Autobox peculiarities
 

Just realised that my car has previously featured on here while belonging to Audidoody, whom it seems I bought it from.......

Anyhow, just trying to determine whether this is a fault or a feature.
I'm not an autobox connoisseur, I've owned 3 in 35 years of driving - a Dolomite Sprint that got converter to manual pronto as it was such an awful combination (BW65 3 speed clockwork slushbox that insists on changing up at 3.5k and an engine that comes on cam at 4k....) and my previous A8 - early 4.2 with the 4HP22 - which was ok, but not very subtle.

This one 2.8 FL 2WD is more subtle, but has some quirks.

1.
It's really quite hard to make a smooth getaway. It either just creeps away, or if you apply a whisker more throttle, suddenly sets off a bit harder than intended - doesn't appear to be a middle way. Not even sure if its a gearbox or throttle thing.

2.
when pottering about in traffic, it fusses about, changing gear more often than seems necessary. It's quite subtle about it and the changes themselves are fine, just seems a bit unnecessary. And sometimes, when you apply a little extra throttle it changes up a gear.

3.
It appears to alter it's behaviour and is not consistent with it's change points. Possibly it's tracking my driving and adjusting, but I don't think it does it very well. In tiptronic mode it's lovely and the changes seem even smoother - which also makes me wonder about the throttle.

The invoices say it had an oil change in 2015 ans the PO told me it had a new throttle body quite recently (also mentioned on here).

Could be it's entirely normal - a feature rather than a fault?

What thinks the panel?

Thanks

Nick

Couple things to check:
1. Brake light switch
2. MAF
3. Vacuum leaks which could affect MAF reading.

Sounds like stock 2.8 programming to me. Big Red's drives me nuts so I just keep it in S all the time.

Can you not change the TCU programming with VCDS? I have done this on my S8 so is it not a feature on the 2.8s also?

Yeah, suspected this might be the case. I'll get used to it. Probably.

On a slightly related note I had and almost new Zafira rental in Spain a couple of years ago (I actually rented a Corsa because I'm cheap, but it broke and I was "upgraded"). This had a 1.4 engine and autobox with tiptronic. Oh joy I thought, how is this unwieldy underpowered behemoth an upgrade....?

The engine was actually better than expected, but the gearbox was just woeful. It's changing habits were so erratic I presume it was broken and the tiptronic was no help as it tended to deny you gears that were perfectly reasonable, even necessary, and then immediately select them if you returned to auto mode. Hateful thing.

Nick

Tell me more.... With 4 VAG cars on the drive, two of them distinctly needy, I may have to invest in the full version of VCDS....

Nick

Only DSP on/off and tip buttons in D on/off. You can't change the shift points or target rpm range (as far as I know).

See this thread http://forum.a8parts.co.uk/showthread.php?t=630

There are some useful links on that thread +++

DSP is the setting that everyone likes in that thread. I'm think that is already enabled in BR based on behaviour but its worth checking. Not sure what 3 does for DSP as it's undocumented.

Well, to my surprise BR had DSP turned off! So, I've gone from 00001 to 00111. I didn't notice any difference on the way home from the workshop but that's only 2 miles, and it still wanted to do 1200rpm up a hill. Maybe it needs a longer journey?

DSP takes time to learn how you drive. 2 miles seems inadequate.....

Erm... wow.
 

OH
MY
GOODNESS

What was supposed to be a 2 mile round trip to my parents has just resulted in a 28 mile joy-ride/detour - reason being, I've just changed my gearbox coding from 00001 to 00011. It's like I have a new car. I cannot believe they come out of the factory like that! Pulling out from junctions just needs a squeeze and you're off. Nowhere near as heavy-handed as the old 00001 setting, with the additional bonus of no thump when coming to a stop. Whacking the gearbox into Tiptronic on the H-gate and it was also much more sprightly response-wise, with a smoother change between gears. So much so, I went up the 'Mad Mile' in Banstead, flicking deftly between 2-3-4-3-2-3-2 and then off she went.

