ZF Smoothness

[trevor51590]

Hey folks,

Was somewhat hoping the ZF 8 speed would be a little smoother than it is. Car has 30k miles and I cleared and successfully ran an adaptation on it probably 1500 miles ago to try and smooth it out and in some aspects it did

It feels like it holds onto gears too long so when I get off the accelerator it will bang, 3-2 can bang pretty good if I’m slowing at a pace that’s not a grandma driving, etc

It’s not terrible, but I guess I just thought it would be smoother? I looked at the mount stiffener but I’m on the fence about it

Now the real question; will the 034 tune (TCU) smooth it out a bit? Looking at taking advantage of the tune discount

Thanks!

[angrycatmeow]

Shifts are almost imperceptible in comfort mode in my car. Obviously it gets much spicier in dynamic/sport where I do 98% of my driving.

Sent from my Samsung smart air fryer

[SHCKR]

Which mode do you have it in, and is the transmission tuned?

[trevor51590]

Comfort mode, untuned currently

[oesman]

Now the real question; will the 034 tune (TCU) smooth it out a bit? Looking at taking advantage of the tune discount

I'm pretty sure they have a 30 day trial period after you buy. You could try it. I feel like the stage 2 tcu tune really improved the drivability of the car.

[SHCKR]

Comfort mode, untuned currently

Should be smooth as butter then

[zzoikkeli]

My -17 with original software was very laggy even with dynamic, it took about second and half to respond to gas pedal. Also downshifts from 4th and 3rd felt clunky. Took the car to a dealer and they updated engine and transmission software by TSB, laggines was completely gone and it got overall much more responsive. Huge difference. Never really drive on comfort though.

[Nillamb]

...successfully ran an adaptation...

Can you point me in the direction of this procedure? I ran adaptions on my B8.5 but can't find the B9 versions.

My B9 gearbox is worse that my B8.5 in almost all aspects (before my B8.5 developed troubles) and I'm deeply frustrated as I eventually got rid of my B8.5 over fears of big future bills (after already spending a couple of grand on services & parts).

Every time the car changes gear it lurches as if the power is briefly reduced. I'm 034 stage 1 TCU but behaviour was the same pre-tune. It's not a sharp cut, more like a smooth (but annoying) rocking. Even just slowing down without breaking when the car shifts it feels like someone in a manual has selected the lower gear then lifted the clutch without any sort of rev matching - so the car 'lurches' and slows more quickly until the revs come up with the clutch engaged.

I always drive in D in comfort or dynamic and use manual when I feel like it. I actually test drove two S4's and they both felt similar, but I certainly wouldn't call the gear changes anywhere near 'imperceptible' (whereas DSG when it was actually working well was imperceptible)

Frankly I'm ignoring it at the moment. But advice on what to try would be good (I already have a trans mount but it's not yet installed).

[trevor51590]

https://forums.ross-tech.com/index.php?threads/18570/

https://www.a5oc.com/threads/my-note...change.133682/

Those are a few to get you started. The quick adaptation runs for me, but doing a pulse adaptation I might just need to bring it to a big empty parking lot and let it do it

Apparently this transmission is a pain to get smooth according to the Mercedes guys from what I’ve found

*note I didn’t change my fluid, just trying to get it smoother

[Dsobczak]

I drive my B9 in comfort and Dynamic equally, just depends if my have my boys in the car or not. I do notice or feel anything that you mentioned with banging and clunking. I have a Trans insert that I noticed took some of the hang and lag away but it also made the shifts feel more noticeable.

As for the 034 TCU tune, if you watch any videos or reviews you will notice that everyone says they can feel the shift and how crisp they are. Not sure youre going to get what you are looking for from a TCU tune like that. I would follow the guidance mentioned above and have the car looked at by Audi and request that they do a factor flash on the TCU b/c banging and clunking are not normal and should be looked at.

[NETX_S4]

I can attest that the 034 TCU tune takes a lot of the clunkiness and slop out of the shifts at lower and mid throttle. The stage 1 TCU tune was better, and the stage 2 tune is a dramatic improvement. I still get an occasional lurch, but much less pronounced and much less often than before. This is true in all drive modes. Before flashing, Comfort mode was basically unusable to me. It's now perfectly acceptable when I want my 19 S4 to just act like a car.

[elscotto80]

I believe Audi says the trans fluid is lifetime, but is anyone changing theirs at any interval?

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[chuckb825]

I believe Audi says the trans fluid is lifetime, but is anyone changing theirs at any interval?

