How reliable is the 7-speed S-Tronic?

[RapidAssistant]

Doing some preliminary research at the moment - considering getting a C7 A6 2.0TDI with S-Tronic - primarily because looking at the prices you get seem to get a lot more car for your money with the A6 and the Audi garage gave me one as a courtesy car when my A4 was in getting serviced and I quite liked it....

This would be my first auto however, and VAG/Audi autos seem to have a bad rap which is why I've shyed away from them in the past having heard all the horror stories about six grand gearbox replacements etc... How good are the latest ones (2014-onward is the vintage I'm interested in), have all the bugs been ironed out now? Any advice/recommendations would be welcome.

 

[Darren92]

if they're looked after ie, all gearbox servicing done on time then they're ok

 

[B5NUT]

Problem is your asking questions about cars that are at most 3 years old, so all under warranty and not many will have over 60K miles. However that being said, I've not seen any S-Tronic box failures on the C7 forum, but have heard on early models about clutch failures on the S-Tronic box.

 

[Johnny31]

On my 13reg 3.0tdi it is flawless from the day one. Not sure however if the unit in the 2.0 is the same... Nonetheless, whatever you do, check that it had its oil done every 38k...

Sent from my mobile...

 

[AndyT306]

no issues with mine, only covered 12k though

 

[B5NUT]

I cannot help much as I'm only on 5K on my A6 with s-tronic.

 

[Tendaimwari]

56K on my 2012 3.0tdi with no problems and a few launch control to boot

 

[oldoiler]

A6 3.0 Quattro 65k , no issues......


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[AndyT306]

56K on my 2012 3.0tdi with no problems and a few launch control to boot

I still haven't worked out launch control

 

[Rhyso]

My Nov 2011 3.0 V6 had a new box at 70,000 ish miles two weeks before i bought it

Have covered over 20,000 miles since owning the car without issue. All of those 20,000 have been remapped miles too

 

[Rhyso]

I still haven't worked out launch control

Off the top of my head

Engine oil and coolant up to temp
Drive mode is dynamic
Stop / start off
EPS off
Left foot on brake
Right foot build the revs to desired point
Release brake
Hold on

 

[Wifeb4Life]

Don't tune and put too much torque through it and maintain it's services and there should be no issues as others have said.

 

[Rhyso]

Don't tune and put too much torque through it and maintain it's services and there should be no issues as others have said.

Mine was standard and it failed.

Thankfully for the previous owner Audi picked up the bill as it was outside of its warranty period. He had had it serviced on time too

From speaking to a mate who works for Audi failures in the A6 are very rare

 

[BahnStormer77]

Not certain on the TDI's, but the TFSI's (and S4/S5 with the same engine/gearbox combo) had a recall (in some regions) on the mechatronic units for cars.

I think Audi released a re-designed version of the DSG (S-Tronic) gearbox in ~2013-2014, but the exact year that each model got the new gearbox varies.

The UK had no such recall, but they replaced the mechatronics within warranty - there were some scare stories in the US about people locking up when driving, but the normal symptom was just that you lost one side of the gearbox (2,4,6,R) when changing up from 1st to 2nd... then had to turn off and back on again to get access to Reverse. Not ideal, especially not for 3 point turns, but I drove my family home like that (in sport mode, otherwise it felt like it was short-shifting due to the gaps between 1-3-5-7).... and then drove the car down to the local Audi garage.

Mine went at 3 years and 1 month, <7000 miles... gutted! But.... Driftbridge Audi (Walton-Upon-Thames) replaced it completely free of charge, so aside from the worry, it was all fine. I'd like ot say that I expected them to do the decent thing, but I've heard so many horror stories from dealers (not just Audi ones), that it was still a pleasant surprise to have the keys just handed to me with the paperwork all done and a courteous, "Sorry for the inconvenience, Sir". They have my loyalty and praises for a few years at least - and they've never put a foot wrong in >10yrs of Audi ownership, so I thnk they'll have it for a LONG time.

Stick with a newer model and they're great gearboxes... I'm not sure I'd be keen on a really aggresive remap on a TDI though as those remaps do dial back in a lot of the low-rev torque that the manufacturers take out to protect the clutches and gearboxes... especially not if you want it looked after under warranty.