--- Who actually uses the tiprtonic ?? ---
 

For changing gears?

I would think that it would actually help since you can upshift at lower rpms but Im just seeing who keeps it in full automatic and who actually uses the "manual" shifting and if it has improved your FE.


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Another thing i just noticed! (Man I love this car...)

When I take my foot off the gas pedal quickly, on any speed and any gear below 40mph-ish, the tranny seems to go back into neutral... !

It drops just a tad bit above idling, but that means I can coast really far with no extra gas (making PandG possible!... but I still do not do it I think its a little harsh on the engine).

Anyway just letting yall know.

I don't think many users here are equipped with tiptronic or other similar interfaces.

I would certainly use it if I had it.

My wife's Passat has the tiptronic, and whenever I use it, I always upshift before it reaches 2000 rpm. Has a positive effect on FE.

Just to shed some light on the topic...

I have been "manually" shifting in my 2007 Mazda 6 and the good thing is that I can always shift at 1,900rpm; unlike the computer which shifts it at around 2,300 or even higher like 2,600 sometimes.

Also, the computer never puts it down in 5th gear when cruising at 30-35mph. But it will let me if I manually shift it causing the rpms to drop to near 1,000rpms while going 35mph.

Also, on steep slopes, I can start in 2nd. (I dont do this in flat ground though since it takes more time to accelerate an thus more time to get up to speed and thus wastes more fuel).

My new (to me) Passat TDI has the tip. Not as useful as I had hoped. The engine and transmission electronic 'brains' limit the options available. In full auto they have total control. In 'manual' they maintain "veto" powers over the driver's request.
Full auto will not shift into 5th until 42 mph (speed controlled, not engine load controlled) and will drop back to 4th, absolutely without regard for accelerator pedal position or coasting or downhill conditions, at 40 mph.
It's not as if the engine doesn't have enough grunt. It's at 1500 rpm and well up into the diesel's torque curve, so "lugging" isn't the concern.
'Manual' will not permit activating 5th until 40 mph under any conditions I've yet tried, and will drop back to 4th, without driver selection, if speed drops back below 40. Once my request for 5th has been over-ruled the trans remains in 4th forever or until the speed is once again back above 40and I additionally submit yet another request to please let me have 5th again.
Pretty please?
Pretty please with ice cream?
Oh, come on damnit! I'm almost coasting, here! Gimme 5th!

Is it even possible to truly lug a diesel? I'm pretty sure that lugging is when excessive load causes huge amounts of detonation.

Perhaps it can be adjusted with Vag-Com?

Hmmm that weird mine is RPM dependant, not MPH dependant (until about 15mph where it drops to 3rd from 5th or 4th and 5mph into 1st)

Heres the min values at which I can shift;

2nd- Any RPM, you can even start in 2nd instead of 1st.
3rd- 1,800ish RPM's.
4th- 1,900ish RPM's.
5th - 1,600ish RPM's.

So as you can see I can be doing 20mph and still in 5th :) I LOVE IT! And the shifts are almost instantenious not like other Tiptronics...

Anyway I suppose it depends on how every car is programed but nontheless tuning should be available with like the VAG-COM or such for other cars... ??

trautotuning, what kind of car do you drive?

I just purchased a 2007 Mazda 6 ... 4 Cylinder its in the "Garage" now if you want to take a look at it.

Lets just say its a far step away from my past two cars; a Honda s2000 and a Chrysler Crossfire but I was tired of paying for gas and needed something to haul the friends around...

BTW call me Tito :)

I don't see it under your name. It should appear there when it's in the garage.

https://www.gassavers.org/garage/view/1980

There it is and im adding and taking pictures of the grill block and vortekz next week as well as a lower front lip and clear side markers with white leds.

I wonder how much gas I can save by converting to all Leds plus the 35Watt Hid lights???

1 mpg maybe? 2?! (it would be awesome if I could save 2mpg!)

