Looking for some clarifications about DuoSelect

[ManInBlack]

Ah I did wonder what year the new gearbox came in. Ideally I'd love to go for a 2006 onward model, but the price jumps by a good £5k - but it sounds like it could be well worth it.

Yep, I'd say so!

 

[TridentTested]

I've read many complaints about the harshness of the gear changes in auto mode, and some have described it as sluggish and dim-witted.

Will.

I'd never call it sluggish but I know what you mean about dim-witted. This is the nature of the beast. For example, if you are in a queue of traffic and you can see the queue is about to start moving you might opt to leave a traditional clutch fully engaged and just let the car trickle along in idle and gently apply throttle as the queue begins to move. The DS box doesn't have this intelligence and instead will start slipping the clutch when you are trickling along in a queue.

Same story entering a roundabout, you can be caught out by the 'box deciding to change gear just as you might want to pull into a stream of traffic. Get it wrong and it feels like an eternity stranded in the traffic stream waiting for it engage and go.

You quickly learn to deal with these. I tend to leave it in Auto most of the time but will take control coming up to roundabouts for this reason. In slow moving queues I'll often force it to stay in 1st so it won't slip the clutch in 2nd - and listening to that engine purring along with a few revs on it is no hardship.