GolfGTIforum.co.uk
Model specific boards => Golf mk7 => Topic started by: charv94 on 25 October 2014, 22:40
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Pretty much as the title suggests, Does it ruin the fun of a hot hatch?
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Have never used a DSG but regardless I can't imagine not changing gears manually... I mean you can be a petrol head going on about saving 0.2 seconds to 60 or whatever, but you lose that feeling of making good decisions and having a feel of the car. My gran could get in a DSG and put the foot down and boss a drag race :-P
Just my 2 pennies.
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Pretty much as the title suggests, Does it ruin the fun of a hot hatch?
Yes !
It's like owning a luxury car, Jag/Roller etc and having a stick shift !
Red
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Difficult one to answer as everyone is different, i had DSG in my GTI But i only use my car for general town driving with the occasional weekend away or country blast, i found that the auto box made town driving boring and took a lot away from the driving experience, but when on a blast using the paddles it's a lot of fun! I've got the manual in my R but it takes a lot of stirring round town which can be tiresome at times but also rewarding.
My advice is get an extended test drive in both to make your own mind up.
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An extended test drive definitely
Its just a different experience with DSG, you can have just as much fun with the paddles as a manual. Which is preferable to me in the Sport mode as the car is not likely to change gear mid bend automatically.
If you do the miles DSG is awesome, especially with the adaptive cruise control just set and steer, makes things a lot easier in traffic than on and off the clutch all the time aswell. Point and squirt :smiley:
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DSG is the best of both worlds, stress free and relaxing when not in a hurry, or stuck in traffic, and a real drivers car when popped into sport or manual mode and using the paddles to full effect.
As suggested if you can get an extended teat drive try one and decide, a short test will not help you overcome any prejudiced you may have against a DSG
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I don't think even an extended test drive will make your mind up if you've had little experience with modern Autos before. It took me at least 2 weeks to learn how to get the best out of driving my Passat DSG.
Personally I think that Auto's, DSGs etc are the future. You hear "drivers cars", "being in control", feeling connected to the driving experience" etc etc banded about all the time, but look at the transmissions of choice in all the top end sports cars we all dream of owning. They nearly all have two pedals.
Obviously my Mk2 is a manual, and that shouldn't be any other way, but in a car that is mostly used for the mundane, 95% of the time it won't be driven like a Mk2 on a Sunday morning. So why not let the excellent technology do the dull stuff for you?
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The DSG takes a long time to get used to and see the best from it, but even then "point and squirt" is not my idea of fun, with and without the paddles. Getting an R soon and the prospect of shaving 0.2s off the 0-62 and getting an extra 1mpg to go DSG does not appeal.
I've had a few fortnightly stints in my dads DSG Golfs when he's gone on holiday from Nwcastle airport and left his car at mine, I just cannot get away with it. In something with supercar amounts of BHP, auto makes sense as you'd spend more time changing from1st to 2nd than actually being in 1st. For me there's so much control taken from the driver already, why give it the gears too? I'd feel ilke I'm in one of those driverless cars from "minority report" if I gave up anything else to the cars management system. Modern cars are numb enough.
A fair few times ive had the car override my manual paddle choices when out in a DSG (eco taking over?).
Skynet have given up on killing John Connor, they'll wait until we're all in MK10 Golfs with no driver interaction and wipe out the human race by causing us all to have fatal crashes by wire. :grin:
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Very subjective one this one... IMO it all depends on what you use the car for. Personally, I feel it actually 'adds' character and depth of ability to a great car. Yes, a manual is more interactive, my MK5 GTI was a manual and when I owned that I always said I wouldn't have a DSG in a warm/hot hatch but having now owned one for 9 months, I was wrong.
I use my car 80% for commuting, sitting in traffic and motorway driving and for these duties I will never go back to a manual. The rest of my driving is generally B-Road blasts as I'm lucky where I live I'm spoiled with great roads. Even on the B-Road blasts I love the DSG as the noises it makes on upshifts makes me giggle! I've never 'yearned' for the manual in the whole time I've had it.
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The DSG box is the future. It's brilliant and in the MK7's it takes nothing away from driving at all. It drives superbly and changes gear when you'd want it to change gear. Let's face it, in England you spend the majority of your time stuck in traffic, and DSG makes life so much easier without having to constantly put the clutch down. I've been in a manual after driving my DSG for a year and the clutch pedal simply seems unnecessary and irritating.
