Dsg box

[Blueallblueno9]

Got my brand new octavia vrs on 1st March. It's on a dsg box. 

No problem driving in automatic however I have no idea how to use paddles for manual. 

I've read book and totally confused, I don't even know what position to put lever in. I. E park, neutral, etc. 

Not to good with this kinda stuff guys so if someone could give it to me really simple you make old man happy.. 

[matrix2020]

Simple starter, there is loads you can learn on how to drive the DSG box on other threads specifically focused on the way it works, or doesn't!!

Its a very clever box that has two clutches so it always has a gear 'ready' for you next gear change, the issue is unless you know how to drive it it may have the wrong gear selected and then take a second or so to select the correct one, but overall its great imho. 

For routine driving just put it in Fwd or Reverse and that's it.... let the box do the rest. Mine auto selects Park when I turn the engine off so I really do very little gear selecting. Due to it being a bit lazy, if you select Drive (D/S by pulling back on the lever!) twice it puts it in Sports mode (S on the dash) this gives a quicker get away on busy roundabouts for me and if you want to do sporty driving/overtaking. Select it again and it will go back to Drive (D in dash). 

Paddles are for changing gear while in Auto (Drive or Sport), so for example you can use the gears to slow you down on a hill if you use the paddles to select a higher/lower gear, You can just drive the car as a manual with the paddles, but leave the selector in Auto its fine. If you have been using the paddles for a bit, sometimes mine automatically re-selects Auto but if not hold the paddle down and it will go back to Auto from manual. 

If in doubt just give it a go, you can't harm the box because it won't let you! D/S (Drive / Sport) for forward and R for reverse... that's it really! 

[Ootohere]

@matrix2020

Your DSG does not select Park when you turn the engine off does it, it has the e-Brake apply, but you need to shift to Park do you not? 

 

More or less how it is with the TSI & TDI's now.

PHEV's as well but with some differences. 

 

Mo

 

 

 

Edited 6 March, 2023 by toot

[Blueallblueno9]

17 minutes ago, matrix2020 said:

Simple starter, there is loads you can learn on how to drive the DSG box on other threads specifically focused on the way it works, or doesn't!!

Its a very clever box that has two clutches so it always has a gear 'ready' for you next gear change, the issue is unless you know how to drive it it may have the wrong gear selected and then take a second or so to select the correct one, but overall its great imho. 

For routine driving just put it in Fwd or Reverse and that's it.... let the box do the rest. Mine auto selects Park when I turn the engine off so I really do very little gear selecting. Due to it being a bit lazy, if you select Drive (D/S by pulling back on the lever!) twice it puts it in Sports mode (S on the dash) this gives a quicker get away on busy roundabouts for me and if you want to do sporty driving/overtaking. Select it again and it will go back to Drive (D in dash). 

Paddles are for changing gear while in Auto (Drive or Sport), so for example you can use the gears to slow you down on a hill if you use the paddles to select a higher/lower gear, You can just drive the car as a manual with the paddles, but leave the selector in Auto its fine. If you have been using the paddles for a bit, sometimes mine automatically re-selects Auto but if not hold the paddle down and it will go back to Auto from manual. 

If in doubt just give it a go, you can't harm the box because it won't let you! D/S (Drive / Sport) for forward and R for reverse... that's it really! 

So where do I position the lever, reverse, neutral or d/s or d/s sport??? 

[Blueallblueno9]

12 minutes ago, toot said:

@matrix2020

Your DSG does not select Park when you turn the engine off does it, it has the e-Brake apply, but you need to shift to Park do you not? 

 

More or less how it is with the TSI & TDI's now.

PHEV's as well but with some differences. 

 

Mo

 

 

 

That's not same as mines. 

[Ootohere]

OK.  So it will be a MY2023 Octavia vRS.

& you never said what vRS you have, TDI, TSI or Hybrid.  Someone will be along with the same as you have.

 

...............................

The basics usually with a DSG.

P for Park, start car.

R to Reverse.

