karl454

how many people on here are using the tiptronic shifting? i, like many others on her have the gear hunting at 40mph that drives me nuts. with the tiptronic it doesnt do it at all because of the higher rpms. my question is, is it bad for the tranny to use the tiptronic? ive been bringin the rpms up to 3000. is that too much rpms?
ive only had this car a few weeks but i love the thing, im just trying to do preventative maintainance hoping to cut down on epairs costs. thanks in advance, karl

ricoblanco

all of the time as of late, due to the hunting issue, and it's fun to boot. I too have wondered if it's harming the transmission, but after reading how others use it exclusively (Paul K comes to mind) without issue, we may be in the clear. As for the 3000rpms, that's no problem at all.

karl454

all ive read about the trannies on these cars a lot and im doing my best to avoid a new tranny in the near future. i have 130k on it and im in love with the thing. i never even liked cas before. the A8's are badass! thanks, karl

CalG

I use the tip when driving twisty roads, or whenever I'm setting up to pass someone.

The tip feature allows me to preselect the down shift without harshness. I treat the gas pedal just how I would with a manual transmission..

Sometimes I wonder if always limiting the motor to less thn 2800 rpm, like the auto shift will do unless you really boot it, isn't just as hard on things as running up the rpm scale.

Fuel economy goes quickly with hard acceleration though ;-))

Yep, I like tip, Use it a lot!

CalG

ricoblanco

I was a truck guy for the longest time before my Audis. Very interesting...

Beartrap

I've had hunting for years in my '98. At some point Randy Young suggested driving in "4" to keep rev's up and reduce the number of shifts as a means of saving the transmission. As he points out, even at highway speeds, an A8 in "4" is revving lower than an S8 in "D". It's because of the different gearing in the two cars. I began driving in "4" years ago. It effectively eliminated my hunting.

In the past six months I've begun to experience hunting in city driving even in "4". So, to forestall a transmission problem as long as possible, I decided to give "3" a try - only in the city. Wow. It is the single best thing I've ever done with my car. And that includes re-coding the transmission from North American to European coding. Driving in "3" absolutely transforms the car. There's torque all the time. No lugging and starving for rev's. It's a totally different car.

You can achieve the same result in Tip, but it's more work for the right arm, and it also requires more focus on driving. When I'm in Tip, I have a tendency to forget I'm in it. Then suddenly I notice I'm driving 120 kph in third gear.

karl454

im hopin the higher revs of tip wont hurt the motor or tranny more. ill try driving in 4 too! that sounds like a mint idea. in 3 im assuming you must be going over 5000 rpm a lot??
ill bring it to tozo in the spring, just hoping to make it until then.

karl454

how did u recode the tranny? sounds like a pricey job to me!

Beartrap

as the hunting occurs between 1200 and 1800. But they never get over 3500. If not Tip, it's the way to go in the city. If I'm going to be on the highway, I still use "4".

As for the re-code, it's cheap. You do it through VAG-COM. Takes two minutes. The procedure's on audipages.com. You need the basic VAG-COM software and cable, both available from several sellers on eBay for less than $20 US, plus a laptop computer. The European coding is supposed to maintain each gear to a higher RPM for better performance. Many people here swear by it, but I have to say honestly I didn't really find much of a difference.

TerminA8r

<ul><li><a href="http://www.audipages.com/Tech_Articles/auto_transmission/codingtransmission.html">Here</a></li></ul>