DSG - anyone have experience of these?

[vickster]

Great until your mechatronic box fails leaving you with a £3k repair bill. I speak from experience.

Yes I had one of those go on a mk5 Golf gti. Luckily I hadn't had the car long and the dealer finally stumped up to fix it.
I also had on my Fabia VRS estate. Faultless for the 40k odd miles I did in 11'years, only ever used as an automatic, never the flappy paddles or changing gear. Obvs a swift car with the turbo and supercharger on a 1.4 tsi, mental in sport mode which I rarely used unless I had a boyracer to outrun

I now have an EV which is even smoother!

 

[figbat]

I’ve owned and driven several DSG-equipped (and other OEM versions) cars, of both dry and wet clutch type. I was also responsible for developing and supporting transmission oils for them for a few years.

They are, in general, pretty reliable and efficient. They need a bit of looking after but nothing arduous. If they fail it can get expensive but failures are not common amongst newer variants. In terms of driving they are pretty much indistinguishable from a ‘classic’ automatic and make driving easy and relaxing. I’d have one again if it wasn’t for having an EV now.

 

[Tom B]

They are, in general, pretty reliable and efficient. They need a bit of looking after but nothing arduous. If they fail it can get expensive but failures are not common amongst newer variants.

What looking after do you recommend?

It's not like they make oil changes easy!

 

[figbat]

What looking after do you recommend?

It's not like they make oil changes easy!

Servicing according to schedule with quality oil and filters. Yes, it’s a dealer/workshop job for most. Plenty of independent DSG specialists out there.

This article is largely appropriate. There was a problem with one older DSG design that was factory-filled with synthetic oil which led to issues with the mechatronic unit; there was a recall issued to refill them with mineral oil. I was party to inside information on this issue at the time but can’t discuss it in any more detail than shown in that article. This was quite a long time ago though so any issues will either have been dealt with or avoided due to the recall. To be clear, synthetic oils are not in themselves an issue, just a particular combination of specifics regarding that transmission and the oil used at the time.

 

[fossyant]

I have an Aisin 8 speed auto (torque converter) in the van and its great. Same box goes into loads of vehicles. Wouldn't go back to a manual its that good. It will creep forward in traffic so it dead easy to drive.

 

[figbat]

I have an Aisin 8 speed auto (torque converter) in the van and its great. Same box goes into loads of vehicles. Wouldn't go back to a manual its that good. It will creep forward in traffic so it dead easy to drive.

One thing that ‘stepped’ autos (the type with planetary gears and torque converters) are offering these days is a larger number of gears, anything up to 10-speed. DSGs tend to stop at 7-speed. This offers the same benefits as for bicycle cassettes, ie there’s a smaller gap between ratios so you can be in the optimum gear for more of the time.