I simply LOVE this forum for the wealth of knowledge, all-round friendliness and of course our beloved Audis

Changed via OBDeleven
 

Update - I hasten to add that I have tried changing the gearbox coding before with my OBD eleven dongle but it's never worked. After jumping in the car tonight and then opening the app on my Android phone, it performed some sort of 'firmware' update on the dongle so I thought I'd give it another try. It worked and accepted the new coding of 00011.

As you can tell from my previous post, I'm somewhat pleased. I've only had an A8 or A8L for a short period of time (14 years!)

I'm going to have to go for a blast tomorrow I think :D

This will surely come as no surprise, but I would heartily recommend going for a quick ahem test drive.

[Slightly off-topic - I know there's a growing list of MJ fettling items but we should also have an 'essentials' list for checking the kickdown switch, gearbox recode etc.]

I might have another go with some alternative codes tomorrow, as I've seen some that might be specific to my limo but for a later year (2002 as opposed to my 2000). They may only be USA/Canada specific though.

Thanks to all for grabbing my attention with this useful post/thread.

I just looked an old scan and my 2002 S8 is (or was) set to 00111.
Based on what I did with my old one (noted in that thread linked to above) I guess I did it as soon as I got the car.

Here's my rewording of the Waterloo post, to make it less USA/Canada-centric:

=====
Transmission Coding for 1997 to 1999 A8's
2000 and later A8's have additional codes explained below.

97 without Tiptronic
Code 00001 (set when leaving the factory) - Rest of World
Code 00002 (set when leaving the factory) - (for USA/Canada)
Code 00011 (DSP shut-off rest of the world). This coding makes the car more of a "European touring machine". It really makes a huge difference in the way the engine and transmission responds.
Code 00012 (DSP shut-off USA/Canada)

The following are characteristics of the 00011 code:

Holds 1st gear in tiptronic, upshifts to 2nd when it hits redline or when the driver shifts
Can downshift to 1st, as long as it doesn't mean hitting rev limiter
Shifts to higher gear in tiptronic when redline is reached
Shifting appears to be slightly faster in tiptronic mode
Adaptive shift pattern works very well, shifts to more sporty mode after a short while of inspired driving and vice versa
Kicks down in tiptronic in certain situations when the gas pedal is floored
Downshifts to hold speed downhill when using cruise control

00 and later with Tiptronic
The 00's and later have different options than the 99's and earlier. They can be coded as followed:

Code 00001/00002, stock coding
Code 00011/00012, sport coding
Code 00021/00022, stock coding, but will hold first gear in Tiptronic to redline regardless of throttle position and then shift to second.
Code 00031/00032, sport coding and will hold first gear in Tiptronic to redline regardless of throttle position and then shift to second.

2002 A8L (USA car)
Code 00002, stock coding
Code 00032, owner recode
Code 01002, after Audi serviced the car
Code 01032, owner recode after Audi service - The car holds 1st gear to redline and shifts to second.
=====

From what I can make out so far, the digits seem to signify the following:

1st digit, no idea, unused?
2nd digit, set by Audi engineer/garage
3rd digit, S8?
4th digit, does the magic!
5th digit, area/region (1 - everywhere else, 2 - USA/Canada only)

Please feel free to correct me if there are mistakes/anomalies - I'm no expert.

Coding definitely changes something in gearbox behaviour but DSP is always on with all the codings. The sportier coding does seem to suit the car better. But if after the blast you go go back to driving like nanny don't be surprised if it changes back somewhat, it's not called dynamic for nothing, it constantly adapts to driving style, different coding just changes bias a bit or how fast it adapts.

Just to report that after doing breather pipe and cam cover gaskets....... the gearbox behaviour has changed quite considerably for the better - so credit is due to Ainarssems for his remarks in the second post of this thread - even fairly minor vacuum leaks matter! I should have paid more attention at the time!

I also have a couple of new coms devices so I might see if I can change the coding now too.

Nick

Today I had to visit someone with real VCDS to reset the airbag ecu. While there I grabbed the opportunity to change the transmission characterisation code from 0003 (because FWD) to 0013.

Now it changes gear about how I would expect, so thanks for the suggestion and I’m calling it a win.

Nick