N if you want to be in Neutral & the car can start in N as well as P if left in N.

 

D to go.

S to go and the gears change at a higher RPM, or because you want to be in S.

 

Move the shifter to M if you want to shift manually.   Or in D or S or M start using the paddles.  Holding a paddle in will put it back to Auto, D.

 

Practice. 

Edited 6 March, 2023 by toot

[SkOmk4]

16 minutes ago, toot said:

Your DSG does not select Park when you turn the engine off does it, it has the e-Brake apply, but you need to shift to Park do you not? 

The DSG software on Octavia MK4 does indeed put the gearbox into "P" when you press the button to stop the engine. It has become a habit for me to no longer press the gearbox-"P" for the park position, because the car does that automatically. BTW - for 2 years I used to drive another dual-clutch transmission (Megane-GT) that was not drive-by-wire and that needed manual input of the gearbox-lever into "P" position.
In most of the situations I do not apply the parking brake (that is the other "P" in the car, not the one of the gearbox selector) - NOTE for the initiator of this topic: that's the electronic hand-brake operated by some electric motors on the back wheels, not manually as you used to do using a hand-brake lever. I'm generally not using it simply because I'm parking on horizontal areas most of the time; when the sloped terrain is asking for it, I'm also using the parking-brake.

 

 

11 minutes ago, toot said:

Move the shifter to M if you want to shift manually. 

The shifter in the Octavia MK4 doesn't have a dedicated "M" (for manual) position. However, the driver may access the Manual-mode at any time (while the gearbox is in D/S position) by using any of the two shifter-paddles behind the steering wheel. The gearbox indicator on the digital dashboard will change from "D" or "S" to "M" followed by the number of the gear that is engaged. The gearbox will remain in Manual mode until the driver will put it back into Automatic mode, but will still change gears if the driver doesn't: it will downshift to avoid engine-stall, and it will up-shift to avoid over-revs while accelerating.
To go back into Automatic mode from Manual-drive, the driver has two options: pull back (short-pull is enough) on the gearbox selector, or pull back the "+" paddle behind the steering wheel for about two seconds. 

 

 

36 minutes ago, Blueallblueno9 said:

So where do I position the lever, reverse, neutral or d/s or d/s sport??? 

As @toot mentioned, reverse is for going backwards - so that's for you to decide...
Neutral - you'll probably never need that position in normal usage conditions; it is mainly needed when you need to push the car for a couple of meters, or for towing the car when there's no other option.
D/S is for going forward, only the gearbox behavior (software)) is different. In "D" the gearbox is shifting gears at quite low revs and it will not show the gear-number on the dashboard of the car. In "S" only the gearbox is in Sport-mode (not to be confused with the "Sport-mode" of the Engine&&DSG), so it will change the gears at slightly higher revs, and you'll also see the engaged gear-number on the dash (see second picture - lower-left corner). I always use the "S"-mode of the DSG, because I hate not knowing the engaged gear, and because "D" is keeping the revs too low for my taste.

 

[Blueallblueno9]

1 hour ago, toot said:

OK.  So it will be a MY2023 Octavia vRS.

& you never said what vRS you have, TDI, TSI or Hybrid.  Someone will be along with the same as you have.

 

...............................

The basics usually with a DSG.

P for Park, start car.

R to Reverse.

N if you want to be in Neutral & the car can start in N as well as P if left in N.

 

D to go.

S to go and the gears change at a higher RPM, or because you want to be in S.

 

Move the shifter to M if you want to shift manually.   Or in D or S or M start using the paddles.  Holding a paddle in will put it back to Auto, D.

 

Practice. 

I don't have a M.. I have R. N. Or Ds. 

What one do I put it in to use paddles?? 

[TheUltraRunner]

33 minutes ago, Blueallblueno9 said:

I don't have a M.. I have R. N. Or Ds. 

What one do I put it in to use paddles?? 

D/S

[Blueallblueno9]

Just now, TheUltraRunner said:

D/S

At last a simple answer.. 

