Kiwibacon

That's the great thing about the internet. No matter how wacky your ideas, someone else always shares them. Firmer dampers will just give you a headache off perfectly smooth roads. The stock scout isn't in any way floaty. A firmer rear sway bar will try to make the car oversteer and throw you about the cabin more. Since I've been unable to make mine understeer in normal conditions, I'm not sure what that would acheive. I also read criticisms of the handling before I bought the scout and TBH I think those people have it completely wrong. You would have to be the kind of driver who hacks at corners to have a problem. Drivers who hack at corners are the ones who require rock-hard suspension. You actually acheive better grip on the road and higher cornering forces with softer suspension and smoother driving. I can directly compare this car to a S-line A4's and 996's. The S-line is firm to the point of being head-ache inducing on long drives and the stock suspension is firm to the point that feel of weight transfer is lost. A 996 actually rides much closer to the scout (lots softer than the S-line A4), but behind that is the underlying fear that the heavy tail will throw you out of a corner arse-end first. A stiff rear sway bar I suppose will give that butt-pucker feeling to the scout if you want it. As for height control. An active air suspension system with height sensors on each corner is required (ala rangerover or A6 allroad). I'm sure it could be done for about 10,000 quid. Your insurance company would hate it. Just buy an A6 allroad or RangeRover Sport if you want that. I think you need to stop thinking about all these pre-emptive mods and go drive one.

The way you need to drive the car is the way all diesels need to be driven. DPF or not. If you only do short runs and never make the engine work, then do yourself a favour and buy a petrol instead.

You won't save enough in fuel to ever cover the cost. It used to be the timing was retarded enough that gains v could be made on a remap. But those losses I think have been winched in over recent years. Accelerator pedal position means little to efficiency. That's just a torque request to the ECU.

Combination of driveline and body not available in other brands. Worldwide parts supply, huge knowledge base. Plus a dozen other not so critical things that I really like about the brand and their designs.

I have purchased brand new tyres which were 5 years old. It's closer to 20 years in good conditions or 10 in poor that you will find age related problems.

You should drive a scout. They handle extremely well, cornering problems are not going to be the fault of the car. In fact on anything but a completely smooth road, they'll grip better. Offroad vehicles at sports-car height tend to look pretty silly. A slammed scout won't be an exception there. The increased ride height of the Scout comes from two things. 1. Spacer blocks between suspension subframes and the body. Essentially it has a body lift over the normal octavia. 2. The wheels are ~1" bigger and this gives the last 1/2" increase in ride height. If you were to drop a scout to VRS height without other modifications, the suspension geometry would be completely wrong, likely outside the realms of conventional camber correction. The tyres will also be ~1" higher into the wheel arches so you will have 1" less suspension compression. The ride will suck. If you took a 4wd estate (smaller wheels) and reversed the body lift, then you could reach VRS height. But you'll struggle to clear anything off sealed roads. I'm failing to see the point and I own a rangerover with EAS.

Vtec's have to rev. It's the only way for non turbo engines to make more power. With forced induction, screaming becomes pointless.

It's not just a learning thing. Anytime the box needs to miss a gear it's going to have issues. For example from 4th to 2nd. Fast shifts can only happen between ranges (like 4-3), it then has to drop 4 and reselect 2 before it can apply power in 2nd and continue. I'm pretty sure this is what was happening to me. Approach roundabout, it's in 4th and has 3rd pre-selected. Find gap, apply throttle and it needs second. Almost 2 seconds of confused DSG before it finds second and can apply power.

Yes, happens about once a year to my work car. Would be more often but usually when there is mud there is a big enough puddle on the way out to wash the lumps off.

Mainly because BMW have been selling 3 series cars for how many decades? The Mondeo and Passat badges are very young in comparison.

Oops, should have been 0.092 seconds. That was the 6sp in a CR140 superb.

You must have a serious morning commute if 0.92s of shift time is a problem. I hit the 2 second DSG shuffle several times on my first drive in one. I haven't driven a vehicle before or since which was as bad to drive around a roundabout. It appears the pattern of accelerate, coast, accelerate fools it completely. Have you quantified the oil friction losses inside a locked torque converter?