You can put the car into total manual mode with the paddle shifters and the car's auto gearbox will never take over in this mode, so not sure what you mean Monkeyhanger? The only time the car will change gear automatically in manual mode is if you do something stupid and keep the car in 5th while at 10mph or try and go up to 8,000 RPM in a gear, which will cause the car to shift up to protect the engine.
We need to move forward. Manual is the past and these types of gearboxes are going to be improved constantly and will eventually take over. Usual automatic gearboxes are awful yes but DSG is simply phenomenal and it doesn't ruin any fun in terms of driving.
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VAG manual boxes are exceptionally slick and good, far far superior to the stone age feeling units in a ford or vauxhall - hirecar experience waiting for the GTD!
I actually hate driving a manual now though, the DSG is that good its a must me. Suits from cruising to country lane hooning. Usual DSG Sport mode S1-S6 etc is crap though, not for the rally driver. Gear changes can be all over, if your going fast and going through tight bits, it can change gear mid corner, or have the wrong gear lined up and have a slight hesitation, enough to put you off a DSG. That situation its got to be the paddles plus you can be better placed in the power / torque bands.
Try using the paddles pulling fast out of a tight junction though as it disappears around the steering wheel from your grasp lol.
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The only thing I'd say against DSG on the Mk7 is that it takes it up one VED band vs manual - perhaps only a small problem for private owners, but a big consideration for company car drivers.
Other than that, I'd have probably spec'ed it.
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In my opinion, there will become a point when the auto box does take over, they will become slicker, more efficient and provide more than a 0.1 second to 60 gain. In high end cars i completely agree, if you're trying to race to 60 in 3 seconds you don't have a chance to change gear so the auto box needs to take car of that.
However, theres something special in shoving it into second and just gassing it all the way to the red line before changing, being in total control of the gears is not something that an auto box with paddles lets you do. It does, regardless of what anyone says remove involvement too, pulling a paddle on the wheel compared to the process of changing a gear manually is less engaging. and in a hot hatch, is that not what they are about, powerful and a drivers car to the masses?
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In my opinion, there will become a point when the auto box does take over, they will become slicker, more efficient and provide more than a 0.1 second to 60 gain. In high end cars i completely agree, if you're trying to race to 60 in 3 seconds you don't have a chance to change gear so the auto box needs to take car of that.
However, theres something special in shoving it into second and just gassing it all the way to the red line before changing, being in total control of the gears is not something that an auto box with paddles lets you do. It does, regardless of what anyone says remove involvement too, pulling a paddle on the wheel compared to the process of changing a gear manually is less engaging. and in a hot hatch, is that not what they are about, powerful and a drivers car to the masses?
Yes, but also with the added practicality of some economy and practicality thrown in. A car to be used every day but one that will offer the driver a bit of a thrill when hooning down a good road.
That added practicality is where the auto box scores IMO. It's just so good with the updated software it doesn't detract from the experience and for long journeys/commutes/driving in town/traffic its tremendous.
When you're on it, no it won't let you bounce off the limiter like a manual but it will rev out completely and only change up when it hits the red line. The revised software also allows multiple downshifts and has never once shifted when I haven't expected it to. The only time I've cocked it up is when I've let it run into the limiter so it changes up, and I've pulled the paddle at the same time meaning it shifts up 2 gears instead of one, but that's as much driver error, nothing wrong with the box.
If I was buying the car as a second car and only did a couple of thousand miles a year, then without question I would have a manual. However for every day driving, DSG all the way for me.
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For every plus point there's a negative, some will forgive the DSG some of it's foibles, others will be annoyed by them (like me :evil:. I wouldn't consider economy differences, there's 2% in it on paper, and they're in the same taxation band. I'd also suggest that if you are in an economical mood, you could do better manually than the DSG can manage, it upshifts way too early when trying to be as economical as possible. Changing up on me when I was just about to happened to me more than once, leaving me in a gear higher than I wanted. The car deciding to change on me in manual mode when I was nowhere near a red line also annoyed me greatly.
If you're stuck in gridlock crawling in 1st and 2nd most of your journey then DSG will make sense, but I do believe that more convenience means less engagement, not something I want less of in a hot hatch.
