Does Anyone Here Drive DSG-Equipped Car?

[Rebellion]

Does anyone have experience of driving a car that has a DSG gearbox? (Dual clutch with flappy padles). If so, what are they like in auto mode when crawling along in traffic? Are they happy to do that, or are the gearchanges jerky like robotised manual gearboxes were 10 or so years ago? Thanks.

[Sebastian]

Drive passat dsg mate and is different world ... Only thing when dsg box goes wrong u need to take second mortgage out

[Rebellion]

Thanks for that. But if a gearbox goes wrong, all you need to do is the airbox mod - according to some on here it fixes all ailments known to man lol.

[dlp]

Agree with Sebastian - my Dad had a Golf R32 with 4Motion and DSG. A-mazing, you could sit in the passenger seat with your eyes closed and not actually know when the car was changing gear. Mental.

[GoldenWonder]

Yup, I had a 2007 2.0 TDI Passat with the DSG for a while.

Good points:
- Pretty quick all round
- Seamless gear changes - in town or on motorway
- Economical - I averaged 44mpg

Bad
- gearbox used to catch me out, and my wife hated it for the simple fact it couldn't predict the road like you can. I.e you slow down to a roundabout, see a gap and then accelerate. it used to drop down to 2nd, then 1st, then back up again leaving you fumbling about like a learner driver!
- Floor it to get a quick getaway and nothing happens, and I mean nothing - put you foot down and it just gasped and potters out until you back off the throttle - you have to use progressive amounts of throttle
- Awful combination with the electronic handbrake, reverse hill starts are a nightmare, even using the hill start button you can roll forward an alarming amount before it 'bites'!
- Mine went wrong, and was fortunately fixed under warranty but just to replace the mechatronics (ie the ecu/controls) was a bill of around £1800

So overall I think its a great 'auto' but buy with a warranty and drive it like a traditional automatic - its not quite the sporty combination that the top gear reviewers would have you believe. Round the town was brilliant through as you can just use the creep to drive in traffic! I do miss that aspect of it.

[lee gsi]

The paddle shift soon wears off and as above you end up driving it like an auto and just knock it down if its struggling on hills.

[GoldenWonder]

Do a google search on DSG woes and really put yourself off! There's lots of problems in the US and I think VW even extended the US warranty on the DSG boxes due to their equivalent of VOSA making them!

But it is a brilliant gearbox in many ways - I think mine was half down to the 2.0 tdi being a bit of a lumpy performer anyway

[Islander]

I have a Seat Altea XL with DSG, this was preceded by a Leon also with DSG, no probs with either ( touch wood lol ) both with 2.0 TDI 140 h.p. engine, fantastic cars.