The automotive trends in a particular market are never stagnant. They change, be it after years or decades, they just do. Considering the Indian market, car buyers now have started drifting more toward cars with automatic transmission over manual transmission. Let’s take the reasons of this shift some other day, and let’s focus on the automatics. Well, love for automatic is recent, that too for dual-clutch automatic transmission. Hyundai is new to the game of DCTs and Volkswagens were the first to bring this tech at an affordable price with their DQ200 automatic gearbox.
They call it, DSG (Direct-Shift Gearbox)
Before ranting about the DQ200, let’s look at what is a DSG gearbox.
DSG Gearbox
The gearbox that introduced India to the early stages of dual-clutch transmission is the DSG. That said, because of the mechanics of DSG these are among the fastest automatic transmissions on the planet.
A DSG is a gearbox that essentially has two separate manual gearboxes, one for even gear ratios and the other for odd gears, each with its own clutch. Hence dual-clutch. When driving, one gearbox anticipates the next gear, and the other clutch is engaged as the first is released. The shifts are all controlled by a TCU or the transmission control unit.
The TCU takes cues from the engine rpm and the throttle paddle. This provides for extremely smooth driving: the car does not slow down as torque is distributed evenly to the wheels.
DQ200 Transmission
The DQ200 is an engineered marvel that introduced India to DCTs when the automatic transmission was a luxury. Also, this transmission first came with the Polo GT TSI with its 1.2-litre 4-cylinder turbo petrol motor.
DQ200 is a transmission that consisted of 7 gears. Because of 7 of these, the gear ratios are relatively short. This allows for a more fuel-efficient drive on the highway as well as on the city roads. But as the working of a DSG makes it quick, the DQ200 of the family has its own set of problems. For one, this transmission sometimes suffered from power loss due to the short-circuiting caused by the build-up of sulphur in the transmission oil.
Speaking of which, this is among those transmissions that use less oil for lubrication, 1.7 litres of it. Additionally, the DQ200 had a set of dry clutches making it quick but also introduced more wear and tear in that.
Facts about the DQ200 Gearbox
- The DQ200 uses a combination of 352 parts to work seamlessly.
- Across the globe, the DQ200 has 22 iterations. Depending upon the engine and the transmission.
- This transmission is used in cars having engine capacity from 1.0-Litre to 1.9-Litre.
- The 7-speed DQ200 transmission weighs a total of 72Kgs that is about 8Kg lighter than the 6-speed version.
- Before launching in the market, the DQ200 gearbox was rigorously tested: in addition to 60,000 hours in a test chamber, it was put through its paces in prototypes that covered 2 million kilometres in a variety of situations, including extremely dusty areas and the mountains.
- The DQ200 can change gears in a few hundredths of a millisecond while in Sport mode and under load. It is also faster than the average driver as a result of this.
So, this was a little about the DQ200 transmission. Let us know in the comment section, have you experienced this gearbox?