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For every plus point there's a negative, some will forgive the DSG some of it's foibles, others will be annoyed by them (like me :evil:. I wouldn't consider economy differences, there's 2% in it on paper, and they're in the same taxation band. I'd also suggest that if you are in an economical mood, you could do better manually than the DSG can manage, it upshifts way too early when trying to be as economical as possible. Changing up on me when I was just about to happened to me more than once, leaving me in a gear higher than I wanted. The car deciding to change on me in manual mode when I was nowhere near a red line also annoyed me greatly.
If you're stuck in gridlock crawling in 1st and 2nd most of your journey then DSG will make sense, but I do believe that more convenience means less engagement, not something I want less of in a hot hatch.
My E class estate is an auto, 7 speed with paddles that i never use. My wife's GTi is manual, and whilst I thought about getting her DSG, i just felt that when I drove the Golf I wanted to play with the gears so went manual. Dont regret it but do expect that in the next few years we will all be going to autos of one form or another.
Ian
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For every plus point there's a negative, some will forgive the DSG some of it's foibles, others will be annoyed by them (like me :evil:. I wouldn't consider economy differences, there's 2% in it on paper, and they're in the same taxation band. I'd also suggest that if you are in an economical mood, you could do better manually than the DSG can manage, it upshifts way too early when trying to be as economical as possible. Changing up on me when I was just about to happened to me more than once, leaving me in a gear higher than I wanted. The car deciding to change on me in manual mode when I was nowhere near a red line also annoyed me greatly.
If you're stuck in gridlock crawling in 1st and 2nd most of your journey then DSG will make sense, but I do believe that more convenience means less engagement, not something I want less of in a hot hatch.
You couldn't have been in manual mode if it changed gear nowhere near the red line. You must have used a paddle which put it in temporary manual mode, if you don't change gears again for a while it will drop back into auto mode.
If you move the DSG lever across to the left it's in pure manual mode and will only downshift if you're coming to a stop in traffic and still in a high gear or if you're going past 7500RPM into the hard red line as a safety measure for the engine.
You can stay in 3rd at 6000RPM and it won't change up... It never changes itself unless you're doing something stupid in this mode.
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When you start to see what some of the electronics on the Mk7 does today and then look at the next generation the new Passat has on it, you can see that to get the most out of all of them, it will need an auto box.
Already you miss some things out by having a manual - on DSG it will come down to a stop and pull away when under ACC... a manual doesn't.
The generation beyond the Passat will almost certainly start to offer even more automated drive modes, talking to other cars around it to receive intention data and possibly even communicating with traffic lights and other items on the road to slow down the vehicle as needed and avoid problems.
After years of the high-tech car being promised, we are seeing it come alive all of a sudden and DSG is just part of this.
I can see them not offering a manual gearbox in the coming years!
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i went dsg on the R and i was a die hard manual fan, in reality the manual box i didn't feel was that great in the GTI i had on extended test, my Polo actually has a better manual box in terms of involvement
i think a lot considerations come into this decision and it took me about a month to get to grips with dsg and in reality i mainly use it in manual mode, i think 98% of the time now i love dsg and 2% of the time i would like a manual
this involvement thing is just rubbish, you become involved in a different way and with dsg i actually use the box more, yes there are some aspects of dsg that aren't perfect
biggest convert has been the wife who has gone dsg on her R
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IMO, the biggest reason that modern cars feel numb has nothing to do with the gearbox.
It is the steering that's numb and lacking in feel... it is set up for the Playstation generation - that is my biggest bugbear with modern cars. My other car proves that with lovely steering, lots of feel...
As for gearboxes, I have a manual GTD - although it may be in the same tax bracket as the DSG it results in lower BIK with a company car... My g/f has a 320d M-Sport with the 8 Speed Sport Auto. I have driven DSG on a regular basis.
The manual gearbox on the Golf is adequate, reasonably slick shifting and light (it is not a patch on, for example, the Honda S2000, Caterham 7 etc.). DSG seems fine i about 80% of cases but as Monkeyhanger says when it annoys, it really annoys. If I want to be in third then it should stay in third not drop to second when I accelerate and want to use the torque of the engine rather than rev the nuts of it. The 8 Speed Sport Auto in the BMW is much better, it still has this annoyance but it is less often and as the 'box is much smoother shifting than DSG... it is less annoying...
So of all of those, I would take the 8 Speed Sport Auto every time..
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The manual gearbox on the Golf is adequate, reasonably slick shifting and light (it is not a patch on, for example, the Honda S2000, Caterham 7 etc.).
