B8 S4 S Tronic - Sport Mode issues

[hershie]

Hello folks,

I have a little bit of a question for everyone with S Tronic gearboxes in their B8 S4's. Prior to my latest service the gearbox started feeling odd during gear changes which was more evident whilst in sport mode. 1-2-3-4 all felt rubbish and getting smoother as it went up through the gears.

As it turned out my car had a software recall on the gearbox and this was taken care of at my recent service. The car also had the water pump replaced as I complained about having to top the coolant up 3 times when I only did 8K miles last year.

Amway so my question is how other people find driving in sport mode? I'm finding it unusable whilst in traffic or in a semi relaxed mode of driving. If I boot the car from the lights and go all the way to 5th gear in sport mode it's ok but not very nice in any other conditions. Is sport mode only usable when trashing the car?

I’m thinking of scheduling a test driving of another S tronic S4 just to have a comparison as I can only compare against my own memories from how the car felt when I took delivery of it. As it stands I seem to remember S mode being usable much more then it is now. The software update smoothed out the gearbox in normal mode but I could swear it made S mode even worse.

Thoughts everyone?

[Nige_RS4]

It's the same on all S-tronic / DSG cars I've driven - I just put it in manaual mode and use the paddles!

[worsy]

I've not had an update on mine and generally use S mode most of the time. I don't find it particularly jerky.

[Pete.S]

Yes I find it can give very abrupt gear changes, exactly as if you'd brought the clutch up too quickly on a manual, if you use it for town driving and I've had the recall done too. It's a great mode to use if you need a more instant throttle response but I usually just leave it in auto and have no such problems. There's varied responses to this issue on other forums - many experience what we do but others like Worsy don't so it's difficult to decide if it's a fault!

As an aside, on a recent trip up to London the other day I stuck it in comfort for the first time for town driving (I use that quite a bit on the m/way) - really lightens up the steering and the passengers I had commented on how much more comfortable the ride was.

[hershie]

thanks for all your comments so far, I'm still trying to schedule a test drive of another S4 somewhere. I'll keep you guys posted with my progress.