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-   -   Skoda Superb DSG 7 Speed DQ200 failures- China gets official reaction, why not India? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/121273-skoda-superb-dsg-7-speed-dq200-failures-china-gets-official-reaction-why-not-india-13.html)

lol:. So I have not washed my car in like 4 months ever since I did the ceramic coating. So looks like I am set for the rest of the life of my 5 year Vento. :uncontrol.

On a serious note, I think cars consistently hitting 70-80k without issues would be a relatively safe bench mark.

I was reading a thread on quora and thought of updating this thread, the software update part was pretty alarming. Thought this was worth a heads up.

https://qr.ae/py95Er

This answer may seem a bit long but it is worth the few minutes to read it.
I have first-hand knowledge of this. You are correct; the earlier DSG’s has problems, arguably the most dangerous of them being their propensity to lose drive at the drop of a hat. The DQ200 seemed to be the crappiest of the lot (using appropriate technical terminology).

Basically the issues boiled down to the design, the selected materials and the software in the mechatronics unit.

After facing criticism from customers across several countries, VW spent a lot of money and effort to get the DSG working reliably and safely as intended; and they pretty much succeeded. You see this in the reasonable reliability of DSG’s manufactured post late 2013.

As with every good solution this came with a price. Information provided (in writing) to me from Skoda / VW Australia paints the picture.

In getting the DSG to operate reliably without losing drive VW found that the dual clutch assemblies were wearing out too quickly. Thus there were increased costs to the company for changing clutch assembles that failed well short of their anticipated lifespan. Keen to mitigate these costs and the ensuing poor customer feedback they embarked on finding a solution. To do this they turned to some bright software engineers (I don’t know if they were the same ones who developed the diesel emissions cheating software) to fix the problem.
The solution was unbelievably simple. All they did was modify the software in the mechatronics unit to disengage the dual clutch assembly whenever an excessive wear condition was being experienced. Thus, with the engine no longer coupled to the gearbox there would be no wear and the projected life of the dual clutch assembly magically increased.

Unfortunately however with every solution comes another problem. You see, they didn’t bother to provide any enunciation to the driver that the clutch was about to disengage or had disengaged. The only time the driver knows what is happening is when the vehicle slows down. If the vehicle is driving up a slope it can even start rolling back down the slope; with the driver’s foot still on the accelerator. Sorry I forgot to mention, when the clutch disengages, the accelerator signal is cut-out.

They also failed to disclose this new feature in the drivers manual that you get when you purchase the vehicle. They also failed to mention it to the salesmen; because they don’t disclose it when you go for a test drive or when discussing the features of your shiny new vehicle.

In the exact words of Jana from Skoda / VW Australia:
“Based on the extensive assessment performed by both Wippells ŠKODA and our Volkswagen Group Australia Field Technical Specialist, I can confirm that there is no manufacturing defect with your vehicle. Your ŠKODA Yeti is operating as designed and there are no concerns with the driveability of your vehicle. We can confirm that your vehicle is operating as per manufacturers specifications.”
and
“The roll back is normal operation and this prevents damage to the clutches”. This roll-back refers to the vehicle losing drive without warning and rolling backwards when attempting to drive up an incline.

So, in summary: They had issues with the design and resolved them. This solution made the clutch assemblies wear out too fast and so they deliberately engineered “loss of drive” functionality back into the gearbox. So they are back where they started but now it is as a result of deliberate design as opposed to developmental and production issues.

This is very similar to the Boeing 737 Max episode; finding a solution without investing in the required improvements!

I havent faced this on DQ200 on 1.5 Taigun TSI or DQ381 on 2.0 Octavia, is this something we should expect as an update in future?

Also, this seams quite dangerous especially if one is used to slowing down on downward slopes with little assistance from brakes and relying mostly on engine braking (which would be a high wear scenario for the gearbox)

Lot of failures reported on DQ200 boxes are related to mechatronics going bad, premature clutch wear is not as notorius based on what I have read (could be wrong here), is this solution helping improve reliability of mechatronics besides the mineral oil switch?

