S tronic Vs Manual

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rizzoface

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Hi all

new member here.

I have a question or more like advice on the Stronic vs the manual gearbox.

I am getting an A3 Saloon Sline through work (i have to pay a bit extra to have the audi) and was wondering if any of you have any recommendations around s tronic or any negatives around it? Does anyone ever regret getting the stronic?
Ive always driven a manual gearbox (audis) but do love how easy the auto's are.
Difference to me between a manual and auto box is £26 a month.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated
 
rizzoface said:
Hi all

new member here.

I have a question or more like advice on the Stronic vs the manual gearbox.

I am getting an A3 Saloon Sline through work (i have to pay a bit extra to have the audi) and was wondering if any of you have any recommendations around s tronic or any negatives around it? Does anyone ever regret getting the stronic?
Ive always driven a manual gearbox (audis) but do love how easy the auto's are.
Difference to me between a manual and auto box is £26 a month.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated
Click to expand...

I think you should do a search on this thread for 's-tronic'. There have been lots of discussions about the advantages although some members still prefer to stick to a manual.

Personally I've had an s-tronic on my last four A3s and will be having the same on the new one I have on order. To me it is the best of both worlds and I love it. I drive mine the same as I would a manual making my own choices when to change gear and using either the centre stick or the paddles but without having to keep pushing a clutch pedal. I would never order another car with an s-tronic.

The type of engine you choose will determine whether it comes with a 6-speed wet clutch or 7-speed dry clutch version of the s-tronic.
 
I think it's one of those things that's a personal choice but I would say that I have never once regretted having S-tronic instead of manual. I usually drive it in auto mode but always have the paddles if I disagree with the car's choice of gear, and no need for the hassle of using a clutch either.
 
As a new driver I had a manual Corsa D before and I wanted to go for an automatic so I went with an S-tronic, and I love it! It's just easier and if I'm honest, I find myself driving with two hands on the wheel a lot more than with a manual! Normally I rest my hand on my gear stick.
I kind of do miss having a manual sometimes but then I realise.. No I don't! I love the S-tronic gearbox it's so smooth and quick it's great.
 
If you're a MAN then you need a MANUAL

- according to the yoof in the video below anyway.




Me? S-tronic allday, everyday.
 
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I'll never go back to having a manual as my daily runner.
Wife has got s-tronic in her Q5 too - was sold on the attributes during a test drive after initially wanting a manual.

Don't know about the model in question, but the S3 s-tronic is 0.4s faster to 60 and the pops and bangs on downshift are another plus.

Test drive both, run them on your commute route and see which fits best.
 
audi upgrades
h5djr said:
I think you should do a search on this thread for 's-tronic'. There have been lots of discussions about the advantages although some members still prefer to stick to a manual.

Personally I've had an s-tronic on my last four A3s and will be having the same on the new one I have on order. To me it is the best of both worlds and I love it. I drive mine the same as I would a manual making my own choices when to change gear and using either the centre stick or the paddles but without having to keep pushing a clutch pedal. I would never order another car with an s-tronic.

The type of engine you choose will determine whether it comes with a 6-speed wet clutch or 7-speed dry clutch version of the s-tronic.
Click to expand...

Thanks

Will be going for the 1.4 CoD - only do around 11-12k miles a year so cant really justify a diesel.
 
rizzoface said:
Thanks

Will be going for the 1.4 CoD - only do around 11-12k miles a year so cant really justify a diesel.
Click to expand...

I do about 1000-1500 miles more than you and have opted for the 1.4 COD S-Tronic over the diesel this time, can't fault the auto at all and don't see me switching back to manual.
 
I'm in the undecided camp. I don't have a choice on my next car, S-Tronic is fitted as standard, but when I drove the 8V recently in DSG spec it felt a very good gearbox / car combo.

I don't know why but there is something about the art of driving that makes me enjoy the mechanical process of changing gears by hand. That said, I fully understand an automated system will make a much better job of it than my ham fists.

I think you have to drive them both on an extended test drive and then go with what most stirs your soul. I don't think you can always go on the opinions of others on stuff like this.
 
Manuals are slowly dying for mainstream cars (although I'll want one on the caterham road sport I have planned!) so go stron now the boxes have improved. New baby lambo....double clutch box only. Same for the 911GT3. Don't think I'd not be a MAN if I drive either of those...
 
jbs2472 said:
I do about 1000-1500 miles more than you and have opted for the 1.4 COD S-Tronic over the diesel this time, can't fault the auto at all and don't see me switching back to manual.
Click to expand...

How do you find the performance MPG?
 
Oh gosh, how long is a piece of string? I've had both and prefer a manual.

The s tronic is very good but it's your choice as to whether you think it's worth the extra.
 
Had a DSG box on my old car (DSG = S-Tronic).

It is silky smooth, and really nice, loved it.

But this time around I opted for the manual box, might sound strange but thought it used to stay not long enough time in the gears, so you really did not get the oumf, you can get with the manual box.
Could drive around in S mode, but then again I did not want high revs all the time...

All in all, it's a personal choice, take a drive in one of each, you will quickly decide :)
 
Got S-Tronic and will never go back to manual, neither will my wife. Order paddles if you want faster manual shifting, otherwise use the stick, which also works fine.
 
