S-tronic behaviour questions

[Roboticus]

So I've had my 2013 S6 for about 6 weeks, and I'm starting to learn the quirks of the car. The transmission seems "quirky" at low speed, and I wanted to ask y'all for some advice.

First off, there are no codes or errors. Haven't scanned it with VCDS, but nothing comes up with an OBDII reader or on the cluster. Car is not tuned.

Symptoms / strange behaviours

• in 's' mode transmission is slow to shift down from S4 -> S3 when decelerating. Seems like the car holds in S4 overly long, then a quick shift to S3 and almost immediately to S2.
• clutch feels like it's mildly slipping on 2nd gear acceleration from very low speed (below 5kph). Situations where it is noticeable is when coming to an almost complete stop, and then getting back on the gas slowly. Think "rolling a stop sign."
• doesn't engage 1st gear smoothly from stop under moderate to high throttle. car seems to jerk into 1st, and then accelerates smoothly.

In manual mode the car feels good, aside from the 2nd gear mild clutch slip issue. No issues going into reverse, or in reverse. No feel of clutch slip in any gear except the very low speed 2nd gear slip detailed above.

I've read a few of the mechatronics threads, the symptoms don't seem to quite fit, but it's definitely on my mind.

My core question - do I try and tune the TCU and see if the behaviour changes, or do I pursue transmission diagnostic? The car does have a 3rd party warranty that at my current rate of driving will be good for another 4 months.

[ramboss6]

Throttle and gearbox adaptation will fix it if not then maybe tcu tune

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[gk1]

So I've had my 2013 S6 for about 6 weeks, and I'm starting to learn the quirks of the car. The transmission seems "quirky" at low speed, and I wanted to ask y'all for some advice.

First off, there are no codes or errors. Haven't scanned it with VCDS, but nothing comes up with an OBDII reader or on the cluster. Car is not tuned.

Symptoms / strange behaviours

• in 's' mode transmission is slow to shift down from S4 -> S3 when decelerating. Seems like the car holds in S4 overly long, then a quick shift to S3 and almost immediately to S2.
• clutch feels like it's mildly slipping on 2nd gear acceleration from very low speed (below 5kph). Situations where it is noticeable is when coming to an almost complete stop, and then getting back on the gas slowly. Think "rolling a stop sign."
• doesn't engage 1st gear smoothly from stop under moderate to high throttle. car seems to jerk into 1st, and then accelerates smoothly.

In manual mode the car feels good, aside from the 2nd gear mild clutch slip issue. No issues going into reverse, or in reverse. No feel of clutch slip in any gear except the very low speed 2nd gear slip detailed above.

I've read a few of the mechatronics threads, the symptoms don't seem to quite fit, but it's definitely on my mind.

My core question - do I try and tune the TCU and see if the behaviour changes, or do I pursue transmission diagnostic? The car does have a 3rd party warranty that at my current rate of driving will be good for another 4 months.

Unfortunately 2013 seems to be the MY with the most issues. I am not sure what they changed in later models (software/hardware- software for sure) to correct some of these issues until by the 2016ish C7.5 they are almost all gone.

• in 's' mode transmission is slow to shift down from S4 -> S3 when decelerating. Seems like the car holds in S4 overly long, then a quick shift to S3 and almost immediately to S2.
  -this may depend on how fast you are decelerating. In S mode the trans tends to want to "hold" the gear longer unless you stab the throttle to make it downshift which you don't always want to do. A video may help to see if it is more normal than not.
  
• clutch feels like it's mildly slipping on 2nd gear acceleration from very low speed (below 5kph). Situations where it is noticeable is when coming to an almost complete stop, and then getting back on the gas slowly. Think "rolling a stop sign."
  -this is very common and most complained about behavior of the 4.0T+s-tronic. It is part of the reason the ZF is so well received in other 4.0T applications..it is overall smoother than the S-tronic.
  
• doesn't engage 1st gear smoothly from stop under moderate to high throttle. car seems to jerk into 1st, and then accelerates smoothly.
  -this one is no good. If you are stopped and give the car any throttle it should not jerk into 1st with the exception of if you are purposely doing launch control.

FWIW I believe gears 1,3,5,7 are on the larger clutches and 2,4,6 and REV are on the smaller ones. Since 2 and 4 seems to be a couple of your complaints perhaps you do indeed have a clutch issue on that shaft, but that doesn't explain the 1st gear jerk which IRRC is usually attributed to mechatronics issues.
Hope that helps, sorry if it is not what you wanted to hear.

[T00fast]

I'm fresh off of a DIY mechatronic repair in my '16 S6. My issues were instantly gone. The car is idling smoother too. I had the slow to a stop lurching from 2nd to 1st and engine surging. Also rough shifts from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd. I also had zero codes, tried a DSG fluid flush and DSG adaptation. These did not fix my issue. Finally, built up the courage to do it myself and glad I did.... just replaced the two circuit boards, no valves.

