in the US, 
> but Im 99% sure its aftermarket...

yes, i believe a dealer somewhere will do it for a fee.  it really doesn't
involve much h/w.

that said i have to confess my lack of enthusiasm for tiptronic after
having tried it.  the original v8 is far from perfect, but one of the
things that they did right IMO was to use the mercedes style zig zag gate
of which i'm a strong proponent of.  if i wanted to manually downshift
several gears, i could do it with a single long stroke whereas in the
tiptronic it involves multiple jabs at the stick.  no real advance
really other than looking cool.

of course if you're talking about 6 speeds and steering mounted
buttons to shift that's a different story..


eliot