A4inMD

So I am not 100% positive, but I think after a spirited run through the gears, my clutch may be slipping a little bit...

Background: I've had the S4 for about 5 weeks now. Not my first manual, but it had been a few years. Therefore there was a re-acclimation time where I was slipping the clutch into gear as opposed to lining up the RPMs better and being more direct with the clutch engagements. As far a driving habits go, I do a LOT of highway driving, never have "launched" it, but have run the RMPs to redline on a few occasions, shifting hard to the next gear.

Yesterday, I was out with a buddy and wanted to demonstrate the S4's acceleration. I got a rolling start in 1st, ran up to redline, shift hard to 2nd (barely letting up on the gas and getting a few flashes from the traction control light), and then repeated for third. During this process, I couldn't help but notice that the shifts just weren't quite as quick as they had been before and that 1st to 2nd shift didn't have quite the same snap as it did before. That wasn't really what had be concerned though. What I noticed on the remainder of the drive was that the shifts from 3rd to 4th, and 4th to 5th. Were now silky smooth. As in, I couldn't cause the car to shift hard in these gears if I wanted to...

So a couple of questions, firstly, where I'm thinking that the S4 is beefed up to handle some more "spirited" driving, should I be being a bit more reserved? I.E., no more hard shifts at redline?

secondly, does this sound like the clutch is starting to slip due to hard driving, defect, or is this wear just natural and will the S4 clutch lose some of it's bite as it wears in?

Thanks in advance for any replies and hopefully I don't have to back off too much on the hard driving. It's actually quite fun...

helix139

It appears Audi has not been too terribly consistent when manufacturing our clutch assemblies. I haven't had problems with slipping and I'm at 28000mi, but at the same time there have been several that have. Some have discovered that their flywheels were machined out of spec, others have discovered bad input seals causing oil to leak onto the friction materials, and there was even one case where the bolts on the flywheel were not even torqued down all the way and were visibly loose. It seems to be a tossup. At 4500mi, you should be able to take it to the dealer and have it replaced if you can reproduce, however.

A4inMD

Thanks for the reply. I had read about some of the inconsistencies being observed thus far. As far as driving style goes, would you avoid the high revs and hard shifts, or "should" the S4 be able to handle them with ease?

DrGP

I had 2 sitiuations where I burned my clutch shifting 1/2 in spirited driving.

helix139

I've actually found the S4 actually deals with high revs and hard shifts smoother and more easily than low revs and short shifts. I don't drive hard terribly often, but when I do, the S4 has always handled it with ease and no slippage.

kostas_os

Note that one of the actions of the traction control s/w is to retard the throttle if the wheels lose traction regardless of how hard the driver is stepping on the gas, perhaps that's what you observed?

A4inMD

That was the first time I had ran into the TCS, so it is possible that it contributed to some of the "odd" feeling. When you guys are driving hard, do you drop the clutch, or purposely slip it a little on hard shifts? Just looking for a best practice here.

helix139

I generally drop it.

A4inMD

Update: I drove the 80 mile trek to work today and the clutch is definitely not slipping while engaged. If just feels much softer, and seems to have lost some of its feedback. The best way to describe it is that it feels like my clutch went from "Dynamic" to "Comfort" mode... I'm going to point it out to the dealer at the 5,000 mile service, but was wondering if anyone else had noticed anything similar?

KZEVO

when you engage the clutch to shift, does the RPM go up before going down or does it go down directly? That to me is a better indication of clutch slipping.

Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but i've never had an issue with hard or smooth shifts being indicative of a clutch slippage. It's how you balance the the throttle and clutch engagement that determines the smoothness of the shift.