Spinning a locked torque converter full of oil is exactly the same as spinning a dual mass flywheel. No significant losses once you're above shaky idle. The 7sp dsg is winning in the urban cycle because it's been programmed to do exactly that. Each shift point has been targetted at getting the lowest CO2 figure in that test. Where if you put a manual through the same test, your shift points are prescribed. It's just another loophole being exploited and widening the gap between real world results and official test figures. The 6,7, 8 and 9sp conventional autos are already acheiving this.

It will be. Conventional autos used to be complete pox and many still are. It's only recently they've gained enough gears to use the t-c lockup properly and offer performance and fuel economy that is acceptable, but still lower than manual boxes. Until then they were oil stirring performance killers and fuel wasters. No. Who mentioned BMW?

Until recently conventional autos were pox. They didn't have enough gears and relied on the torque converter to span the gap. The torque converter when unlocked (which was all the time except at motorway speeds) is very inefficient and wastes a lot of fuel. It's only in the last 5 years or so that conventional auto boxes have enough gears (6+) that they can run the lockup more often to get rid of the slush feeling and provide adequate fuel economy. When a conventional auto hits 8 gears, they can be locked up almost all the time which provides the same mechanical efficiency as a DSG (but still worse than a manual box). They can also use the torque converter for creeping and slurring gear changes as much or as little as required. Conventional autos finally have some potential. The advantages of DSG over the older auto boxes no longer exists.

Indeed. To gain 15hp would be ~23%. There is not enough air to burn 23% more fuel. If the stock A/F ratio is around 20:1, then going to 18:1 would only deliver 10% (6hp) non turbo diesels do not burn as cleanly as turbo diesels, you can't run 17:1 and expect anything but a smoke cloud. Intake/exhaust mods will be good for maybe a few percent max, it's really a complete waste of money. Vindaloo, do you not prefer to breathe clean air?

Sorry Jim, but that's complete BS. Unscrupulous tuners use that line to make the customer go away and hopefully not come back.

If Vw could have added more fuel to get more power, you can bet they would have. Sdi is already on the smoke limit.

Well inside the margin of error then?

If you want to take the moral high ground. You'd need to stop with the petty edits.

That's pretty funny, many claim the complete opposite. Jabo was claiming a while back that no 7 speed DSG's had ever had a problem (outside china). The evidence on this forum (not this thread) disagrees. When you are driving, what better thing can you do with your time than drive the car? Shave, email, eat, read or something else? Coming from older conventional autos (3 and 4 speeds) if you could stand those at all then you should love DSG. But against 6-8sp modern autos it has some disadvantages which may or may not be a problem depending on your usage. BTW, the major fuel economy saving between your ford, vauxhall and octavia is due to the tdi engine. Not the gearbox.

You don't have to. Unless you're trying a straight line sprint (always a great example of driving skill) then gear changes are always pre-empted by the driver. You don't need a millisecond gear change exiting a corner because you've already selected the right gear before. Just like passing. A DSG needs fast changes because it doesn't know when you're going for it. But it still cuts engine power and lags more than a manual because it couldn't be in the right gear beforehand. Yes I have driven DSG and even with the tacho obscured I have no problems picking the changes. The average driver is probably too busy on their cellphone to notice. It actually strikes me reading these threads that most/all DSG lovers have never worked out how to change gear smoothly in a manual. Ever heard of matching rpm? Using the clutch as a variable engagement rather than a switch? Sounds like most manual gear boxes need a controller upgrade. If you want an automatic for urban driving, then that's all fine and dandy. By all means get a DSG. But most of the arguments put forward for the DSG box on these forums (imperceptible gear changes etc) are complete and utter rubbish. BTW, I have never claimed a "bump" while DSG changes.

Sdi engines need more air before they can use more fuel. Fit a turbo out complete tdi engine.

The Evoque competes with the likes of the X1, the Yeti competes with the CRV. Why would any buyer be choosing between Evoque/Yeti or X1/CRV?

Oh no they don't. F1 and WRC sequential gearboxes are not DSG in any way.