Paddle Shifter Delay
 

So the other day I test drove a 2011 G37xS Coupe. Now I put it in sport mode so I could get a feel of how it drove with the paddle shifters...and I'm glad I did. When I upshift with the paddle shifters there was about a 3 second before the gear actually changed. Now since I was doing hard acceleration i brought it to its redline, not on purpose, (wasn't expecting the delay.) However when I use the sport mode on the gear shift..there is a much less amount of delay. Is this just how the paddle shifters work on the G37...or should I bring it up with a tech (salesman said it was normal). Thanks

When I was planning on adding paddle shifters to my car, a couple of people said there was delay...but no matter how many follow up questions I asked, nobody would quantify this delay for me.
They never said hour long the delay was, but they also never hinted that it was 3 damn seconds. That's just absurd...I can't imagine that being by design.

If like to hear from someone who has the paddles what the actual delay is.

I used to own a 2012 Maxima with the sport package. The paddles on there were very responsive.

Yeah I test drove a 12' xs and there was a delay as well. So much that I wouldn't have fun driving with paddles. On a side note I drove the new Porsche boxer and those paddles were instantaneous, car is so much fun to drive, much better than the old one.

I'm going to have to play with mine and see how it works...

This is so messed up. The paddles are no more than an electronic input, no different than the shift knob.
The engineers are messing with us.

I just keep mine it DS and let the ecu downshift for me. Most of the time it's exactly when I'd want it to shift up or down. Don't let people tell you a grounding kit will help either as it's still delayed with the paddles.

Half of the statement regarding a grounding kit is true. To say it doesn't help is false. I added a grounding kit and there is still a delay in the shifts, but it's much much better than without the kit.

I'd the delay artificially induced? It can't be due to a physical limit.

If I had to guess, I would assume that the shift mapping in the computer is responsible for it. If true, that would lead me to believe that Infiniti did this on purpose. If you Google "delayed paddle shift", you'll see that this same problem is seen with BMW, Acura, Audi, GM, etc... So, why is it that all these car makers are purposely adding in this shift lag when using paddle shifters? Is it some sort of safety "feature"?

Even though the grounding kit made a big difference, there's still some lag. I'd love to completely get rid of it. Is it possible to get a transmission tune? Can you tune out the lag with a regular tune? I don't have a lot of experience there, so I don't know.

To me it's a matter of what rpm your are shifting at and how hard you are driving. The harder I drive my car the delay isn't that much of a problem. It is there but not as noticeable as when you are driving calm. But I have the 5at so maybe it behaves a little different. Who knows.

I was just reading up on how GM fixed the problem in '12 with the Corvette. This is a very interesting read:

Corvette Shifting Software - Lickety Shift

A couple of interesting things in that article:

1. There was no hardware change from the '11 and '12 models, so it was all fixed with software changes.

2. The software changes are not all that simple and there's a lot going on when you initiate the shift. Here's a good explanation of that and what they did to fix it:

"VM: What was causing this delay?

RM: To answer that, let me go through what happens when a Corvette owner hits the tap button. After describing each phase, I'll explain what we did or didn't do about it.

Phase 1:
The customer presses the tap upshift paddle. There's a short time delay between the time the button is pushed and the time the transmission-control module (TCM) recognizes the request from the owner. In the Corvette, the communication from the tap button to the TCM is hard wired; it's a direct link. There was no way to increase that speed.

Phase 2:
The TCM initiates the shift. When we looked at the Corvette's TCM, we found some minor loops in the computer software that we didn't think were necessary to accomplish the shifts, so we reduced time there--about 50 milliseconds.

Phase 3:
The TCM initiates the shift by commanding a clutch fill in order to achieve the upshifted next-gear ratio. Clutch fill is the time required to eliminate the clutch clearance or free pack travel. Instead of filling the oncoming clutch after the shift request occurs, which takes time, the guys at Milford came up with an algorithm where we anticipate that the driver is going to request the shift. Depending upon the performance the driver demands from the vehicle--based on current gear, throttle, torque, and speed--we fill the clutch at different amounts by commanding a variable bleed solenoid. For example, if the driver is doing wide-open throttle (WOT), then we will completely fill the clutch in anticipation of him or her asking for that shift. Doing so basically eliminates the phase completely.

Phase 4:
The torque phase comes next. It transfers torque from the current gear to the upshifted gear. We were able to do some time reduction in that area, based on the fact that we knew we were going to do the shift.

Phase 5:
Once all the torque is transferred to the upshifted gear, the ratio change will occur. This was an area that had already been optimized."


Apparently there's a lot of stuff going on and a fix may not be a simple thing to implement. With that being said, I wonder if Infiniti has improved on this in the recent models?

All of that is great, but pressing on the shift knob would initiate this same set of steps. There's no reason why the paddles would be slower...at least not measurably. I mean, the wire from the paddles to the ecu could be longer than the wire from the shift knob to the ecu, but at the speed of electricity, this is negligible.

Yeah, my G shifts take forever compared to my DSG GTIs. Be nice if there was a fix for this.

I have a 5 AT and there is a slight delay but not that noticeable... And the harder I drive it the quicker it shifts

It's very likely a software issue. The reason is the G shares the same drivetrain as the all new Q50 and the Q50 shifts A LOT quicker through all gears at any speed via manual mode. I notice the delay of shifting for the G is dependent to the vehicle speed while the Q50 is unaffected. The downshift is almost instant while upshift is no more than 1 second of delay. Another thing the manual shifts are silky smooth and not rough like the G (usually 3-4).