Quote:
Originally Posted by MotoEV
Congrats on your new car. The 8 speed auto is the star of this car. Very smooth gear changes and very fuel efficient. When I had the 328i as a loaner, I felt the need to drive it in Sport mode to get the responsiveness you get with the AH3.
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Thanks! Indeed -- my 2011 A4 actually came with a similar ZF 8HP transmission and I loved it there too.
Believe it or not, the AH3's transmission is smoother than the A4's despite having to bridge a motor with an engine. The A4 sometimes harshly clunked when it engaged/disengaged the engine at low speeds. I've yet to observe the AH3 doing that.
If I am to point out faults with the AH3, I've observed very few so far:
1. Feathering the brakes when the engine is off sometimes leads to an unexpectedly sharp response from the regen braking. This is the only time that I've noticed the regen brakes. This mainly happens when rapidly changing your brake pedal travel at speeds below 10mph. On traditional hydraulic brakes, there's a lot of "dead travel" when you're just pushing against the hydraulic fluid before you finally reach the point at which your inputs cause slowdown. You're not so lucky with the AH3. If you want the car to be liquid smooth when stopping, avoid sudden changes in brake pedal application below 10mph.
2. Once in a while from a full-stop, I've felt a clunky either 1->2 upshift or engagement of the engine. It causes a bit of a torque ripple and audible clunky noise, but is not terribly disruptive and never reproducible. It's happened maybe at 2 takeoffs under moderate throttle, out of the hundreds of times that I've done it already.
All in all, "I can't believe this is a hybrid" still stands. These are extremely nitpick faults, and I've driven plenty of gasoline-only luxury cars that did more ridiculous things.
Folks with 7/12 build dates who went in for the reprogramming, did the dealership ever explain what it's for? I'm wondering if I should bring it up with a service tech if there's something in there that I'd care about. I haven't had issues switching modes...