[Salnv]

Originally Posted by sandygordon

Its been almost one month and 1200km and a month since the update. No further issues noted. No skipping of gears. DCT is working well. Hope there won't be such an issue anymore. Fingers crossed.

@sandygordon, did you have any issues after this?

[sandygordon]

The relief was temporary

Yesterday I faced a scary situation

Was speeding on a highway in D7 when I slowly applied brakes to get into a bye road. The throttle went numb and it was as if the accelerator was unresponsive. The gear was still at D5 then it shifted to D1 when I panic braked. After that it failed to upshift. It was stuck at D1 even though I revved upto 4krpm. I have taken a video of this situation. Manual mode was unresponsive. No upshift was noted. I stopped the car and restarted. Then it shifted from D1 to D3 on revving till 3500rpm. On applying brakes it shifted back to D1. Did not want to try more. Stopped and called the service team. They came in around an hour to pick up the car. The issue was no more to be noted on the car. They took the car to service station at Alwaye which is about 20km from Cochin.

They have seen an error in the diagnostics. They said they ll have an online discussion with Kia engineering today morning and give me a feedback.

Atleast they have accepted the issue and have agreed to resolve it soon.


Here is the first instance when the car was stuck in D1

https://youtu.be/MyO5H06fiOM

Skipping even gears now

https://youtu.be/Vr0laKBayyg

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by sandygordon

Then it shifted from D1 to D3 on revving till 3500rpm. On applying brakes it shifted back to D1. Did not want to try more. Stopped and called the service team.
They have seen an error in the diagnostics. They said they ll have an online discussion with Kia engineering today morning and give me a feedback.

I suggest you ask them to replace the selector assembly. If it was just a software issue then it shouldnt have come back again. I think the gear selector is getting stuck in certain situations which will throw up the error code and make only one set of gears available. What is more supporting is that the last time you faced this issue, only the even gears were available and now only odd gears. This is why I suspect the selector assembly since if you see my earlier post on this thread, I have mentioned how complex the selector is and how it has to switch between the gear sets.

[padmrajravi]

This is scary. This does not look like a software problem at all. Something like this can cause accidents during tricky overtakes.

Once we get used to a particular automatic car, we tend to trust it blindly to do its thing while we modulate the accelerator. I have realized that ever since I got used to the way my AT car works, I now attempt more adventurous manoeuvres trusting the box completely to do whatever it takes to get me out of sticky situations. In fact, I have lost my muscle reflexes to work the manual boxes. I don't think I have it in me to quickly work that manual mode to get me out of situations if something like this happens during a tricky overtake.

[d3mon]

Note to Kia: This is your last chance for redemption.

Leaving a customer stranded multiple times after he spent 20 Lakhs on your car is just not done, especially after he chose to put his trust in your software fix from just a month ago. This is not the time to do further R&D on his car.

Here's what you need to do, stat:

1) Give a loaner car to sandygordon.
2) Replace the entire gearbox.
3) Extend the gearbox warranty to 10 years/100k KMs on his car.
4) Proactively reproduce and understand the issue in other cars so that you can develop a fix for others who may suffer the same issue in the future.

[The Rationalist]

Very unfortunate turn of events. I'm owning a Ford DCT, it occasionally acts weird, it makes a jerky lurch. I was hoping that Kia would be a reliable one. Although there were reports abroad about issues regarding this DCT, I was under the impression that Kia would have rectified the issues by now. Do keep updated, meanwhile search international forums for a solution.

[sandygordon]

Nothing new over a day

My car is with Incheon Kia, Aluva Desom.

They have raised the complaint to Kia Engineering and are waiting for a response is what they said.

I have said that I need a closure on the issue and not some phone call informing about logic errors of the TCU.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by sandygordon

Nothing new over a day
My car is with Incheon Kia, Aluva Desom.

Thanks for the updates. This is quite a worrying and frustrating situation.Hope Kia takes proper steps to root cause and resolve. Looks like the DCT for India will turn out to be a bad idea if Kia is unable to fix this permanently.

Do keep us updated.

[dark.knight]

I think it's for a very good reason that Volkswagen the earliest on the bandwagon of affordable mass produced dual clutch transmission boxes, have discontinued the transmission entirely and gone back to torque converter, despite it being a move of going back to rubbing flintstones to make a fire instead of butane lighters. Also, might I add that they sold these DSG cars as soon as they made them at zero discount which means they had a solid reason to do so.

Now KIA is struggling to repair these unpredictable software driven boxes, which makes a case for almost entirely mechanically driven boxes all the more sensible. If I thought my torque converter is dumb as a rock, this one failed to downshift from 5 until panic braking had to be induced, and on top of that went to mutiny by refusing to give a manual option. Hopeless.

