DSG, Delay Before Pulling Away

[Duckling68]

yeah i have same lag....dsg lag...6000 miles on cali...plus steering knock...this lag reminds of the days gone by with dead spots in an old Carburetor, it always use to happen when pulling out at a junction much like a cali...lol.

Just bought a DTUK chip to help free up the cali...have yet to install. The compnay says it could help with dsg lag. we shall see.

Hi JcCali

I have tried to reply to your PM but you have your PM turned off !!

Many thanks for the useful information I will be looking into it.

 

[JcCali]

Duckling68...no worries...i will switch in Pm and if you have any further questions PM me.

 

[MalcolmK]

Let me give a couple of comments on this. We previously had a manual 174PS and now have a 180DSG so I can compare. I too find the delay on pulling away very annoying, meaning that it is impossible to nip into a gap in traffic. Two things to consider:
1. There might be a fault with the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) system. We had a failure of the EGR cooler/valve unit that cost us over £1000 as it was out of warranty by 9 months. After replacement the lag was noticeably shorter and the gear changes at low speed were smoother. I am sure that the fault had been there from when we bought the Cali at 9 months old but I didn't get anywhere with asking for my money back.
2. Selecting Sport doesn't make any difference to the time taken to engage gear. When your foot is on the brake drive is effectively disengaged to save fuel, but try this. When you are getting ready to move off put the handbrake on and take your foot off the brake. You will hear the engine note change. Release the handbrake and you can then move off much more smartly as drive is engaged already. Try it!

 

[Andy]

Let me give a couple of comments on this. We previously had a manual 174PS and now have a 180DSG so I can compare. I too find the delay on pulling away very annoying, meaning that it is impossible to nip into a gap in traffic. Two things to consider:
1. There might be a fault with the EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) system. We had a failure of the EGR cooler/valve unit that cost us over £1000 as it was out of warranty by 9 months. After replacement the lag was noticeably shorter and the gear changes at low speed were smoother. I am sure that the fault had been there from when we bought the Cali at 9 months old but I didn't get anywhere with asking for my money back.
2. Selecting Sport doesn't make any difference to the time taken to engage gear. When your foot is on the brake drive is effectively disengaged to save fuel, but try this. When you are getting ready to move off put the handbrake on and take your foot off the brake. You will hear the engine note change. Release the handbrake and you can then move off much more smartly as drive is engaged already. Try it!

EGR valve is not causing my problem, Listers checked the whole thing out under warranty & there were no errors on either of the occasions they checked.

Problem with my cali is not when I come to a stand still, but if I decelerate towards a roundabout & as I approach the it if there is a gap I gas it & then it gets very confused & I end up a meter onto roundabout in neutral whilst ECU has a think & sorts it's self out. A tad dangerous !!

Yes you are correct that sport mode will not speed up pull away from stand still. However it does slightly improve my situation & is what VW technical suggest people use in MK due to the number & proximity of the roundabouts

 

[Andy]

Hello,
Is not some of this delay down to turbo lag, especially if you are starting from scratch going for a gap in the traffic. As suggested above with driving style, put your foot down that little bit sooner to compensate. Yes, getting out of the manual driving mode that a lot of us have been used to takes a bit of training. I have a silver 180ps 4 motion Crewvan and it does take some new learnt technics. Thanks for that great article back there.

180 has two turbos to illuminate the lag. My cali does not have any noticeable turbo lag

 

[Andy]

yeah i have same lag....dsg lag...6000 miles on cali...plus steering knock...this lag reminds of the days gone by with dead spots in an old Carburetor, it always use to happen when pulling out at a junction much like a cali...lol.

Just bought a DTUK chip to help free up the cali...have yet to install. The compnay says it could help with dsg lag. we shall see.

Not sure the chip will have much effect. The gearbox has it's own ECH, mounted in the gearbox, it 'sees' the engine speed & when it reaches predefined level it changes gear. So it may alter thins a bit.
There are companies that remap gearbox ECU, but they want around £450 pounds for that so I'm not going there.

Be interested to hear how you get on with the chp though.

 

[KernowLad]

Clarity required between turbo lag and DSG lag methinks.

Every turbo has some form of lag but the smaller low rev turbo (on a 180) will spin up quicker almost eliminating any turbo lag. For massive turbo lag, you need a big fat turbo bolted onto a smallish engine (like the older Evos or the even older Audi Quattros).

While the DSG lag is related to engine speeds, it's pretty much a separate issue.

 

[gatvol]

Diesel, auto and turbo means that the most ordinary vehicles will inevitably struggle from rest.

Manual and diesel is OK, Petrol and DSG is OK. But not diesel and DSG. You need relatively high starting revs in a turbo diesel to avoid this issue and the DSG won't allow you to do this. Unless you are so sick of your Cali's reliability that you want to punish it, if so rev with your right foot and keep your left foot on the brake

Like others, I use Sport to reduce this effect which does make a tangible improvement.

I have experienced worse lag than this in other vehicles. Worst of all a Discovery 3, which I thought was plain dangerous when emerging from a T junction into the main traffic flow

 

[AlanC]

Like others I have been caught out at roundabouts with our 180 DSG.

I had a Pendle remap done which certainly improved the turbo lag, which I had requested, but didn't remove it. It has also improved the fuel consumption by between 3-5mpg depending on the use the van gets. However, the gearbox lag has not been noticeably reduced.

Having read the details above and having watched the gear indicator on the dash more closely now, I realise that it is not possible to expect this gearbox to operate in the way you can drive a manual. Slip the clutch in too higher gear and you have the same effect as the DSG selector delay.

Using the creep method and allowing for a slightly more relaxed driving style means it becomes much less of an issue for me.

The Cali is brilliant, but in the end it is a 3 ton van, and will perform as such.

A

 

[GrannyJen]

L

The Cali is brilliant, but in the end it is a 3 ton van, and will perform as such.

A

Says it all.

It's a camper not a sports car. I creep, have no problems, had a lag issue once or twice but then that's the vehicle I'm in so adjust accordingly.

Regarding comments earlier re disco 3 .... agree totally. Dreadful but thwn I mostly used it for either climbing mountains or towing a caravan and I really did not want to floor it going round roundabouts with a caravan on tow :cry:

 

[Isa Neal]

Hi I had a 2012 DSG in which I did just over 28000 mile s never had a problem. I've just bought a new DSG 180 4 motion with Bluemotion also not a problem. Both were/are grey!
My other vehicle is a Toyota Prius and it ALWAYS cuts out if you try and nip in somewhere out of a junction because it interprets the situation that the car is skidding..... So I've learnt my lession not to try as there's no way to modify the cars behaviour.