I just purchased a 99.5 A4 1.8T Quattro/ tiptronic, with 5K miles on it. The previous owner had installed an Audi Performace Factory 30HP chip and a Borla exhaust system. I like the car, but have a couple of problems/questions that I hope someone can help me with.

1) Poor low-end torque. Below about 3K RPM, the car is very sluggish. Is that normal, or is this the impact of the chip and/or exhaust? The posts I've read about other brands of chips suggest an improvement in low-end, but I've seen nothing mentioned about the Audi part.

2) Early upshift. I find the car upshifts too soon. This seems particulary bothersome from 3rd to 4th, which occurs at under 40 mph during normal acceleration. Is this normal?
I thought I had seen a post about changing a chip for the transmission, but have not been able to find any information about this. Does it exist?The manual suggests the Tiptronic has two modes.
But I'll be darned if I can tell it operates any differently.

3) Not a problem, but was wondering if anyone had had any experience with any of the wood dash kits out there? In particular those from Real Wood Dash Kits (link attached)?

This forum has been very helpful and I appreciate everyone taking the time to post.

Thanks!<ul><li><a href="http://www.exoticwooddash.com/entry.htm">http://www.exoticwooddash.com/entry.htm</a</li></ul>

 

....either you live outside the U.S., or you have an APR (Audi Performance & Racing) chip because there is no "factory" Audi performance chip available in the U.S.

<i>1) Poor low-end torque. Below about 3K RPM, the car is very sluggish. Is that normal, or is this the impact of the chip and/or exhaust? The posts I've read about other brands of chips suggest an improvement in low-end, but I've seen nothing mentioned about the Audi part.</i>

Your sluggishness at low RPM's is probably mostly due to the tiptronic transmission.<p>Andy Hedin
'97 A4 1.8Tqms, Garrett, Borla, Abt, H&R/Bilstein, E-Codes

 

Hi,

1) Poor low-end... I too have a chipped tip-equipped car (GIAC)... the engine doesn't feel any different from stock until you hit the 3000rpm mark. At that point, it spools up and off you go. Not quite as smooth as I'd like, but it seems to be the way ECU chipped Tips work.

2) Early upshift... unless you are pushing the go-pedal fairly aggressively, the transmission shifts very quickly all the way to 5th (at speeds as low as 40mph) to keep the engine revs at or below 2000rpm for economy I think. Unless I am pushing it (just about all the way w/o going into kickdown mode), I've noticed the engine doesn't really like to go above 3000rpm for long before it upshifts. If you want more control... drive in Tip mode (auto-manual mode)... in that case, the transmission will not shift automatically until redline.

3) Sorry I can't help you there.<p>-eric
<a href="http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~leeep/audi/">Jaspis/Opal '00 Avant 1.8TQTipS, GIAC Stage 1.5</a>
#AudiWorld on <a href="http://www.efnet.org/">EFNet</a> IRC

 

I have Tiptronic in my 1.8t Passat. There is substantial lag with the stock programming. remember this is only a 1.8L engine until you start developing significant boost (2500+ rpm). 1.8L in a 3100 lb car is laughable. The automatic does not allow "winding up" to aleviate this sluggishness.

You just have to get used to it. It's the only shortcoming with this engine/trans. combo - slow off the line, and exaggerated by the fact that it moves very well once you get moving. Kinda feels like a scaled-up 1990 VW 1.8L 16V, the bottom end felt so weak, because the top end was amazing (at the time).