Hi all,

 

Had a bit of a search but can’t find anything about this…

 

Any passenger cars with sequential stick-shifter requires pushing forward to change up, and pulling back to change down. But this is the opposite to motorsport and, truth be told my brain naturally errs to motorsport and I have to think consciously when using that bit of shifting.

 

So, has anyone ever identified or tried or known of a way of changing it round? It’s just an electronic switch after all…

11 hours ago, travs said:

Any passenger cars with sequential stick-shifter requires pushing forward to change up, and pulling back to change down. But this is the opposite to motorsport and, truth be told my brain naturally errs to motorsport and I have to think consciously when using that bit of shifting.

Not quite all passenger cars - my previous Toyota Aygo with x-shift had the manual mode the right way round (forward to shift down, backward to shift up). To me this makes so much more sense since the G forces when accelerating or braking now work in your favour!

 

I too would like my DSG Octavia to work this way, but I suspect that due to the redundant switching in the shifter assembly it will require more than just moving wires - and there's also the problem that the trim piece will show the now wrong +/- direction.

Edited 30 January, 20242 yr by PetrolDave

@travswhat Motorsport sequential gearbox cars are you driving?

 

BMW Push forward to change down.   

This annoys me after years of DSG,s and pull back to change down. 

 

Or slow down / retard speed, or drop a gear or 2 to boot it and go forward fast / accelerate.

Same with 'S', move stick back from D to 'S' to slow on ice / snow, wet and no braking.  Or back to S and boot it with gears holding to a higher RPM.

 

Paddles for the MotorSport vibe, but then i like using my left hand on a shifter to drop a gear, and and often back (well across) to D for up-shifts or for a DQ200 DSG, just make the box shift up in Manual but revving it until it does shift up, which they do. Then once in 5th across to D.

Edited 30 January, 20242 yr by Rooted

1 hour ago, PetrolDave said:

Not quite all passenger cars - my previous Toyota Aygo with x-shift had the manual mode the right way round (forward to shift down, backward to shift up). To me this makes so much more sense since the G forces when accelerating or braking now work in your favour!

 

I too would like my DSG Octavia to work this way, but I suspect that due to the reduncant switching n the shifter assembly it will require more than just moving wires - ad there's the problem that the trim piece will show the now wrong +/- direction.

I stand corrected on the models. At least some get it right!
 

I was wondering that the TCU has a signal from a switch coded to a gear change direction; and just swapping that around would mean everything’s right with the world….

20 minutes ago, travs said:

I was wondering that the TCU has a signal from a switch coded to a gear change direction; and just swapping that around would mean everything’s right with the world….

It's not normally that simple - the shifter assembly usually has a normally open and a normally closed contact for each position (for safety and redundancy). Some investigation with a wiring diagram is needed I reckon.

 

And what about the now incorrectly labelled trim - how to you plan to solve that?

55 minutes ago, Rooted said:

@travswhat Motorsport sequential gearbox cars are you driving?

 

BMW Push forward to change down.   

This annoys me after years of DSG,s and pull back to change down. 

 

Or slow down / retard speed, or drop a gear or 2 to boot it and go forward fast / accelerate.

Same with 'S', move stick back from D to 'S' to slow on ice / snow, wet and no braking.  Or back to S and boot it with gears holding to a higher RPM.

 

Paddles for the MotorSport vibe, but then i like using my left hand on a shifter to drop a gear, and and often back (well across) to D for up-shifts or for a DQ200 DSG, just make the box shift up in Manual but revving it until it does shift up, which they do. Then once in 5th across to D.

Driving none but years of being a young age watching on board rally footage had it ingrained in me I guess. It’s always been a natural response to my mind for whatever reason. 
 

Paddles mostly for me too when in the mood but if I’m turning then god knows where the right paddle is. Usually pulling out of a junction and unwinding the steering while changing out of first etc but there are other examples
 

 

32 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

It's not normally that simple - the shifter assembly usually has a normally open and a normally closed contact for each position (for safety and redundancy). Some investigation with a wiring diagram is needed I reckon.

 

And what about the now incorrectly labelled trim - how to you plan to solve that?

Hmmmmm…tippex?

Tbh I’d happily live with that until selling on then have it put back to normal so the new owner doesn’t wonder what on earth.

 

I didn’t think it would need a physical change to be honest. Probably would be too much hassle if that was the only way but I’m still not convinced it can’t be done by coding on the TCU

9 minutes ago, travs said:

I’m still not convinced it can’t be done by coding on the TCU

I'm 99.99999999% certain it can't be done by a TCU coding change - whay would VAG include in the TCU firmware a feature they are never going to use?

 

Their race & rally cars don't use production TCUs so there's no reason to include it.

 

Of course a company that does TCU 'hacking' might be able to do it...