Despite increasing traffic, despite bad congestion, at this rate, I'd rather drive a manual with a light clutch and shifter, these moronic automatic boxes have no business being inside a car, even whenever I go tiptronic and shift up or down, the great software coding either rejects it till it deems the rev band to be in the safe zone, or it connects the gear after 2 or 3 seconds, which is an eternity in normal driving parlance. Times like these I just feel like walking in the sun and dust, less painful.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

Despite increasing traffic, despite bad congestion, at this rate, I'd rather drive a manual with a light clutch and shifter, these moronic automatic boxes have no business being inside a car, even whenever I go tiptronic and shift up or down, the great software coding either rejects it till it deems the rev band to be in the safe zone, or it connects the gear after 2 or 3 seconds, which is an eternity in normal driving parlance. Times like these I just feel like walking in the sun and dust, less painful.

Though I appreciate your thoughts, I think its exaggeration beyond all levels. I think worldwide, automatics have outnumbered manual transmission cars and in between this, if the issues were so regular and widespread, the use of automatics would have seen a decline over time. However it is the other way round and even in a fuel economy sensitive market like India, Automatic cars have been steadily growing in sales and popularity over the last decade. Of course, we have had issues with DSG, AMT as well as the Kia DCT now, but there are hardly any issues with torque converters. Hence, its the type of the automatic transmission which is the issue than the concept of having an automatic. Even torque converters today are software driven and not completely mechanical as the TCs of earlier times. Yet they perform without issues depending upon how the implementation is done. Of course it might not take the same decisions as you, but thats quite natural. My gear changing pattern might not impress someone else and so on.

Hence, instead of completely sidelining ATs and regarding them useless, lets focus on specific issues like this one and have an informative discussion going on. The same DSGs which we were bashing up for being unreliable has been running in countries like Germany without issues, owing to the conditions there. Countries with higher traffic density will pose different demands to the transmission and it is the job of the company to decide what is best suited for a certain location. In that case, its a good decision by VW to switch to torque converters for India. That doesnt mean they will completely discard DSG. They will still sell the DSG in other markets where it is suitable. In the same way, it must be KIAs responsibility to study the conditions well and make the right choices for the product planning.

[ashvek3141]

This is really sad & also scary. A gearbox failure in such a well engineered car is simply not acceptable. It just goes to reiterate the point that the DCT technology is still in its baby phase and needs a good amount of time to come The levels of the reliable TCs. But what surprises me is that, Hyundai Venue being a sister brand isn’t being reported for such terrible issues yet. What I mean is, there will definitely be technology sharing and stuff, and I am guessing the auto boxes will definitely be pretty close, yet there haven’t been any major issues reported in that DCR box. Ofcourse leaving aside the heating issues, which are pretty much inherent in DCTs. Am I missing something here? Won’t the auto boxes be atleast 70-80% close to each other?

[Rahul_]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I think it's for a very good reason that Volkswagen the earliest on the bandwagon of affordable mass produced dual clutch transmission boxes, have discontinued the transmission entirely and gone back to torque converter, .....

I reckon the dual clutch (esp DSG in question) has not been discontinued "entirely". I think the other page on the topic has extensive details on it, It is a cost cutting exercise as the same tech would be present in models higher up.

My feeling is VWs move is based on economic decision rather than reliability of those gearboxes.

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

--affordable mass produced dual clutch transmission boxes, have discontinued the transmission entirely and gone back to torque converter --

Not entirely, the DSG will be available in their new offerings in the higher trims only. Lower variants to get the AT configuration.

[ron178]

What’s happening to Hyundai/Kia? Hyundai as always made reliable cars. Now, when Ford and VW are moving back to torque converters, Hyundai plonks a DCT into the Venue/Seltos. I expected better reliability from this DCT for the sole reason that it’s engineered by Hyundai. Suddenly, Volkswagen’s DQ200 seems like a sensible buy.

I wish Kia had used the 6-speed torque converter from the BS4 Verna/Creta in the Seltos too. Now, prospective customers are stuck between a boring but hopefully reliable CVT and a fun but unreliable dual-clutch automatic.

Let’s hope Kia’s service is better than Ford/VW’s service with regard to DCTs and that your car is back in action soon. Please keep us updated.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Though I appreciate your thoughts, I think its exaggeration beyond all levels.

Hence, instead of completely sidelining ATs and regarding them useless, lets focus on specific issues like this one and have an informative discussion going on.

Though I get your point, I feel we needn't get too attached on views over what is basically a non-sentient pre-programmed box, both the transmission and the car, my views aren't going to change or influence buying decisions at all, but the auto transmission is definitely not for me.

This is after driving the DSG 1.2 Polo, the 1.4 Audi S-Tronic, the 2.0 Audi S-Tronic, the 1.6 TC of Vento, 1.4 DCT of Ford, the 2.0 TC of Hyundai, the 8 speed TC of BMW (all good when on an open German Autobahn or Indian highway at 80+ speeds). What I need is torque off the blocks, low revving performance and a gear shifter that reads my mind and keeps blipping the shifts under 2k to supply monsterous low end torque, but no, the techies that program the boxes want it to redline and endlessly wheeze and jiggle like a hippo before a gear changes.. I don't like it one bit. The only one I did like was the 8 speed ZF in the Maserati (a privilege for me to have sat in and driven), that seemed to upshift aggressively, keeping revs low, but yes its nature would've changed if it goes into performance mode.