After a week or so of driving this about, I've come to a controversial opinion - the gearbox is great.
Don't get me wrong - it's not super quick to change like a DSG box, and it's not super smooth like a typical auto box...
It's a manual gearbox that's having the clutch pressed and cogs swapped robotically - and it does it really well. It's great fun knocking up through the gears with your foot flat on the floor, and the change isn't particularly slow. I've only driven it for a week and I feel so much more at ease with it.
You can knock it backwards multiple times for a drop of more than 1 gear and when you're used to the slight delay (and it is only slight - the Internet would have you believe you'll be sat there twiddling your thumbs waiting) it's fantastic.
You can drive around town very smoothly indeed, it's great that you can take off in auto and instead of switching it to manual you can just change up to second manually and it switches to manual.
You can just sack off going down the gears when coming to a stop if you can't be bothered and it'll do it all for you. As soon as you knock the lever again you're in manual mode.
Automatic is pretty horrible to drive around as the changes are a bit unpredictable but if you need to, it's there. Great for having a sip of coffee on the move.
It has 'hill start assist' so when you take your foot off the brake, the car holds the brake on for a second or so to give you a chance to get to the accelerator pedal without rolling back.
It's clearly a manual box - you can hear it as soon as it changes. You can hear the clutch grabbing the gear. If you didn't know and you just watched someone ragging one past you'd swear it had a manual box.
In my opinion, the motoring journos were expecting it to be something it's not and not understanding that it's just different. It takes some getting used to.
I feel like I've mastered up changes and smooth pottering about, I'm still working on better down changes but I'm getting there. I'm certain that if you get the timing right, then you'd be able to rev match. I'll let you know!
I'm lucky that the previous owner took me out in it first and showed me what it's capable of in good hands. I think if I'd driven it first I'd probably have come to a similar conclusion as the journos.
Don't get me wrong - it's not super quick to change like a DSG box, and it's not super smooth like a typical auto box...
It's a manual gearbox that's having the clutch pressed and cogs swapped robotically - and it does it really well. It's great fun knocking up through the gears with your foot flat on the floor, and the change isn't particularly slow. I've only driven it for a week and I feel so much more at ease with it.
You can knock it backwards multiple times for a drop of more than 1 gear and when you're used to the slight delay (and it is only slight - the Internet would have you believe you'll be sat there twiddling your thumbs waiting) it's fantastic.
You can drive around town very smoothly indeed, it's great that you can take off in auto and instead of switching it to manual you can just change up to second manually and it switches to manual.
You can just sack off going down the gears when coming to a stop if you can't be bothered and it'll do it all for you. As soon as you knock the lever again you're in manual mode.
Automatic is pretty horrible to drive around as the changes are a bit unpredictable but if you need to, it's there. Great for having a sip of coffee on the move.
It has 'hill start assist' so when you take your foot off the brake, the car holds the brake on for a second or so to give you a chance to get to the accelerator pedal without rolling back.
It's clearly a manual box - you can hear it as soon as it changes. You can hear the clutch grabbing the gear. If you didn't know and you just watched someone ragging one past you'd swear it had a manual box.
In my opinion, the motoring journos were expecting it to be something it's not and not understanding that it's just different. It takes some getting used to.
I feel like I've mastered up changes and smooth pottering about, I'm still working on better down changes but I'm getting there. I'm certain that if you get the timing right, then you'd be able to rev match. I'll let you know!
I'm lucky that the previous owner took me out in it first and showed me what it's capable of in good hands. I think if I'd driven it first I'd probably have come to a similar conclusion as the journos.