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Audizine Forum mobile app

I have a A4 2.0t B8 and I have the Tiptronic and I have changed mine. There is a whole procedure you have to go through when you fill it back up after getting it back together. You have to fill it and then start it run it to operating temp then slowly go through the gears. Then you fill till it comes out over the top then your done. There is a place I used called blauparts they give a great detail on how it's done. Call and ask for Keith and he will hook you up.

Good luck
Chuck

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[spacecase]

I believe Audi says the trans fluid is lifetime, but is anyone changing theirs at any interval?

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Audizine Forum mobile app

ZF recommends 60k. It is not lifetime and I would replace the trans and diff fluids at 50k if you drive aggressively.

[elscotto80]

ZF recommends 60k. It is not lifetime and I would replace the trans and diff fluids at 50k if you drive aggressively.

Right, I know Audi says lifetime but we all know that's not true. I've got some time till 60k, so I'll wait until then. Mine is pretty smooth with 48k.

This is my first auto trans, so far I'm liking it. Nothing will beat rowing gears, but that's where we are now...

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[trevor51590]

Yeah my fluid is still half-life so I’m gonna keep it as is. I think my next step will be to try the quick adaptation again in a large flat open lot and trying to keep it as controlled as possible and try as much of pulse as I can

[AldermanToffee]

I like to live life on the dangerous side, I’m at 97k miles on the stock fluid.

[Dardani2000]

Should be smooth as butter then

That is completely false

[AldermanToffee]

That is completely false

Speak for yourself. In that mode shifts are pretty unnoticeable for my vehicle.

Probably varies slightly from car to car, along with personal opinion.

[trevor51590]

Well, I've decided to delete the stored values, and reset adaptation values again, this time without running the VCDS quick adaptation. Drove it around like a grandma a little bit, will update here to see if it helped. My biggest issue is 3->2 banging

[Dardani2000]

Speak for yourself. In that mode shifts are pretty unnoticeable for my vehicle.

Probably varies slightly from car to car, along with personal opinion.

Ok if you say so

[Dardani2000]

Well, I've decided to delete the stored values, and reset adaptation values again, this time without running the VCDS quick adaptation. Drove it around like a grandma a little bit, will update here to see if it helped. My biggest issue is 3->2 banging

I guess only two of us have that same issue lol

[AldermanToffee]

Ok if you say so

After nearly four years of ownership, I do.

[kifac]

I guess only two of us have that same issue lol

My 3-2 also bangs in low speeds.
Not sure why but it doesnt do it all the time.
Probably doesnt help the car has been tuned since new with EPL and now 034 with no adaption ever done

[Dardani2000]

After nearly four years of ownership, I do.

After nearly five years of ownership i know that statement was completely false about smooth and butter 🧈

[Dardani2000]

My 3-2 also bangs in low speeds.
Not sure why but it doesnt do it all the time.
Probably doesnt help the car has been tuned since new with EPL and now 034 with no adaption ever done

Mine was never tuned

[kmarei]

I can attest that the 034 TCU tune takes a lot of the clunkiness and slop out of the shifts at lower and mid throttle. The stage 1 TCU tune was better, and the stage 2 tune is a dramatic improvement. I still get an occasional lurch, but much less pronounced and much less often than before. This is true in all drive modes. Before flashing, Comfort mode was basically unusable to me. It's now perfectly acceptable when I want my 19 S4 to just act like a car.

i'm glad i'm not the only one that has some jerkiness with the stage 2 TCU tune
it's usually very good
but sometimes it jerks between shifts
will take note on if it happens on downshifts or upshifts, and what gears

[kmarei]

Hey folks,

Was somewhat hoping the ZF 8 speed would be a little smoother than it is. Car has 30k miles and I cleared and successfully ran an adaptation on it probably 1500 miles ago to try and smooth it out and in some aspects it did

It feels like it holds onto gears too long so when I get off the accelerator it will bang, 3-2 can bang pretty good if I’m slowing at a pace that’s not a grandma driving, etc

It’s not terrible, but I guess I just thought it would be smoother? I looked at the mount stiffener but I’m on the fence about it

Now the real question; will the 034 tune (TCU) smooth it out a bit? Looking at taking advantage of the tune discount

Thanks!

we have 3 cars in the house with this same transmission
my wifes X5 and my sons 330i shift great
the one in my rs5 not so much
best description is it's like the CPU is slower on the audi one than the bmw one
any change you request takes just that little bit longer
and the worst thing is when going fast, and you see the red light
you take your foot of the gas, then the light turns green
you press gas, and there is like 1-2 seconds of nothing
like the transmission is trying to figure out what to do, then it shifts and all is well
i never get that in the BMWs

[zzoikkeli]

we have 3 cars in the house with this same transmission
my wifes X5 and my sons 330i shift great
the one in my rs5 not so much
best description is it's like the CPU is slower on the audi one than the bmw one
any change you request takes just that little bit longer
and the worst thing is when going fast, and you see the red light
you take your foot of the gas, then the light turns green
you press gas, and there is like 1-2 seconds of nothing
like the transmission is trying to figure out what to do, then it shifts and all is well
i never get that in the BMWs

There should be an TSB-update for engine and transmission at dealership that removes that issue, my complaint was about clunky downshifting and laggynes.