A front wheel drive car will never have the same snickity change as the likes of the S2000 and 7, as their gear stick goes straight into the box, rather than 3 foot long rods and cables.
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A front wheel drive car will never have the same snickity change as the likes of the S2000 and 7, as their gear stick goes straight into the box, rather than 3 foot long rods and cables.
I was reacting to some of the hyperbole on here that surrounds the Golf. :evil:
Perhaps I should have said 911, DC-2 Honda Integra Type R, Fiesta ST... It makes not odds, the Golf manual gearbox is adequate, no more than that...
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It's not a decision to take lightly either way. My dad has run DSGs since the MK4 and i've had plenty of opportunity to have a drive in them when he's gone on holiday from Newcastle Airport and left his car parked at mine for a few weeks. He loves them, i've tried to like them but just haven't got there, they leave me cold and bored behind the wheel. It isn't inevitable that you will grow to like the DSG in time.
It's a tricky one, a test drive (even a 24 hour one) will probably never be enough to convince you if you're not already 1/2 way to wanting one, and if you really don't learn to like it in time, it'll be an expensive mistake. On the other hand, I can't see someone in a manual wishing they'd specced DSG if they've never had it. You really do need to consider both sides of the argument if you're pretty much buying one blind because you haven't been given a fortnight with it.
I can appreciate the tech that's in there and still not like to use it in practice, in the same way I can marvel at the way ACC/DSG can bring your car to a standstill and then take off again through traffic with pretty much no human interaction left but steering the car. That would bore me silly though, I only use ACC when i'm going through an average speed camera zone, and I do like using the gears, using the torque (probably more important with the GTD), it's not a chore to me.
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fredgroves is right.
Drivetrains are likely to change considerably over the next few decades. If you take a look at the drivetrain innovation, electric features heavily, and if there is a combustion engine, it may not even be connected to the wheels at all!
The manual is starting to disappear from the exotic end of the market, mainly for very sensible engineering reasons, and it won't be long before this effect drifts down to the ordinary cars most of us drive.
It wouldn't surprise me to see legislation in a couple of decades which bans combustion-engine-only vehicles. I'm looking forward to being able to do long trips without anyone driving at all, and maybe even getting my car to park itself (If it can do the christmas shopping too, that'll be a bonus :laugh: )
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this involvement thing is just rubbish, you become involved in a different way and with dsg i actually use the box more, yes there are some aspects of dsg that aren't perfect
These manual v DSG threads come around quicker than Christmas but the above sums it up for me.
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Well my last Scirocco and my current GTD have both been DSG (my Scirocco the first auto I've ever owned).
To be fair, ours was out of necessity as my wife who does drive my car quite frequently, had an operation on her left knee a few years ago, meaning she now has limited movement and it gets easily "stressed", so we looked at DSG as a way of relieving her clutch foot pain (her own Polo Blue GT purchased at the same time as the GTD, is also a DSG).
Would I go back to a manual, not if I can afford it. Yes DSG makes you lazy, I hear all these people with DSG talking about paddles and tiptronic shift (just like a manual), but TBH, mine says in Auto 99% of the time. It's just so stress free, and for a fairly powerful diesel lump, the DSG I think suits the limited rev range of the GTD perfectly. When accelerating, 1st gear is only good for a second or so in a manual before you have to grab second then third - in the DSG, you just put your foot down and don't even notice the gear changes.
Last week, I had to go to London on a business trip and as usual my company provided a car. The car was a brand new 64 plate Ford Focus Titanium X (manual). A very nice car and a good ride (if you can get past the play station dash with a million buttons), but at the end of a 15 hour day and over 400 miles, my left leg was aching due to constantly having to use the clutch (mainly due to M25 and M1 crawling). I know that doing the same journey in my GTD would have resulted in my getting back equally tired but without any of the aches that I had with the focus. Autos for me are the future.
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These manual v DSG threads come around quicker than Christmas but the above sums it up for me.
You mentioned the 'C' words. I get in trouble in our house if I use the 'C' word.
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These manual v DSG threads come around quicker than Christmas but the above sums it up for me.
You mentioned the 'C' words. I get in trouble in our house if I use the 'C' word.
As you know, different rules for women :wink:
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Autos have been around since the sixties.
The future they are not. Big in the U.S.A though...
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I've only had a day with my DSG so far, always been a manual only - I don't find it any less engaging, especially with the paddles - quite the opposite in fact. It's very impressive and a lot of fun.