My wife and I test drove a 2012 Jetta DSG about a week ago.
When she pulled out into traffic once, there was a scary hesitiation (I was in the passenger seat and traffic was from the right!!).
The salesman said 'turbo lag'. Wrong answer, I have driven 99 Golf TDI with auto, and my Turbo Duramax and never had that kind of 'turbo lag'.
So searching around today, I found loads of discussion under "Hesitation".
I love my Golf, but it is a little small, and want another TDI. My plan is to test drive another DSG and see if it acts the same. I will pay more attention to the factors such as rolling stop, mashing the petal, etc.
It's good to know that I wasn't imagining things.
Bob
Same problem I had repetitively and constantly for the 2 plus years I had mine. And, like you, I had another non-DSG TDI that demonstrated it was not "turbo lag".
Also, while a driver can create a stall/hesitation occurrence by driving with two feet, I did not, my wife did not, my brother-in-law did not, my two adult children and a son-in-law did not, yet they all got out of my 09 TDI talking about the hesitation problem.
VW did everything the Dealer and regional service manager could think of and it still had that "when and how much acceleration is it going to give me this time" problem.
With my 1982 diesel Rabbit, I knew I had a tiny acceleration curve and never felt unsafe driving it. I got the same acceleration (or with that 53 horse dynamo, lack thereof!). With my 04, I get peppy enough acceleration. And the same amount and at the same time under all circumstances. With my 09 DSG it was like a crap shoot. Plenty of acceleration, but it is unknown when it will arrive and how much you'll get. Scary and dangerous, as you found out right off the bat with vehicles approaching you. Been there and done that many, many times.
Often felt like an old carbeurated engine flooding out and having to wait for the fuel to finally clear out for different time periods before getting acceleration. The car manufacturers overcame these types of engine engineering safety problems decades ago. So, why is a cutting edge vehicle still "stalling/hesitating" when the driver needs/wants acceleration EVER now?
Do not let anyone tell you it is in your head or driver error. It is a space age, fuel injected, computer controlled engine/transmission. It should be "idiot" proof. You shouldn't have to learn how to drive so as to prevent it from all of a sudden without warning finding you have no acceleration no matter what you do at that point (floor it, don't floor, apply a little peddle or a lot). Temperamental - and dangerous - carbs are a thing of the past. Sadly, it seems VW has found a way to re-invent the danger.
Here is a fact that no amount of excuses and yells of driver error can change: you CAN NOT learn how to drive the vehicle so as to keep it from recurring without warning. VW CAN NOT fix the problem. The only safe way to drive one that demonstrates that problem is to never get in a driving situation where you have to have immediate acceleration. The problem is, of course, safe drivers can reduce their need to "go immediately", but cannot account for other drivers and emergencies requiring immediate acceleration. Every time, not just most of the time or when it isn't a "slow and all of a sudden I need to go NOW" situation.
As someone who has been a huge fan of VW in the past, I am very, very discouraged to hear that this same dangerous manufacturing/driving attribute continues to exist. When a "newbie" finds it on a test drive of their latest car, they have something there that VW is out of step with, not something "newbies" need to learn to deal with. Modern cars should not need the driver to learn/be told how to baby it so as to not find themselves entering traffic and having all acceleration evaporate for indeterminate lengths of time.
Dangerous things that affected vehicle performance, and hence safe operation, like flooding, brake fade, quirky steering, slipping clutches and inconsistent power from transmissions were engineered out of existence in modern automobiles decades ago.