I have been using a Vento Tsi with a DQ200 since 2015, have done over 60k KMs, have never faced this issue of losing power in slopes or rolling back. I would take the claim with more than a pinch of salt.

Rob Peter to pay Paul

From what I've understood about the DQ200, it's stop-start traffic that causes the clutch to heat up (leading to either premature wear, or the power loss OP is talking about).

I don't know what conditions you have covered in your 60k km, but a good test would be climbing up a long steep slope, with heavy traffic.

Worst I've faced was heavy traffic on the western ghats going up to Lonavala. Was driving my manual Corolla Altis diesel. This was an unusual scenario, but it was a tortuous hour and a half of my car speed going 0-10-0-10-0, up-slope the entire time. It was so bad, by the end of it, I felt like not only my clutch, but my left leg needed to be replaced. :crying

I believe it may be in rare and extreme cases like I described above, that the DQ200 might overheat.

I have run 80K Kms in my Rapid 1.5 TDI AT and have never faced a power loss situation in Ghats, plains, gradients, traffic - anywhere. There could have been some other problem coupled with the wear and tear of clutches that could have resulted in this power loss scenario.

I drive in blr so regular bumper to bumper traffic is a daily affair.

I also recently made the mistake of going to Ooty over a weekend in mid May, had to go through all sorts of hilly roads in mind boggling traffic. It took us 45 mins to travel 2 kms, never faced an issue.

So far the only time I did face an issue was when I had the car in "S" mode and it got stuck in mud, I remember getting a warning to stop the vehicle. This error went away when I stopped the car and let it cool for half hour.

Shocking in the extreme. I can't believe they even think it's acceptable to basically sabotage the normal working of the car, just to protect it from am obvious design flaw. VW certainly doesn't let ethics stand in the way of their development/problem solving.

Eerily similar, the total lack of corporate conscience.

The software fix may not have been made for the firmware in your mechatronics unit. If so, lucky you. Sounds like a nasty bit of corner-cutting there.

And yet the start stop traffic is probably the number one reason for people to opt for automatic transmission in the first place. The number of people who buy a DSG as it helps them win drag races is minimal or none, I'm guessing. I still drive a manual, and am just super glad that I won't need to worry about finicky automatic transmissions for at least a few more years!

Very true. Unlike the Korean DCTs, the VAG DSG does not overheat even after extreme use whether in insane city traffic or in the hills.

Of course, the outright failures post 50K km is a different issue altogether. :coldsweat

I have driven my 2017 VW vento 1.5 TDI DSG for almost 100k kms and most of it in stop-start traffic commuting between Noida-Gurgaon. I have also driven to almost all hill stations within 600kms of Delhi and never faced any issue. I also have a 2019 Vento 1.2 TSI DSG and did not face any such issues till date.

DSG has its fair share of issues but this post is utter nonsense. First of all, it's impossible to find out what the engineering has done to tweak the DSG behaviour. The customer support replies are deliberately worded to be vague (they themselves don't have a clue in the first place) and inferring anything from such vaguely worded emails is not very bright.

Are you saying DSG loses drive (disconnects) during in-gear motion - as if the car is abruptly shifted to N while in motion? No way. Automatics rolling back while starting from stand-still is not uncommon - that's why they have hill hold assist and other similar features to prevent such a roll back.

At the end of the day DSG is fundamentally a manual gearbox. If you are driving uphill in a stop-and-go traffic, the computer has to modulate the clutch engagement similar to how a human driver is likely to do. There is a trade off between slipping the clutch and permitting a bit of rollback and I think DSG does it brilliantly.

Those who have driven manual gearboxes and switched to DSGs are in awe of the gearbox. Those who have not driven anything other than a slushbox are startled by it.