[trevor51590]

If anyone could post the TSB I’d be curious to see when it came out

The car is a 2021 mfg in 2020 so it’s possible it could apply

After clearing the stored values and adaptation, I have some progress. This time I did not run a VCDS quick adaptation, rather did the driving quick adaptation followed by the slip adaptation

I drove it like a grandma for some errands last night and it definitely shifts much smoother now. When I engage D, the car doesn’t feel like it’s trying to pull me forward off the brakes nearly as hard. I still got a bunch of 3-2 bangs, but they seem to (maybe?) have subsided.

It definitely seems like an adaptation issue is what I had. Will update further as I drive it more

Anyone have the specific software TSB?

[Dsobczak]

If anyone could post the TSB I’d be curious to see when it came out

The car is a 2021 mfg in 2020 so it’s possible it could apply

After clearing the stored values and adaptation, I have some progress. This time I did not run a VCDS quick adaptation, rather did the driving quick adaptation followed by the slip adaptation

I drove it like a grandma for some errands last night and it definitely shifts much smoother now. When I engage D, the car doesn’t feel like it’s trying to pull me forward off the brakes nearly as hard. I still got a bunch of 3-2 bangs, but they seem to (maybe?) have subsided.

It definitely seems like an adaptation issue is what I had. Will update further as I drive it more

Anyone have the specific software TSB?

Okay so after reading more of you posts on this I have a few questions..

1. Do you have a trans insert? CTS, 034, ECS, Forged all have their own (I am running the CTS vrsn and it took out a lot of lag in the trans)
2. Do you have any other drivetrain aftermarket bushings? rear Diff bushing, rear subframe bushings ect.. I ask, because 1, it will add to the harshness of the car and 2. b/c bolts could have backed out a bit.
3. Have you looked at your driveshaft cradle? you will have to lower the mid plate, exhaust and heatshield in the middle of the car to see if the rubber bushing or metal cradle housing is damaged... If the cradle is damaged of the bushing is wearing out, this could lead to alot of play in the drivetrain leading to lag, banging, feeling down on power and traction.
4. If you're manually shift the car form 3-2 does the car act the same? If it doesn't downshift as hard, than you're looking at a TCU flash from Audi that might fix your issue, If it does, there might be a bigger problem.
5. If you're in manual mode, come to a complete stop from 6th to 1st without down shifting the car (let it to its own thing). Did you notice if there was any other hard shift points from even to odd gears? If yes, there is a bigger issue at hand here. I can tell you that my car feels like it goes into N if i do this and i feel nothing at all in the trans.


My ECU and TCU have stock values on them and comfort is slow and laggy with some rev hang here and there. In Dynamic or DS, the shifts are on point, firm and snappy. I run the car is DSM all the time b/c my 3yo son loves the way the car sounds with my exhaust and it again is very responsive, snappy and all the tings I would want. Its not as fast and my EVO 10 was with the Dual clutch but its good. The point of me saying this is, if you check all the above questions I have asked and there is nothing that sticks out to you, or you don't find anything wrong or broken, its time to have it check by Audi. From the sounds of it here, you're not tuned yet so you should have no issues telling them the car drives like a$$ and you want the TCU re-flashed.

And if all else fails, find someone on here local to you and drive their car and see if it different than yours or if they are the same,

[adnan.o]

Can you point me in the direction of this procedure? I ran adaptions on my B8.5 but can't find the B9 versions.

My B9 gearbox is worse that my B8.5 in almost all aspects (before my B8.5 developed troubles) and I'm deeply frustrated as I eventually got rid of my B8.5 over fears of big future bills (after already spending a couple of grand on services & parts).

Every time the car changes gear it lurches as if the power is briefly reduced. I'm 034 stage 1 TCU but behaviour was the same pre-tune. It's not a sharp cut, more like a smooth (but annoying) rocking. Even just slowing down without breaking when the car shifts it feels like someone in a manual has selected the lower gear then lifted the clutch without any sort of rev matching - so the car 'lurches' and slows more quickly until the revs come up with the clutch engaged.

