Early gear shifting in Tiptronic

I am puzzled by how early (low rev) the gear upshift when driven in 'D' mode. The gear upshifted to '4'th gear when speed reached 31 MPH and '5th' gear at about 40+/- MPH. When I accelerated hard (in 'D'), it upshifted at higher speed but nothing significant ( 4th gear - 40 MPH). In 'M' mode, one could easily reach 50+ in 2nd gear. Why is this happening? Does this have to do with adaptive driving? Henry P.S. My wife lost my dig. camera. so, I will post my new love as soon as UPS delivers it.....

When I had my 993 tip it would do something similar. When I would drive the car I would constantly drive it hard in both the M and D modes. Soon enough the adaptive driving learnt my driving style and would hold gear longer. The unfortunate thing was that my clients didnt like me driving a 911 so it sat in the garage quite often or dad would drive it. Well lets say the car would adapt to his driving style and all my good work was undone. There is nothing worse than a pcar that drives like a slug because it has upshifted too quickly. Quite annoying seeing a Toyoate take a corner and accelerate faster than you out of the turn.

TipS starts out in 2nd unless you floor it, or manually put it in 1st. The more agressively you drive the car in "D", the higher the shift points will be. However I do not know what the maximum is. I would assume that you will always be able to go to higher revs in any gear when in "M" mode.

Mine does upshifts close to red line and I do drive aggresively. And I am not sure how quickly it adjusts to your style....

Driving in D Mode on the street is terrible in a Tip, IMO. But, I brought it to the track and drove in D Mode 1/2 the time. It's works really well on the track and aggressive driving.

Thanks for the inputs. Does the adaptive learning only learns in 'D' mode or both 'D' and 'M'? I have no problem reving it high in 'M' mode.

I've had 2 996 Tips and they both did the same thing. If you take it easy around town in D mode then they upshift to highest gear too soon. I think Porsche programs it this way to get better EPA numbers or something. As someone else said, if you take it to the track it works great in D mode. So you either have to drive very aggressively in D mode or used M mode and **** yourself.

Do I want to rev it high (>6000 RPM) in low gear or all gears? Do you mean by fast acceleration and keep it reving high? Sorry for the stupid newbie question but I still have not gotten over the fact I have a Porsche in my garage...

Shift points are based on the power curve of your engine. Search the board and you will see power curve for 996

Even if you are keeping the Revs high as soon as you let off on the gas it will up shift on it's own in around town driving. Unless you are on the track and keeping it constantly in high revs. It seems to remember your driving mode for a little while. But as soon as you back off it goes back to gas saving mode in a short while. It's really best to use manual mode for around town. Auto mode is good for highway cruising. I even found that in stop and go traffic it was better to use manual mode to keep it from shifting too much.

If you want to see what the tip feels like when its adapted to an aggressive driving style, try this... on a stretch of road where you have some room repeatedly mash the (hard, to the floor!) the throttle, let the car accelerate ~ 10mph (or more), then coast back down to the original speed. I find that doing that cycle 5 or 6 times in a row will get the transmission set for some very responsive acceleration in D mode. Of course, after you settle back down to town cruising it will adapt back to that style.

Thanks, I will give it a try....Since I take train to work, weekend is the only time I get to drive, between kids acitivities.

I think the car learns faster than implied in the earlier posts. The key variable appears to be the speed at which the throttle is depressed. If you ease the throttle down, things seem lazy. If you really nail it, it perks right up. It only seems to take one hard corner, complete with late hard braking and significant side loading to get the tip to hold the gear through the corner. If the next 2 corners are taken slowly, it reverts. Personally, I feel that the M mode is a waste since it really doesn't allow upshifting at the redline, and downshifts are delayed under braking. In my experience, the tip is far better left in full auto, and just driving hard. Interestingly, the slight softening of the upshift allows the car to upshift in some corners in which you could never upshift a manual, since declutching would precipitate a spin as soon as the power was off (eg corner 8 at Gingerman). AS