Driving the 1.8TFSI s-tronic there was no problem with the performance of the turbo once it kick in, a slight turbo gap, but as one would be expect. For me I felt it was more that initial pulling away that was very lack lustre and as somebody else reported here it was not reassuring. Could be gear ratios. I heard a six rather than seven gears was better. I could also imagine frustration when trying to filter into a busy traffic lane.I have very little experience of automatic gearbox driving so I would not know whether this is typical. I would be very interested to hear from a driver of the manual 1.8TFSI version regarding the response of the engine unsaddled with the s-tronic gearbox to establish what the issue is. Driving my previous version SPB Quattro 170 PS turbo I guess it has the extra torque available to count on.
I remember back in 2005 when I ordered my 8P 2.0t Quattro, the dealer only had a S-tronic 2WD version to test drive, the hesitation was very apparent in this car. I ordered the manual version and there was no problem.The problem is purely with the S-Tronic gearbox, so the 18tfsi manual will be fine I am sure.
Mark