Re: Tiptronic Question

[Andrew Duane USG/PE <duane@zk3.dec.com>]

Hairy green toads from Mars made Gary Mayne say:

> After 30 years of cars with manual shifts, I am trying cope with the
> Tiptronic auto trans in my 98 A6. I found that in D, the car shifts
> into 5th at speeds as low as 25 mph and suddenly you are trolling
> along at 1,500 rpm feeling pretty anemic. I have discovered that if
> you drive the car selecting "4" rather than "D", the trans will only
> use four speeds rather than 5 and it performs much better around town. 
> 
> Does anyone know if limiting the transmission from using 5th except
> on the highway will cause any long term problems?

My A6QW does not have the Tiptronic, but the regular 4-speed
automatic. This is *exactly* how I was told to drive it: stay
in 3rd around town, leave 4th for 50+MPH cruising.

I do it a lot, but don't have many miles on the car (4K so far).
I suspect the only problem will be a slight lowering of mileage.
I put 200+K miles on standards driven routinely at 3K+RPM, no
problems at all with the engines or trannies.


In a hopefully-unrelated question, I've noticed that when I leave
it in Drive, if I am "coasting" along with little power, when the
3rd-4th shift happens, the car sometimes selects neutral for between
1/2 second and 5 seconds. Then it drops into 4th with a slight
shudder (1/2 second) or a huge KER--THUNK!!!! (5 seconds) given
the high revs from being in neutral.

Anyone else with a slushbox seen this?

-- 

Andrew L. Duane (JOT-7)			duane@zk3.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation		(603)-884-1294
110 Spit Brook Road
M/S ZKO3-3/U14
Nashua, NH    03062-2698

Only my cat shares my opinions, and she's too psychotic to express it