So my question to those of you who own the SS A6, is.....what's it like to drive? Are downshifts quick enough that you don't find yourself cursing all the time on corner entry? Or put another way, can you learn to adjust your paddle timing for the 6L80 pretty easily? How about upshifts, reasonably snappy? Basically, once you get used to the car, does it feel like you're in control or along for the ride? Did Chevy tune the 6L80 for performance or like a family sedan?

If the 6L80 is a truly crappy experience, I may be able to talk myself into the M6.

What say you all?

Full disclosure: I'm a manual guy, no exceptions, and I don't *own* the A6 as you request, but I've driven them and so long as you forget those paddle shifters exist and use the "SPORT" mode, you may be happy. It does a decent job of anticipating downshifts, and it's smooth enough.

On the negative side, I find it generally un-engaging, but that's true of any automatic. Moreover, the paddle shifters are difficult to work with in my limited experience. I press them, and a short time after they decide whether or not to adhere to my request(s).

I think it's selling the car short to work with this particular automatic transmission. Over time, perhaps becoming accustomed to the leisurely nature of the transmission could ameliorate one's qualms with the transmission, and since you seem to have no issues driving an automatic, it may serve its purpose, especially with the incentives that can be had on the aging inventory of '15 ATs.

-N

 

I mean, it's not horrible. Yes, it's a bit slow in its application...sport mode helps it a bit. The paddles are a touch behind where you'd want them to be in response time, but I find all that torque makes up for any shortcomings.

It suffers in comparison to the dual clutch in our M3, but it's a stout, proven transmission that gets the job done. You can also get a tune to perk up the response. I'm enjoying my A6 as I spend a lot of time in fairly heavy traffic.

Put it this way, the car's still great with it, IMO.

 

The 6L80 is a lazy transmission.

But in using and becoming proficient with the paddle shifters, I'm always in the meat of my torque curve whenever I'm ready to 'do damage' on the road. So it's not much of an issue for me.

KW

 

I test drove both and bought the automatic as my first ever automatic car. I commuted in and out of manhattan from jersey for years with a manual trans. I fully expected to buy a manual SS, but after test driving it found that the clutch in the SS would have been the worst I have owned in my 2+ decades of manual transmission only cars. No feel at the engagement point, non linear pedal. Easy to drive, but without good feel, it just wasn't fun for me. The tremec was OK, middle of the road in feel and precision. Not near as good as your S2000. The auto in the SS is decent and the SS has gobs of low end torque, along with a shorter 1st gear, to really get off the line well with the auto. I find the auto in the SS a bit lazy, but I find all automatics a bit lazy. I've been working on a main advantage of the auto which is keeping both hands on the wheel for greater steering control. I really like not having to reach for the floor shifter constantly while I steer only with my left hand. The shifts in the automatic are much quicker in sport mode than drive mode. A trans tune can make the shifts as fast/hard as you would like, at the expense of your powertrain warranty. I boosted my SS and I like how the auto can stay in boost between shifts, where my manual cars have to close the throttle between shifts and drop boost. Still love manual trans and the engagement they can provide, so I keep around another toy/track car with a manual just for fun.

Test drives are in order for you.

 

I love the paddles. I find the shifts are fast if you do your part. I like both hands on the wheel and you will be counter-steering in this car. The rev matched downshifts are fun.

But I suspect that the 'performance shift active mode' is faster than me. If you subject the car to some g force, the transmission will automatically assume a special performance mode that really wakes the car up. It's a slush box in normal mode. Not much different in sport. But performance shift is pretty cool.

I live in the Baltimore area and we have bad traffic as well. I like manual gearbox and have driven them my whole life. But this A6 has changed me. If I want to hoon, I do a lot of iRacing and the paddles just come natural. The tradeoff in traffic is huge.

Plus , off topic, I had 3 co-workers in my car and we had a conference call altogether in my car driving 90 mph down interstate 95 today. How can you beat that ?


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I come from 10 years of 6-speed GTO ownership and my SS is an automatic. It is like any other automatic I've ever driven, except the ones you'll find in German and Italian cars. The paddle shifters are useless but when my warranty expires, I'll be able to wake it up with a tune. I have every confidence that a good tune will make all the difference in the world. Until then, like you, I will be stuck in traffic most of the time and glad my left knee isn't larger than my right one.

