When I first drove PDK I thought to myself "who would want to be in 6th gear under 40 MPH" . Ok so it saves gas .. whoopie !!! If I wanted a Prius I would have bought one.

So I just resigned myself to avoiding normal auto except sport auto has the jerk downsift to 1st which can be avoided with some savy footwork but why bother . So I began to adapt and cope with nomal auto .

I started to learn something . First -one can override the gears which is nice but it still will find its way back up to those high gears . There is one other choice it takes really oressing the gas pedal and it will downshift . Now most of us imagine that pressing a gas pedal hard might make the car go too fast .. not in normal auto .. at least not right away because the shift is a bit longer.

There is hope for normal auto beyond gridlock traffic or long cruise control highway drives . I am still exploring this.

 

Larry, even the old Tip id that.

With just a flick of the go pedal in full auto the trans knows you want to play and it will hold itself in a lower gear for a little while. I use it all the time including when I am coming up to a turn. It will downshift and be in the proper gear while you go around the corner.

 

Thank you, Larry.

I am also becoming a fan of normal auto...when in auto. I was originally put off by the low RPMs, but I find if I ignore that and just drive, that the car does very well and doesn't poke around at all - I can only imagine that an "S" is even better (but I try not to think about that - could lead to trouble )

Maybe those guys at PAG and ZF know a thing or two afterall.

 

Great. Just when I give up on auto mode (now that I'm out of the break-in period) and get so excited about manual, you go and tempt me to try it all over again. Thanks a lot... Just kidding, it simply shows how versatile this technology is. And, by the way, I will go try it...

 

Larry if you have great patience....I do not...you can drive in normal mode very agressivly for a while and PDK will get a little more sporty. PDK will learn faster in sport or sport plus mode though. I played around with this at the track and just about had PDK re-learned....especially in Sport Plus mode....then I got with a group of friends and went back to manual mode. An other instructor at the track drove his PDK all day in auto sport plus mode and said it finally re-programed itself and shifted in auto more perfectly.

Heck even my wife dive PDK in sport mode....normal mode is just too weird.

 

Mike -
1) 10 MPH on USI in traffic fir 5 miles is fine for normal auto.
2) Cruise control at 55 takes some of the shift worry away, eats less gas, and reduces tickets .

Outside of that .. normal mode sucks . Thus I cope.

 

Yep, I agree....lucky for me I do not have to sit in traffic like US1 south of Miami to Kendall...I hate that area when I travel down there for work.

 

Actually US1 gets congested all the way from I95 all the way to homestead it seems. Worse than USI is the Palmetto Expressway . It's a highway worse than a city street . Most of the traffic in South Florida seemed to begin after Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and I have no idea why .

Although as bad as it is in Florida it is nothing compared to the 405 in Los Angeles . A PDK cab in LA is almost like slow motion sun tanning.

 

All good autos do that actually - it's called kickdown. The PDK also responds to progressive throttling in a smooth way and Normal mode is adaptive and it's only slow if one is slow.

 

adias -I took delivery of the car with 30 miles on it or so . I only have 400 miles and most of the normal auto has been driven in a slow driving style so if it is learning my style I could see that it wold be slower .

I would imagine this would be the case with most drivers though . If he wanted to go faster he would select sport or opt for manual . Mike even posted that he lacks the patience for normal auto and he's not the only person who has said this . I can somewhat agree with him too but i am trying to find the best use of that mode and there are some .. but they do tend to be on the slow side of driving.

 

Is PDK really that good or is it just a fad? The idea of getting into any car without 3 pedals for my feet to play with makes me uncomfortable. The only car I could imagine not caring is a Ferrari or Lambo as I love the sound they make when you downshift.

 

No luck for me this morning with normal auto. Guess I don't have the patience either. Think I'll stick with manual...

 

I get over to the US a couple of times a year and to Florida pretty regularly for business. Gotta say that the amount of traffic down there is pretty amazing. LA you expect that but Florida surprised me, although I have to say an evening cruise I did up the coast road and the 101 to Santa Barbara a few years ago was very memorable. 90 mph with the roof down on the hire Mustang listening to Led Zep and getting passed by a Viper. Wouldn't happen here - our thought police think 105km/h (65 mph) makes you a certified killer.

When in Florida I'm mostly around Orlando tripping up and down the I4 or across town on roads like the 528 or I-Drive. Have done the Tampa trip a couple of times (including to St Petersburg for the Dali Museum - wow!) but last year took a couple of days off and drove down to the Keys which was great. Also did the Daytona tour which was brilliant - what a facility.

So every time I read about you guys talking of those roads it brings back good memories, even if the roads themselves are mostly straight. I'm over there again for a week in October, after a couple of weeks in New York next month as well. This time I'm thinking I'll do a day trip down to Sebring and look around there. The history of places like that fascinates me.

Sorry for the off-topic ramble but I couldn't resist!