Ariel69

I used to have a 2011 Q7 TDI and really miss the Torque (and MPGs). I'm now in a 2018 Q7 Prestige and notice that I have to push the pedal a lot further just to get around in highway traffic. I currently have it set to Dynamic/Drive mode. Running it in Sport mode helps a lot but it takes forever to get to final gear. I use the paddle shifter to drop down 1 or 2 gears to get around a vehicle and then let go back into Drive mode on its own. Is there any way to train the transmission to downshift at certain throttle position or delay the shifting? I've read that the transmission learns based on your driving behavior but to what extent?

superswiss

No, not in that sense. An automatic transmission adjusts the shift points based on your current driving style. If the TCU detects that you are a dynamic driver, then it holds gears longer and upshifts at higher rpm to give you that more responsive feel, but if you then lay off, it settles down again. It's not something that remains permanent necessarily. Its something that reacts to your current driving style. For example if you gun it in D from a stop it will shift closer to redline whereas if you take off like a grandma, it shifts sooner. Or if you just went for a spirited run up a mountain road, it will hold the gears longer before upshifting. D and S have overall objectives that are further influenced by how you drive. There is also something called transmission adaptation. A modern automatic transmission constantly adapts the shift parameters to maintain a consistent shift quality over the lifetime of the transmission. It factors in driving style as well as wear of the transmission etc. to make sure the quality of the shifts themselves remains consistent. Basically its objective is to ensure the transmission doesn't develop any jerking and rough shifts over time. Sometimes the adaption has to be reset, for example after a fluid change or if the learning algorithms went off the deep end and the shift quality has gone in the gutter. You as the driver can choose whether you want the transmission and throttle map to be more relaxed or more responsive by putting it in D or S and you can override it with the paddles, too. For example in S you can force it to upshift to the final gear. Just use the paddles and upshift to the final gear, then when it goes back to automatic mode it will stay in the final gear until it deems necessary to downshift again in order to give you the desired responsiveness.

But what no automatic transmission can do yet is read your mind, so to really get what you want you have to use manual mode as you already seem to be doing. Downshift 1 or 2 gears using the paddles before you overtake somebody or need more acceleration.

mcdream

Not sure how it exactly learns but for me doing fast accelerations seems to be working. At the stop light for example, when light goes green I usually accelerate quite fast. I think I managed to accidentally "reset" the saved setting once by doing a "hard reset" with ODB11 on some module. After that it behaved quite differently and didn't shift to a higher gear when it normally would.
I have the TDI model but I also have older S8 model too and currently the pedal response isn't that different (at least I don't feel it so much). S models will most likely always have better response but they can adapt to slow driving too.
There are some "pedal boxes" that trick the car into thinking you are pressing the pedal more than you actually are but I don't have any personal experience with them. From what I've read some (more extreme versions at least) make the pedal work like a "on/off" switch. Impossible to drive normally and some have had near crash experiences. Most models should have settings you can change.
From what I know, I don't think there is a way to edit settings in control modules that would affect the transmission or pedal response.

Ariel69

This is exactly what I needed to know . I'm an old muscle car guy and this is my first (well theoretical 2nd) car with this much technology.

gsobol

Well, can't compare modern supercharged v6 to good old v8 grunt, ... at least not initially (missing torque ...).
Pedal travel is the first thing you will always notice in this scenario. However, when you finally retrain yourself (), you will notice that you can get the car to move just as well without touching the paddles and dropping gears manually. This is especially true when in dynamic mode.
Also, how did you retrain the tranny in your muscle car?