Variomatic

[Alex]

Has anyone had the chance to make a test drive on this system? I had! To tell you the truth I'm not realy a fan of Automatic transmition, don't get me wrong, they are fine to drive, but the loss of power and the delay until the power kicks in (like touching the cluch) made me uncompftable every time I drove an auto. Then I got the chance to drive the new Audi Variomatic 2.5 TDI. I was interested since Audi is making massive adverdising over here... To be honest I thought, just adverdising to make automatic transmitions more popular in Europe. Then I drove this beast
Audi promised not to much, acceleration, from the verry first beginning, no lack, no feeling like touching the cluch, direct acceleration like on an manual car. I was impressed, flooring the throttle. Then I waited for the shifting point, but I noticed none! Clear acceleration without hesitation...
Ariving back after the test drive, impressed about this new transmition, I was suprised again, as I got this little 'wackel elvis' from the adverdising as a present So take your chance and go for a test drive !!!
PS: This is no paid adverdising from Audi, I really love this transmition

 

[noR]

How's it sound Alex?
I read that review on the vortex, it absolutely made my heart skip a beat. I honestly couldn't fathom what the car would sound or feel like.
I mean, do the rpms go up, and the kinda sit there and the trans does some work, then rpms? Or... well does it both go at the same time?
I'm amazed, and I hope they get one out sooner that's more beefed out. I heard there's a pretty limited amount of torque this one could handle.

noR

 

[Alex]

It's hard to explain, it's more like you have only one gear, but this gear is verry strong at all RPMs. There is no shifting point, I mean it's not like at an automatic/manual car that the RPM drops down (shifting) and goes up again at the next gear. It's more like you started the car 5th gear, but it has a huge power (for this gear) at low RPM, then there is clean acceleration until the end...
It feels like one large gear, not like shifting throug different gears. The sound of the engine is the same as on an manual car accelerated in a high gear, the only difference is, that it accelerates faster

 

[MikeM]

Hi Alex,
Variomatic ... hmnnn ... is there somewhere I can check out the technical details of how this works? It reminds me of the Dafs and the Volo 340 my father had. AS you know this involved a belt transmission with 2 variable pulleys, one at each end. This gave a constantly variable transmission and felt nothing like "normal" gears or automatic transmission. In fact, once you got to know how to use it optimally, you could be accelerating quite noticeably while the engine revs were actually dropping!
I vaguely recall that this transmission was being tested for a while in ... I think a formula 3 racing car ... I saw one in a race somewhere in the UK back in the - oh - late seventies/early eighties?
Mike
Exeter, UK

 

[noR]

the vortex has a decent write up on it. They're talkin' about it with the new A4 I believe....
noR