Edited 30 January, 20242 yr by PetrolDave

27 minutes ago, travs said:

I didn’t think it would need a physical change to be honest. Probably would be too much hassle if that was the only way

 

As a practical person with an understanding of things the physical change would be way simpler for me than mucking around with long coding and there is no way that reversion would be one of the programmed options.

 

I never knew that DSG gearshift worked in the opposite way to what I consider normal, I engineered built and raced a bike engined Caterham including the minutae like the gear selection linkage, I never for even a millisecond considered doing it the opposite to what seemed obvious to me, had I not read this and one day bought a DSG car it would have bugged the hell out of me and my muscle memory after doing 24 hour races would not want to re-adapt let alone my brain.

 

It seems completley counter-intuitive to me, after all in most conventional gearboxes you push the lever forward for 1st gear and pull back for top 4th gear or nowadays 6th, and before anyone questions that I consider most 5 speed boxes having the direct drive 4th gear as top gear and 5th being an overdrive.

Edited 30 January, 20242 yr by J.R.

Just 13 years back the VW Rally Team Recce Golfs were DSG and you could not even really left foot brake or trail brake as the power was still cut to the DSG until a while later they mapped that out.

 

You hold it on the Hand / Parking brake as then there is not the same delay as foot on Foot Brake and then accelerating from a standstill.

Then put in Manual 1 and do not shift to second, floor it and it shifts up, if you are hill climbing or doing an 1/8th / 1/4 Mile. Sprinting then it shift quicker then in D or in S or you manual shifting and if you rev out in 4th knock it into D for 5th and upshift.

Down shifts, can be back to S or across to manual in down.  Or do double kickdowns. 

 

 

 

Edited 30 January, 20242 yr by Rooted

More than happy to stand corrected on it all. I thought that TCU mappers might have the ability to change that level of coding seeing as they off per a variety of additional options.  But I have no working knowledge of the software other than high-level layman theory.

58 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

As a practical person with an understanding of things the physical change would be way simpler for me than mucking around with long coding and there is no way that reversion would be one of the programmed options.

 

I never knew that DSG gearshift worked in the opposite way to what I consider normal, I engineered built and raced a bike engined Caterham including the minutae like the gear selection linkage, I never for even a millisecond considered doing it the opposite to what seemed obvious to me, had I not read this and one day bought a DSG car it would have bugged the hell out of me and my muscle memory after doing 24 hour races would not want to re-adapt let alone my brain.

 

It seems completley counter-intuitive to me, after all in most conventional gearboxes you push the lever forward for 1st gear and pull back for top 4th gear or nowadays 6th, and before anyone questions that I consider most 5 speed boxes having the direct drive 4th gear as top gear and 5th being an overdrive.

Sounds an immense project. So using a bike engine and gearbox would that mean knocking forward for first then back for all the upchanges? (Thinking bikers tap down for first and then up for all upchanges?).

 

In which case glad the topic has been discussed at least but even it’s a no-way then it is what it is. Mate did show me his M2 Competition gearstick and as @Rootedsaid BMW followed the motorsport way so there are options out there for an auto that you can shift intuitively.

 

i’m not saying my way is right of course - horses for courses, it’s just always been the way my brain has worked.
 

 

My Shogun shifter.  But then manual shifts were in a relaxed manner.  On the BMW i only do downshifts to stop from coasting, then back to auto.

It is my personal thing that i like back to me for lower gears with DSG,s.  Right hand drive cars, left hand shifting.

Maybe if shifting with my right hand in a left hand drive the sequential would feel right forward to change up. 

Bump for @Tilt

 

Obviously the 13 years driving the DSG then forward for upshifts seems natural to me.

 

but also logical ......

 

Pushing the shifter forwards seems pushing it upwards to me, so upping the gears ..... and back seems like down

 

Also, pulling back, so like pulling back your speed, so shifting down.

 

I've learn't something today (or at least a reminder) that one persons logic is not necessarily another's reasoning.

 

 

 

 

On 29/01/2024 at 22:52, travs said:

So, has anyone ever identified or tried or known of a way of changing it round? It’s just an electronic switch after all…

 

I too had genuinely wondered that just recently, but it sounds not so simple. (and for the opposite reckoning to you, after 13 years with a DSG)

I think had I not spent years watching rally drivers do it their way I would have seen the logic in the way it is done at consumer level (albeit at least with BMW as the exception).

On 30/01/2024 at 12:16, travs said:

Sounds an immense project. So using a bike engine and gearbox would that mean knocking forward for first then back for all the upchanges? (Thinking bikers tap down for first and then up for all upchanges?).

 

Yes, unless you wanted to pull away in second but they have little low down torque and tiny flywheels so whilst possible not recommended.

 

With a reversing gearbox (mine was a tiny differential that I modified to become the centre propshaft bearing) you have 6 forward gears and 6 reverse gears and the same max speed in either direction dependant on the drag coefficient which was actually better backwards!