I always drive in D in comfort or dynamic and use manual when I feel like it. I actually test drove two S4's and they both felt similar, but I certainly wouldn't call the gear changes anywhere near 'imperceptible' (whereas DSG when it was actually working well was imperceptible)

Frankly I'm ignoring it at the moment. But advice on what to try would be good (I already have a trans mount but it's not yet installed).

I can say the same about my car with the lurch from 1st to 2nd accelerating at times and then from 3rd to 2nd when slowing down.

034 Stage 1 ECU/TCU (I have also experimented with the 034 Stage 2 TCU Tune but the issue persisted)
034 Intake
034 Trans Mount Insert

51k miles

I got the trans mount insert thinking it would solve this problem I was having but it did not make a difference. Thinking it may be the stock engine mounts going bad causing excess movement or transmission fluid/oil service time? I would say its less noticeable on stock flash and the car drives more luxurious less sporty but that might be due to the huge gains in low end torque from the tune not helping whatever is causing it.

[FromS60toB61.8t]

2019 with 27k miles here, 034 stage 2 ecu/tcu.
Comfort/drive mode, the trans is super smooth in all gears. 1-2 sometimes gets a little lurch, but that is because 1st and 2nd are very close together in gearing. If you notice, the rpm drop from 1st to 2nd, vs 3rd to 4th is much less so there isnt as much time for the engage/disengage to be as smooth as the rest of the gears. 95% imperceptible shifting past 2nd gear.
Dynamic/sport, a little more rough, but in a good way. Super crisp and precise shifting.

After owning 3x DSG's with the same issues you are having on your ZF, I can say that this trans is supposed to be WAY smoother than a DSG. The DSG shifted quicker by a hair, but it was much less comfortable.
In each of my 3 DSG cars, when coming to a stop, there were times where the clutch just felt like it didn't want to disengage and kept the car rolling forward even when trying to come to a dead stop. This infuriated me to no end as coming to a stop sign or stop light became unpredictable. Sometimes the car would stop with soft brake pressure, and sometimes I really had to step on it to get it to stop.

[kmarei]

There should be an TSB-update for engine and transmission at dealership that removes that issue, my complaint was about clunky downshifting and laggynes.

would that still apply even thought i have the stage 2 TCU tune from 034?
i thought that overwrites the OEM file with the 034 one?
or is the 034 file just a tweak of the oem file?

[INS4NE_B9]

If you already have the 034 drivetrain mounts installed (transmission, rear subframe, differential), you're only variable left are the motor mounts and TCU tuning.

The stock TCU tune was an absolute mess on my car - drove me nuts. 034 Stage 2 TCU solved that. However, the car would "rock" on some of the mid-throttle shifts. The inserts solved that.

[zzoikkeli]

would that still apply even thought i have the stage 2 TCU tune from 034?
i thought that overwrites the OEM file with the 034 one?
or is the 034 file just a tweak of the oem file?

Dealership softwares overwrite tunes and vice versa. So yeah, this applies only if you have original software and no tune.

[Dan99]

...Apparently this transmission is a pain to get smooth according to the Mercedes guys from what I’ve found...

I don't think Mercedes uses the ZF transmission in any of its vehicles.

[Dan99]

I believe Audi says the trans fluid is lifetime, but is anyone changing theirs at any interval?

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Audizine Forum mobile app

VAG/Audi defines "lifetime" as 100K miles. RS models require a fluid change at 60K miles, but S models don't. I suppose Audi thinks the S models will make it to 100K miles without a failure, but RS cars won't. However, if you tune your S model it seems that you should adhere to the RS service intervals. After all, it's the same transmission, and it's not impervious to wear just because it's in an S model.

[zzoikkeli]

Heres also ZF's own recommendations.

https://aftermarket.zf.com/remotemed...e-ml-11-en.pdf

''5-, 6-, 8- and 9-speed as well as 4HP20 automatic transmissions:
ZF 5-, 6-, 8- and 9-speed as well as the ZF 4HP20 automatic transmissions are filled maintenance-free with specially developed
semi-synthetic ATF oils. However, due to the many factors influencing the service life of transmissions in individual operation, ZF
recommends an oil change after 150,000 km for its transmissions. In operating conditions with high temperatures and loads, or
with unknown vehicle use in the past, it can make sense to change the transmission oil at shorter intervals.
In each case, only released ATF oil may be used for oil changes. And oil changes must be performed in accordance with the
relevant specifications.''

Below is the link for changing the oil itself.

https://aftermarket.zf.com/app/contr...0130&typeID=12