My advice would be to not get a TCU tune until you get your car running how it should be. Try using your warranty, oh and there is a TSB out on this problem as well.

Good luck!

[Roboticus]

Throttle and gearbox adaptation will fix it if not then maybe tcu tune

Is there a way to do this without VCDS?

[ramboss6]

Is there a way to do this without VCDS?

https://youtu.be/NLnQs0ePOS4

Try this or search audi transmission reset

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[Alabama]

FWIW I believe gears 1,3,5,7 are on the larger clutches and 2,4,6 and REV are on the smaller ones. Since 2 and 4 seems to be a couple of your complaints perhaps you do indeed have a clutch issue on that shaft, but that doesn't explain the 1st gear jerk which IRRC is usually attributed to mechatronics issues.
Hope that helps, sorry if it is not what you wanted to hear.

I still don't fathom how the Audi DSG in a relatively low powered car can have so many issues while their sibling Porsche 911 turbo has much more power and apparently no issues with the Porsche version of DSG. Maybe lower cost parts for Audi also meant lower quality parts?

[gk1]

I still don't fathom how the Audi DSG in a relatively low powered car can have so many issues while their sibling Porsche 911 turbo has much more power and apparently no issues with the Porsche version of DSG. Maybe lower cost parts for Audi also meant lower quality parts?

I could be wrong but I believe the PDK was developed independently of the Audi S-tronic. While they share the same principal design philosophy of a dual clutch transmission they are completely different and I agree the PDK is better than the S-tronic.
I said it before Porsche and Audi should be sharing transmissions not engines, but I guess that is something they want to keep seperate for some unknown reason.
They even have the PDK in the more comparable and heavier Panamera Turbo S and Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid AND both with 8 speeds now.

[Alabama]

I could be wrong but I believe the PDK was developed independently of the Audi S-tronic. While they share the same principal design philosophy of a dual clutch transmission they are completely different and I agree the PDK is better than the S-tronic.
I said it before Porsche and Audi should be sharing transmissions not engines, but I guess that is something they want to keep seperate for some unknown reason.
They even have the PDK in the more comparable and heavier Panamera Turbo S and Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid AND both with 8 speeds now.

I'm sure you're right. Car and Driver writes of the PDK: "It first appeared in a testing capacity as a five-speed in the 956 race car in 1983 before later migrating to the 962 (pictured above), in which it won its first race at Monza in 1986. Showroom availability of the Doppelkupplungsgetriebe wouldn’t happen until the mid-cycle refresh plans for the 2005 911, Boxster, and Cayman, this time featuring seven forward gears." Sometimes one gets better results through competition, but other times through sharing.

[MattyMarkey]

I have read that the PDK in the early MY’s of the Macan, has had some major problems. Not sure if the PDK is the same across models, but even the PDKs aren’t immune to costly, annoying issues; like the DSG.


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[Roboticus]

Resurrecting this thread with an update, in case anyone else has similar issues.

Had the dealership do a TCU adaptation, and a transmission service. Unfortunately that did not resolve the issue.

Turns out both clutches were slipping. Input/output speeds had significant variance at low RPM, up to a 45% difference vs expected.

The car has 139,000kms (86k miles), and was serviced at 55k kms (35k miles) on time by the previous owner. Audi was unable to find records of the 110k km (70k miles) transmission service, but the previous owner claimed it was done at Audi.

It took a while to sort out, and the 3rd party warranty company has agreed to cover it. The car is currently at Audi awaiting parts, I expect to have the car back in 3-ish weeks.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in, especially with the advice to not tune.

I'll do a follow-up once I have the final details and have the car back.

[massboykie]

….
It took a while to sort out, and the 3rd party warranty company has agreed to cover it. The car is currently at Audi awaiting parts, I expect to have the car back in 3-ish weeks.
….

Warrantee just paid for itself! ;-)

Cheers
Massboykie

[Roboticus]

Got the car back a week ago, but due to travel haven't been able to really drive it until today.

Audi replaced the entire gearbox, part 0B5-300-056-L-006. The car is a lot smoother most of the time, but there is still some harsh shifting. I'm not sure how long the adaption process takes, I'm going to drive it for a while to see how it behaves.

This was a very expensive repair, total for parts and labour was over $20k Canadian Dollars. I paid the (very low) deductible, 3rd party warranty paid the rest. Car was at 139,xxx KMs.

My Audi dealership only works with one 3rd party warranty company. I was really lucky it happened to be the warranty I had, Audi handled all the back-and-forth with them. Audi was fantastic through the whole process, I can't say enough good things about the service department.