Triptronic rocks. the lower rpm's = much better mpg's. I can hold 5th at 30mph 35+ mph's.

My screen name might give you a clue as to my own opinion on diesel low rpm / high load operation.
I need to perform some phrenology on the car's brains before I start diddling around. I don't want to jump in before knowing what I want to do and how to accomplish those goals. My prior diesels had at most two controllers, one for engine, one for air bags. This one has about 8 and most are inter-related. I would rather be cautious than impatient.
I have the Vag-Com (now renamed VC something something) and the most recent updates, but without any service / diagnosis documentation (awaiting delivery of the ELSA service package I ordered) I'm content with leaving the car as it is for now.

In the case of my 2004 MB E320 4-Matic, it only shifts to the 5th gear at or above 65 kmph (around 40 mph), so I often have to use the manual mode to up-shift (to the 5th gear) at 55-60 kmph (around 33.5-37 mph). I think it should help improve FE.

I use mine to shift earlier than the regular Auto will.

-Nate

I used to do this with my Mazda3 (2.3L) on flat ground and it worked great. I still couldn't get better than 29mpg highway so I'm happier overall with the Hyundai elantra.

See? That's what I expected from mine: the ability to select a gear.
I can't start from a stand-still in any gear but 1st.
Leaving the selector in manual mode does nothing to prevent downshifts as the car slows and rpm drops. Then, when accelerating from a stop again the silly thing will not shift out of 1st until red-line when it shifts to 2nd, or until I manually select the next gear(s), or I slide it back over to full auto mode.
The upshifts aren't my bug-bear, it's the unwanted downshifts that tick me off.

Thats the thing, mine will not shift down unless you REALLY gun it, and that has never happened before even when passing other cars or going up hill.

I suppose it depends from car to car, or you could better control it with those automatic transmission computers which I do not know why auto people dont look more into that!! For autos I think its just as important as all those WAI and aero mods!

I use my TipTronic when on steep grades. I don't let the Automatic down-shift because I've discovered that letting it lub a bit gets better milage than down-shifting to a higher RPM.

2008 Toureg II V6

Another thing i just noticed! (Man I love this car...)

When I take my foot off the gas pedal quickly, on any speed and any gear below 40mph-ish, the tranny seems to go back into neutral... !

It drops just a tad bit above idling, but that means I can coast really far with no extra gas (making PandG possible!... but I still do not do it I think its a little harsh on the engine).

Anyway just letting yall know.

A lot of people have discovered that, but it's not actually going into neutral. That's just normal operation of an unlocked torque converter. It's still transmitting a little bit of road power to the engine, and if you do that then put it in neutral you'll probably see the tachometer drop a little more.

For the VW transmission I have, all the transmission control module tuners (domestic and European) are working on how to extract more acceleration, holding lower gears longer, going into lower gears sooner, and such. There is still not the demand for better fuel efficiency and I can't afford the development costs for such an economy program by myself. There are somewhere around 2500 units of the 2004~2005 Passat TDI in North America, hardly a big pool in comparison to the overall number of Passat 1.8, 1.8T, 2.8 V6 and 4.0 W8 sold here from 1998 to 2006.

So...I was driving my aunt's tsx the other day and had a ton of fun with the tiptronic. Managed to average 36 mpg in it...very few stops, but still...36 mpg for 15ish miles is decent in that, especially when she gets ~26

But...then I sort of negated the potential savings by sort of locking it in second and having a little too much fun...:P

Just saying it was nice to be able to get into 5th gear a lot sooner than it would have taken for it on automatic and it paid off a bit

My wife has a 05 Jetta TDI that I rarely drive. I have told her to push the shifter to the left when the trans shifts from 5th to 4th while climbing steep long hills and to shift it back to drive at the crest. This is to prevent the trans from shifting up and down on it?s own several times before reaching the top of the hill.

Next time I drive it I am going to experiment with shifting from drive to 5th on smaller hills and try shifting it sooner during light acceleration to see if I gain any fuel economy.