I've got manual and do miss s tronic sometimes but I've had a few courtesy cars with it and the fact it doesn't give you the gears you want when you want them annoys me. To be fair the s tronics I've had have been on a4's and 5's so might be better on s3
 
I just had a 1.4cod A3 saloon loaner for a week and that was s-tronic and I found it better than the s-tronic in my A5. Probably because it was petrol but so smooth. I never thought I would like autos but they have come on leaps and bounds and will probably always have one now.
 
cbotved said:
Had a DSG box on my old car (DSG = S-Tronic).

It is silky smooth, and really nice, loved it.

But this time around I opted for the manual box, might sound strange but thought it used to stay not long enough time in the gears, so you really did not get the oumf, you can get with the manual box.
Could drive around in S mode, but then again I did not want high revs all the time...

All in all, it's a personal choice, take a drive in one of each, you will quickly decide :)
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should have driving it in manual mode. It would then stay in whatever gear you wanted.
 
felsby said:
Got S-Tronic and will never go back to manual, neither will my wife. Order paddles if you want faster manual shifting, otherwise use the stick, which also works fine.
Click to expand...

The s-tronic on all A3s come with the paddles as standard. The only car I found that doesn't is Skoda Octavia where they are an option. To me the paddles are an important part of the s-tronic experience. I drive in manual mode using the paddles all the time.
 
I have manual but I think it's the only thing about my car I would change now if I were to order again.
 
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I have stronic on my new S3 and although it's basically the same box as the DSG from the early to mid 2000's, they have tweaked and refined it to the point where it is truly brilliant now.

We have a 2005 golf gti dsg and the s3 box is soooo much better in all respects.

We did test drive the manual before opting for stronic but although we liked the manual (my wife prefers manual) for my regular stop start commute the stronic is perfect.

A few key things swung it for us;

Ease of town driving
Paddles make it great to hustle down a backroad
More noise from the exhaust on up shift and lovely rev matching on downshifts
Adaptive cruise control works down to zero and means the car starts/stops itself when in very slow, queuing traffic
 
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The pictures says it all:

Image
Image
 
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That is a handsome stick!
 
Almost looks a bit R8-ish
 
When I first had an double clutch box I hated it. That was in the mk1 R32 golf I ordered before they even hit the showrooms. That was the first production car I believe to get a double clutch gearbox. After a few months I did come to love it. Hence, all the cars I have had since that date have been so equipped. However, it's not perfect. You can't have full manual control and the ****** kick down is really annoying. So, disable the kick down? Easy to do, just shove a small piece of plastic card down below and that's sorted. Or you can train yourself not to push the pedal onto the switch when you floor it - not so easy to do, but I did master that in the end. The only fix to 'nanny' who interferes is to remap the gearbox software - which I had on my TTRS, courtesy of AMD. The best couple of hundred quid I ever spent on that car and I'll be taking my new S3 down to them the day it's delivered to have the same done again. I do miss the connection that manual box gives you, but every time I do drive a manual now I start to quickly think, in this day and age, changing gear manually with a stick and a clutch pedal... oh and double clutch gearboxes mean your car is a lot faster of course. I'd never go back to a manual.
 
Have now done over 700 miles in our new S3 and just loving the manual gearbox.. no faffing around with flappy paddle stuff. My view for what it's worth is that a small car like an A/S3 thrives on having 'proper gears' and 3 pedals.. it's what driving is about IMHO!
 
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In Finland we prefer more manuals and not so much autoboxes like DSG or S-tronic. I had 2012 Polo GTi DSG, but that was not so fun to drive, so now I ordered S3 Sedan Sepang and manual. Like other Finns we like rally and it means manual gearbox and nice roads. So MANual and I drove S3 SP s-tronic throughout the last weekend and it was very ice roads .... I missed the manual, when you use the manual then you can say you drove the car (sorry bad english) but when you have automatic you are more the passenger. But I have to say I have driven cars over 35 years and owned many sportcars, so manual.
 
PilotAudi said:
Have now done over 700 miles in our new S3 and just loving the manual gearbox.. no faffing around with flappy paddle stuff. My view for what it's worth is that a small car like an A/S3 thrives on having 'proper gears' and 3 pedals.. it's what driving is about IMHO!
Click to expand...

need to agree, the A6 suited S-tronic but so glad i went manual with the S3
 
Manual for me too - drove both, preferred manual.
 
It's worth pointing out that the s-tronic is not an auto box. It's more accurately described as a computer-controlled manual box!
 
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PilotAudi said:
Have now done over 700 miles in our new S3 and just loving the manual gearbox.. no faffing around with flappy paddle stuff. My view for what it's worth is that a small car like an A/S3 thrives on having 'proper gears' and 3 pedals.. it's what driving is about IMHO!
Click to expand...

Until you miss one of your 'proper gears' and rev the s**t out of your engine whilst you have to view the rear of the S-tronic way ahead of you ;)
 
Who miss a gear when you are driving??? If you miss a gear then you should have that s-tronic. S-tronis is nice but there is a big question .. which of these two is the car to be driven?? I like to drive the car not just sit and step on the gas. I just ask why so many of these car magazine/car tester says after they have driven S3 s-tronic that they prefer more manual .. because they are professionals and know what is fun to drive, think about that. Are they right or not? And they even says that it is a pity that so many sportcars in these days is "automatic"/dsg/s-tronic and you do not get them with manual anymore ..
 
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