Thanks so much very appreciated.. 👍 

[TomTom88]

Also, it is recommended, to prolong life of the gearbox, when you park, put gearbox in N, then engage electronic handbrake, release brake pedal and let it hang on parking brake and then engage P. I do this because my parking space is a bit sloped and if you immediately let it sit in P the car is held by the gearbox. 

[TheWanderer]

I put mine in P and apply parking brake manually 

[TheUltraRunner]

3 hours ago, TomTom88 said:

Also, it is recommended, to prolong life of the gearbox, when you park, put gearbox in N, then engage electronic handbrake, release brake pedal and let it hang on parking brake and then engage P. I do this because my parking space is a bit sloped and if you immediately let it sit in P the car is held by the gearbox. 

I'm doing the same. 

[Ajdolin]

23 hours ago, TheWanderer said:

I put mine in P and apply parking brake manually 

I do the same, I guess worth trying the longer option as well if it really makes a difference. I am already used to staying in the parked car for about a minute when arriving home before turning it off (almost straight from the highway), not sure if still necessary ☺️. This is my first automatic though.

@SkOmk4 is this the picture of your dash? I can’t get mine to show me more than 890 kms range when fully tanked, even though it sometimes shows the same number for about 120 kms… goes down and then back up 🤷‍♀️

Edited 7 March, 2023 by Ajdolin

[SkOmk4]

Yep, that's my dashboard; picture is a bit fuzzy because I was taking it while driving, so not really carefully focused.
You're right, it's not easy to get a range higher than 900 kms, but during that particular trip it happened that for a brief while I had a range of 1010 kms, without any effort! But don't worry - it is really strongly dependent on the situation. I find the range algorithm on Octavia quite "unstable" (or jumpy) compared to those of other cars I drive/drove.
On that trip I was going for a weekend drive through the mountains, so I was driving simply to relax, not to get a good mileage or range. After exiting the highway, I filled up the tank just before entering mountain roads; the range after filling up was ~840 kms. The secondary mountain roads I took were slightly covered with snow and had plenty of sharp curves, therefore I had a small average speed and slow acceleration + some engine braking. That was going up the mountains for about 30 kms, and the range went also up with the altitude! 😉 (to about 860 if I remember correctly).
Later I drove down the mountain with plenty of engine braking (partially because of the snow), and after about 50 km I met normal weekend traffic on national roads (within legal speed limits) towards the capital, for another >100 km. I was entering Bucharest with 1010 kms range 🙃. That's why I took several pictures of the dashboard - to explain my friends how my new car is able to ADD diesel into the tank while driving 😂
(you can see yourself the mileage of the car in the previous picture and the picture below... the range went up by 20km, while the car was driven for 74 km) 

 

[Ajdolin]

38 minutes ago, SkOmk4 said:

Yep, that's my dashboard; picture is a bit fuzzy because I was taking it while driving, so not really carefully focused.
You're right, it's not easy to get a range higher than 900 kms, but during that particular trip it happened that for a brief while I had a range of 1010 kms, without any effort! But don't worry - it is really strongly dependent on the situation. I find the range algorithm on Octavia quite "unstable" (or jumpy) compared to those of other cars I drive/drove.
On that trip I was going for a weekend drive through the mountains, so I was driving simply to relax, not to get a good mileage or range. After exiting the highway, I filled up the tank just before entering mountain roads; the range after filling up was ~840 kms. The secondary mountain roads I took were slightly covered with snow and had plenty of sharp curves, therefore I had a small average speed and slow acceleration + some engine braking. That was going up the mountains for about 30 kms, and the range went also up with the altitude! 😉 (to about 860 if I remember correctly).
Later I drove down the mountain with plenty of engine braking (partially because of the snow), and after about 50 km I met normal weekend traffic on national roads (within legal speed limits) towards the capital, for another >100 km. I was entering Bucharest with 1010 kms range 🙃. That's why I took several pictures of the dashboard - to explain my friends how my new car is able to ADD diesel into the tank while driving 😂
(you can see yourself the mileage of the car in the previous picture and the picture below... the range went up by 20km, while the car was driven for 74 km) 

 

Wow, sounds like a great ride, but I agree, the algorithm is really weird. I have the same things on display as you, music and range, thought about changing range to something else but need to check the manual how to do it ☺️ Otherwise I’m enjoying my car, made 7k kms since last October. Sorry for offtopic.

