mishar

I find our paddle shifters quite useless as they are. On a strait road there is rarely good reason to use them and on a winding one I newer know where they are. So I am thinking about something like this. With four rings in the middle, of course. What do you guys think?

cre8value

Misha, I agree with the useless part, more so that they are unreasonably slow to respond to shift input rather than their location.

In your Mitsubishi picture, are those paddle shifters stationary? They don't move with the steering wheel? Or they are just larger so there is more surface area to find them when the wheel is turned?

Mister Bally

I just never seem to use paddle shifters on all of the rental cars I've been in. My A8 does not have them and the only time I use tiptronic was on my top speed runs, keeping it in 5th.

Fez2013

Those shifters look stationary..

mishar

Shifting gears is as fast as that ZF gearbox can make and stay smooth. That doesn't depend on paddles.

Those Mitsubishi paddles are fixed and doesn't turn with the wheel. That's how Lamborghini, Ferrari and other serious guys are doing it. Exception is Formula 1, but they turn that "wheel" only 90° newer changing grip.

Samo7

Am i to believe that fifth gear will give me more top end than 6th? I can see the revs being higher but top end?

dvs_dave

The tiptronic on the gear selector is much better in that respect as it doesn't move and is exactly where you expect it to be. Only thing is the direction is the wrong way round....should be pull for up, push for down. If it's good enough for Walter Rohrl and Michele Mouton to break records in a Quattro S1, it's good enough for me in my 2 ton LWB limo.

Mishar, you need to figure out a way to do it with that spare "stubby" you have!

MP4.2+6.0

That's for a 4.2. Comes down to exactly where that torque and HP sweet spot is, and if you watch the online Euro YouTube videos you will see they are in 5th typically, if you can see the gear indicator or the revs. Not sure the question is answered for the S8 (which I can guess is 5th) or the W12 where I'm not really sure since it has the lowest beefiest torque curve of the bunch. The W12 is geared numerically higher than a 4.2 though, so it likely still ends up in 5th, probably in the mid to upper 180's with enough very clear runway.

Mr. Bally has practical experience, since he ran his up limiter removed pre-FSI 4.2 at Bonneville. Paging Mr. Bally...with the smile still on his face. I saw his D3 first person in CA a few thousand miles later and can confirm it was all still seemingly stock, many miles, no obvious smoke and so on. They can still run!

MP4.2+6.0

And more so after I renewed the solenoids a few thousand miles back. Very small fractions of a second, which is needed with the almost violent 1-2 shift and RPM run up against a somewhat more modest W12 redline. Not at all like the "one thousand-one, one..." molasses C5's/D2's. I use it more for downshifts or thru turn gear holds anyway. Even S mode just isn't needed. W12 torque is there right now, any gear, so essentially irrelevant for sudden decisions to run fast.

Per my other reply, Mr. Bally and Bally kid took a little spin in mine back-to-back with his Bonneville 4.2 runner, so would know. We never even got to the paddles.

hunterp27

Dang it.........WHY CAN'T I SEE THE PIC'S????