 

I'm EXACTLY the same. Had a GTO for 10 years, 6M, but I've been through 3 back surgeries and shifting can really get me hurting. So I did the SS auto. If you are a die-hard manual driver and get the auto, you have to get a tune. It's totally night and day. I feel like the shifts are so much snappier and I get nice chirps like a 6M would do.

 

Oh yeah, I will definitely test drive the A6 before I buy. And a manual if I can locate one close by. But even the firsthand experience of a 20 minute test drive won't give me the insight of you guys who have been driving one every day for a while. You know how something doesn't become annoying until you've lived with it a while. Then one day you say to yourself....."geez, why'd they do that?"

Anyway, thanks for all the responses so far. Getting different viewpoints is great.

 

The paddle shifter is fine for down shifts,
but is worthless for upshifts at full throttle since you are more than likely going to hit the rev limiter before it shifts.

 

IMO just doing a test drive will not give you the full effects of the capabilities of the 6l80. When you put it in "Sport" mode it enables PAS, and the longer and harder you push it, the better the trans shifts and holds gears. Just putting it in sport mode and going through a couple gears, it will be very lazy. Both my ZL1 and SS are A6's and love them both when pushed.

 

Use the his and hers to satisfy you shifting hand, not the paddles; and after a thousand miles you will have the "anticipation" down pat. Just like any vehicle you have to learn it.

The trans is rock solid and quite satisfying for us who are making/have made the change to later life laziness for whatever circumstances. Not a jarring.

Plenty of compression braking and the rev matching makes it smooth.

See post 10 above.

A test drive will be disappointing given your current ride; but reread paragraph one and post 10 above.....

 

Use the his and hers to satisfy you shifting hand,

Say what?

-N

 

Welcome to the forum CT_SS_Guy! As mentioned the A6 does rev-match when down shifting and, if it matters, you get remote start only with the A6.

 

Once the PAS learns your style, it can be really fun, even without using the shift paddles (I have the Vitesse Motorsports paddles btw).

My first real encounter with the PAS was one night driving home from my mom's house. The highway traffic suddenly slowed down, to which I responded by braking aggressively. The PAS responded and it kicked down to second, which startled my wife when the engine rev matched and roared. She said, "What are you doing!?" and I said, "It's not me! It's the car! It wants to attack!"

 

Drive both and bet you buy an A6. For around town and in traffic it can't be beat. Get out on a back road and hit the twisties and the paddles do well enough. I would recommend swapping the OE paddles for a set of Vitesse's as they make it easier to hit the gear and shorten the throw, well worth the $110 price.

 

The more you use the paddles(or shifter) the easier you will be able to anticipate when it does shift after you move the shifter(tap the paddle) as there is a delay. Downshifts are fairly quick and rev-match so as not to upset the car while braking/turning.

I watch a lot of F1 and get great joy trying to imitate them when driving for joy. Driving a manual would be a bit more work upshifting and down shifting, rev-matching and all. Once you get good at it(I think I'm pretty good, heh, heh, heh), it's a lot of fun!

 

Welcome to the forum CT_SS_Guy!

 

Anyone with a stall converter care to chime in on the driveability? Searching here seems to result in not too many of these cars with stalls yet. As someone in a similar situation as the OP, an auto is a viable alternative to the harder to find stick, and once the warranty runs out I would love to see what a stalled A6 SS would be like if I did end up with an auto.

 

Personally I would rather drive a stalled auto then a stick. And dare I say, I think it's much funner to drive around as well. Don't get me wrong, driving a stick might be more enjoyable around a real road course and a tight winding roads. But the fact that I mostly drive on city streets and on the freeway in bumper to bumper traffic is why I chose the auto. If the SS was a coupe, I would probably have gone with a manual.

 

After sawing through gears on E46 BMW M3 for ten years and that I am months from retirement. I and the wife decided no more 6 MTs in our garage. Traffic is so much worse now it seems I can barely get 500 feet without stopping anymore. Sure the auto in the SS is not my first choise but the alternative really sucks. And the paddles make it kinda fun.

 

+ 1

 

On regular cars, like my '69 Firebird 400, if you shifted into 1st gear and then as you shifted up you pushed the shifter forward and towards the right(as though you were shifting into 3rd gear on a manual 4 speed) it would only move up 1 gear to the next detent, you would relax your hand and do it again for the next gear.

 

Ah, that makes more sense.

-N

 

Hi everyone, this is my first thread / post on the forum.

I'm fairly certain I want an SS. Probably a 2016 because I like the styling tweaks to the front end and the quad exhaust outlets. But honestly, there seems to be zero functional difference between MY 15 & 16. So, I might talk myself into a 2015 sitting on a dealer's lot right now with some Chevy incentives on the table. But I want to own one of these cars before they're gone.

