lwt

Hi all, I'm am a longtime lurker on these great forums and owner of a new 2018 S5 Sportback with technik/prestige package + pretty much every option except for dynamic steering (picked up in May here in Toronto). Coming from 20+ years of BMW, and absolutely loving the S5 Sportback!

The acceleration lag issue has been discussed here at length, and I too am seeing it in when the shifter is in D mode where when punching down on the gas pedal the acceleration is very lon-linear and kicks in after a delay (my Drive settings is set to 'Individual' and the engine/transmission set there to 'Auto'). As already observed by many, the lag pretty much goes away and the acceleration is fairly linear when pulling the shifter to S mode. So I thought I could keep the car in this state permanently by setting the engine/transmission setting to 'Dynamic' in the Individual Drive settings (and also get the added benefit of the auto engine stop/start being disabled). When I first make this change, I see the car goes into S mode, and all is fine. What I'm finding however is when the car is powered off and restarted, although the engine/transmission setting stays in 'Dynamic', the car is back in D mode, and I see the acceleration issues again.

So my first question: Is it expected behavior for the car to default to D mode after restart, even if the 'Individual' drive setting for engine/transmission is set to 'Dynamic'?
Second question: What are the differences and interplay if any between D & S modes along with the Individual drive settings for engine/tranmission, etc? i.e. is engine/transmission at Dynamic with shifter in D mode no different from engine/transmission at Auto with shifter in D mode?, or engine/transmission at Auto with shifter in S mode versus engine/transmission at Dynamic with shifter in S mode, etc.

Thanks in advance.

rccoleman

Yes, it's normal. Audi's goal is to make the default mode the most fuel efficient, and you have to choose to put the system into Sport mode.

There's no difference. Other than the unexpected-but-normal behavior that you already observed when starting the car in Dynamic or in Individual with engine/transmission set to Dynamic, you're just flipping between the same "D" and "S" modes no matter how you do it. The last piece of the puzzle that @superswiss likes to point out is that manual mode, which you enter either by pushing the shifter to the right or by hitting the paddles, will "adopt" the shift logic of the mode that you were in before you went into manual. For example, if you were in "S" and switch to manual, you'll get the higher revs and quicker shifting that comes with "S" as you manually switch gears.

lwt

I see thanks much for the info. So if I'm understanding correctly, there really is no way to "persist" the car in S mode when the car is turned off? I had hoped the Individual setting of 'Dynamic' for engine/transmission or overall Drive setting to 'Dynamic' would do it.

rccoleman

Correct. No way to do that, even with coding.

CtheW0rld

Just hit the shifter twice. You won't even notice you're doing it after a couple days. That's what I do.

SD Nardo

Yep, just double tap that shifter back and you're in buisness! I only use D on road trips for best MPG, even then in dynamic. My car lives in Spot or Manual and dynamic. Proudly rocking 17 MPG average as a result of my mostly surfuce street commute but I bought this thing to enjoy and hammer on.

NoMoreBMWs

This drivetrain seems to take a long time to fully break in. The throttle response in D in my car continued to improve up to about 5000 km, with the non-linearity when feathering the throttle in Auto virtually disappearing.

lwt

That's great to hear. On googling the acceleration issue, am seeing on a couple of European forums re: a software fix for the gearing seems to be available now: https://www.audi-sport.net/xf/thread...had-it.373626/ .. hopefully this comes over to North America soon or might be here already? Not sure if anyone here has been able to get this fix.

18RS5

Definitely make sure it's in the ""S" mode and also dynamic. You'll also notice after about 5k miles the car really livens up!

2018S5

I know this is an old post, but I have had a 2018 S5 Cabriolet for about a year now with the same hesitation issue everyone is describing. It gets better with Auto and Sport mode but still never completely goes away and is dangerous when trying to perform aggressive maneuvers. I was just curious if anyone had gotten anywhere with their dealer making some adjustments to the programing that might help some? I went to one dealer here in Charlotte and they have blown me off twice. I thought about trying another dealer that is about an hour away and might be a little more receptive, but I thought I would see what everyone's experience has been. It is very disappointing for such an expensive car. I have even thought about selling it but the depreciation on these Audi's is the worse I have ever seen and I buy a lot of cars. Thanks.