One thing I noticed on the PDK test drive is that if one selects the right mode it certainly is nice to have the overrride feature but the car seems to find the right gear all on its own . There were a few times I found myself debating the gear choice but in that same breath I also was debating the mode selected . For the person driving in gridlock traffic the regular mode is a no brainer . The sport plus (with sport chrono) can really drive a road event . I found the most complex was the sport mode because it tried to find the ambivalent driver and that's where I think the over ride paddles might come in handy .

I only spent 10 minutes on the test drive and i am surprised that PDK owners havent really elaborated much on how to utilize their skill with this setup for their overall driving --because there are quite a few combination choices .

 

You can always override the auto mode. My preferred usage settings:

Normal - D -- slow city traffic, stop-and-go
Sport - open road driving in either D (w/ override) or M mode
Sport Plus - track

 

I got 2000 miles on mine and I alway drive it in sport mode ,never try it in sport Plus because it rev to high .

 

This is the toughest pont . The stop and go is consistent dull type of driving. The track is the high rev agressive --but also consistent . It's the erratic driving that sport mode with override became more complex . Part of me wanted the car to do it by itself and the other part reached for the override. I found myself agreeing with or debating the car .

Now of course if I drove it more I would get a better sense of it . Ten minutes is not any measurable time and probably the most erratic driving is on a test drive on a whole new type of car .

 

One thing to keep in mind is there are many shift maps with in a certain mode and it all depends on how you drive. The PDK will learn your driving style so it is a bit unfair to totally judge PDK on a quick demo ride.

My wife drive the car in sport mode but with the sport pasm turned off. She drives pretty normal but is not affraid to give it gome throttle either. At first she said the car seems to hold the lower gears to long bt after driving the car more...he way...she said the car shifts perfectly for he now.

I drive the can in manual mode mostly so that it becomes second natural to me while at the track.

 

A couple other observations about the auto modes...

Regular auto mode can sometimes be frustrating in stop-and-go traffic due to the transmission wanting to jump up to higher gears so quickly only to have to immediately come back down at the next stop. No manual driver would ever go through that many gears that quickly.

Sport auto mode can have a significant jerk shifting from 2-1 when coming to a stop. Depending on the situation (as it doesn't always happen), this can be at least an embarrasing and even almost painful experience. Regular auto mode and sport manual mode don't seem to have this issue.

To me, it seems these aspects of the auto mode still need more perfecting.

 

This is very well stated . I sensed some of these but I only had 10 minutes on a test drive and I coild not quite put my finger on it until you wrote this post.