First a short comment on the styling. I must be a sucker for Holden design sensibilities because I bought a 2005 GTO new ten years ago. I loved that car for its day. Everyone crapped on the styling of that Holden product too. I guess I'm drawn to understated functionality rather than flash. I think the SS is a handsome looking car and I like the sight lines, especially when compared to the Chrysler sedans.

My GTO was an M6 Tremec. Loved the car. Not so much that Tremec. With that said, I'd love to have the SS with a manual just for the fun of rowing gears but I now live in the New York City Metro area and traffic here is miserable. I had a Honda S2000 for 3 years and even with that car and it's near perfect transmission and clutch, it was annoying driving around here. So, it's a 75% probability that I'll end up with an A6 SS. I'm willing to pay the gas guzzler tax. And I realize that the M6 models will be the rare birds in years to come.

But, I'm coming off three Mercedes in a row. Two were AMG products both SLK55's, now gone, and the third is an R500 SUV which I still have. All three used the 7G-Tronic automatic with paddle shifters. But the tuning on the AMG's was vastly different than the non AMG SUV. The AMG's shifted much faster with sharper responses. The 7G-Tronic in the SUV feels like a "normal" slushbox automatic. Slow to respond shifting up or down, not much compression braking. Adequate but annoying at times. Whereas I really didn't mind the automatic in the SLK55's at all.

So my question to those of you who own the SS A6, is.....what's it like to drive? Are downshifts quick enough that you don't find yourself cursing all the time on corner entry? Or put another way, can you learn to adjust your paddle timing for the 6L80 pretty easily? How about upshifts, reasonably snappy? Basically, once you get used to the car, does it feel like you're in control or along for the ride? Did Chevy tune the 6L80 for performance or like a family sedan?

If the 6L80 is a truly crappy experience, I may be able to talk myself into the M6.

What say you all?[/QUOTE


I didn't notice you had an S2000. I had one for four years! I miss that car, but not for commuting. The SS is the anti-S2000. Torque everywhere!

 

Starting in 1969, Pontiac devised their own ratchet shifter mechanism and employed to avoid paying Hurst a fee for using his shifter. For 1969, the GTO automatic console cars had a lever you moved to the right for positive, one stop only shifting, Like the Dual Gate, it employed a higher line pressure circuit and full throttle blasts were needed to get the maximum benefit out of the unit.

phscollectorcarworld: Hot Options: Hurst Dual Gate "His n Her" Shifter

 

I saw this detail - how did the throttle position affect the transmission on a fossil like that??

-N

 

imho, u wont be happy with the A6. I came from an 05 goat as well, and test drove a 14 and was bored, decided to wait for the 15. the t56 was a geat tranny in its day, but was pleasantly surprised with the improved positive shifting feel of TR-6060.
a short throw shifter was a must in the t56, (had the billet) not so with TR-6060.

 

Full disclosure up front: I have not driven the SS auto. I drove a Corvette C6 auto (6-speed), which I am assuming to behave similarly. I have test driven the M6 SS.

I think in the American car world, GM makes the best autos. That's not a very high bar. I like tight, winding roads, and technical driving. Not a straight-line guy. I also live in the middle of nowhere, rural Washington State, an area with fantastic sports car/motorcycle roads. The GM autos still do not "predict" or "anticipate" what is coming up, and the paddles are *far* too laggy to be useful. I just stopped using them in the Corvette and instead of finessing the corners, I just applied more throttle more rapidly to make it kick down and go. Much less refined, less smooth, less fun, more dangerous, and made my wife *very* unhappy. On tight roads with lots of rapid elevation change, the auto was just too laggy, really ruined the car.

Yes that was a Corvette, not an SS. Every single automatic I have ever driven, regardless of brand or model, suffers from the same problem. I am not counting dual-clutch automated manual gearboxes. Different animal. Not applicable here.

If the SS was still only available as an auto, I simply would not be buying one. Period.

I don't have much time in the manual, but I liked the way it felt. Based on reviews here, if I liked it then, it only gets better as you use it. A couple of (rare) other users tested the manual and really disliked it. The feel is really a personal preference thing. It doesn't feel silky slick like a Euro manual. At the same time, it's not some stone-age hunk of junk, either. I think it has a suitably sporting and deliberate feel. Not luxury, not crap, a reasonably refined gear change with obvious sporting intentions. When you drive it and feel the weight, the solid click of each gear, it comes as no surprise to hear the list of cars this newish Tremec 'box is fitted to.