[SkOmk4]

22 minutes ago, Ajdolin said:

thought about changing range to something else but need to check the manual how to do it ☺️

You need to use the "wheel" on the right side of the steering-wheel. One click on that wheel will open the "menu" of the right side (where we now have the audio source). You'll notice two green arrows above and below inside the speedometer circle - if you scroll using the same wheel, you can change the content of the speedo-circle. One more click on the same right-wheel on the steering-wheel, will open the "menu" on the revs-circle. You'll notice two similar green arrows up and down. It means you can now scroll (using the same wheel) through the items to be displayed in the rev-circle. Have fun with the menu! BTW - each side (left and right) has a "Settings" section when you scroll through the right or the left menu. If you click "Settings", that will allow you to activate or deactivate stuff to potentially display on each side of the dashboard. 

Long-story-short, the video below is better than a thousand words...

 

(L.E. Really sorry for the off-topic, but since it's a learning topic I thought the initiator of this topic might also benefit from it...)

Edited 7 March, 2023 by SkOmk4

[TheUltraRunner]

On 06/03/2023 at 18:40, TheWanderer said:

I put mine in P and apply parking brake manually 

Why just not turning off the car? It will automatically put car in P and apply parking brake.

I would still recommend doing the longer version as described by @TomTom88. So all the weight is carried by the parking brake and not the transmission (if car is parked on a slope)

[Black_Thunder]

It is also very important to select N (on DSGs which still have that option) if you know you will be stationary for more than a few seconds.  For three separate reasons. 

 

The first is that when stationary (in D, or any other 'gear' mode, and engine running), the ECU for the DSG holds the clutch on the bite point.  This is perfectly normal and okay for a few seconds, but prolonged holding of the clutch on the bite point causes excess heat, very high heat locally on wet clutch DSGs - and this can cause premature ageing of the DSG fluid.

 

The second issue is that this uses more fuel compared to selecting N - this is proven via live datalogging on VCDS of requested engine torque when in gear but stationary, compared to in neutral and stationary.

 

The third is that it is just a bad idea to hold a stationary car using the footbrake (for two separate reasons itself).

[TheUltraRunner]

You are saying we should put the DSG in N while waiting for a green light for example?

[Ootohere]

No need with a e-brake, autohold enabled, and stop / start functioning or not.

 

With Autohold now the brake lights are on while stopped, so you might want to consider that according to how long stopped. Or what / who is behind if in the UK and you know the Highway Code.

[Black_Thunder]

18 minutes ago, TheUltraRunner said:

You are saying we should put the DSG in N while waiting for a green light for example?

Yes, absolutely.

[Black_Thunder]

22 minutes ago, TheUltraRunner said:

You are saying we should put the DSG in N while waiting for a green light for example?

Unless you are familiar with the time phasing of a particular set of traffic lights, and know that you will not be held stationary for more than 30 seconds.  After 30 seconds, the clutch heat rises dramatically,  not only cooking the oil, but also causing increased wear on the clutch friction plates, which then contaminates the oil.

[Ootohere]

There are a lot of these Wet or Dry clutch DSG's out there cooking the oil then.

 

DQ381,s have not yet had the Service Interval reduced yet, and VW are not yet recommending changing the filter, or are they @Black_Thunder? 

[Black_Thunder]

When the DSG was first introduced, thousands of DSG boxes needed to be replaced - the clutches fail due to driver error.  People coming to DSG from a conventional slush box auto behaved in the same way as they always behaved.  So they just kept it in D with their foot on the brake - for many minutes, and longer!

 

And people coming to DSG from manual were simply given poor advice.