All that said... if you're slogging through heavy traffic every day, I can see the three-pedal SS getting old quick. It's like a Ducati, with their notoriously heavy lever and dry clutch: an absolute delight out on the back roads, and he'll when you get stuck in stop-and-go. Your hand cramps and it gets hot and balky. You want a Honda clutch for traffic duties, or better yet, an Aprilia CVT or Honda DCT. The Duc is more fun out in the canyons, but the Honda is *much* easier to live with in city reality. Back to 4 wheels: Not all clutch cars suck in city traffic. A light and easy VW clutch is just fine, ditto for a Honda, or a Miata. The SS is more muscle car with the clutch. Not totally unrefined, but it is reasonably stout. This thing is connecting 415 ft*lbs of torque to the ground.

I haven't driven one, but definitely pay attention to reviews on this board from users who have had their autos tuned/programmed. Apparently it really wakes it up. Still not what I want, but I have my own oddly specific reasons for wanting a manual, and I live in the sticks where getting caught in heavy traffic will be a *very* rare occurrence. Seriously: I had to slow for more deer on yesterday's commute home than pass other cars (1 car to pass, a dozen deer to slow for and weave around). This is why in the 2-wheeled world I am still addicted to Ducati. I've only gotten caught twice in heavy traffic on my Ducs in 8 years of riding. It's not that I never ride, as I put roughly 3000 miles/year on my bike (for those paying attention, I went from plural to singular because it was two bikes owned serially).

Dunno if any of this is useful or just blather on the interwebz. I hope you get a chance to drive them both and really figure out what's important to you. If a crisp and quick transmission is what you crave but you don't want to work a clutch, I'd seriously be looking at other options.

 

The SS is more muscle car with the clutch. Not totally unrefined, but it is reasonably stout. This thing is connecting 415 ft*lbs of torque to the ground.

Yeah, I don't think Tremec's are junk so much as when you start getting into higher HP and torque numbers, the components need to get get beefier and the trade-off is a slower, heavier, clunkier feel vs something like an S2000 with 163 lb/ft of torque. I think that's why AMG decided to use automatics in everything they produce. I think it's why Mazda keeps the Miata lightweight and low torque. Auto's handle the torque better and a manual that could handle the big torque numbers ceases to be fun at some point. The T56 in the GTO was a reliable brick. But it did feel like a brick compared to a real sports car M6. The 3-2 downshift was horrible in the GTO. Took forever and you couldn't rush it. That's another reason I don't mind giving up the manual transmission. The TR6060 is no doubt a step forward but it's not gonna feel like an S2000 Aisin gearbox. I think, for me, the 6L80E may be the right answer in a full size sports sedan.

 

Seems there is only a small minority of people who really can justify owning a manual. Ones that live where there are great driving roads plus don't have to deal with traffic.

That's also why they'll only make and sell a thousand or so manuals. The demand is tiny with growing urbanization, traffic, speed limits, etc.

I'm happy with the auto and love the car for the most part. Would a manual be cooler and drive better, maybe, but I live in congested Chicagoland and don't care enough.

It's also amusing when people here or media reviews say it's manual or bust. It's still the same car. Probably the same mindset that is leading even GM to shutdown it's Holden plant and acknowledge there's no demand for an SS. I mean if an Auto SS is boring and half of what the manual is, yet so few Americans will actually buy a stick, well this argument becomes meaningless.

As much as I love to drive this car I'm in traffic every day, surrounded by cops, and then 4 months out of the year in sub freezing temps.

What good would a manual even serve?

 

Your argument/point is exactly why I bought a 2015 6sp manual MX-5 Miata Club as my second car. I needed and had that itch to shift gears and toss my car and maximize the engine but living in South Florida, we don't have those "glorious country roads with endless curves and hills". Plus I need a free hand to keep my kids in check when they act out in the back seat!! :eek

 

I'm at the point where when I'm ready to buy next year and I cannot find a stick car within reasonable distance, for me that is one state outside of mine, I have no problem with buying the auto SS as it seems to be almost as good as the stick and superior in some cases. My last auto performance car was my '02 T/A, I would think the 6L80 is light years ahead of the 4L60 in that car.

 

Now you're going TOO far back - lol. They'll be completely befuddled by "rod"!
Oh, and don't forget the electric kickdown on the TH400.