The TIP in my 98 1.8T fwd has been slamming hard into 1st occasionally for some time now.
It always happens in stop and go traffic when I lift my foot off the gas pedal. The shifting also
seemed sluggish. So I asked the dealer to look at this on my last service, hoping to get a TIP
software update. The story from the dealer is no update available. They did, however, reset the
TIP chip. Still getting hard downshift occasionally, but the performance of the car is MUCH
improved. Shifting is now responsive. I am wondering if the TIP chip can also "maladapt" like
the ECU chip can. It uses fuzzy logic to learn your driving style and monitors 126 different
factors as it learns.

I also have the hard slamming into first and a sluggish TIP on my 99.5 1.8T FWD. I wonder if this a common "bug" or is a real problem. It makes a huge thunk when this happens...

Any other TIP owners have the same problem?

Thanks for the info. I will get them to reset my TIP chip at the next service.

I have the 98.5 1.8T Tip. Finally someone else has experienced this. I just had the car in just to look into this. They couldn't reproduce it. I am taking my car to another dealer tomorrow.
Symptom: When I let off the gas, the car sometimes slams down, shaking the car at times. I find it doing this most often around 15mph and 35mph.

I'll mention the resetting of the chip. I'll keep you guys posted.

RobK
98.5 1.8T FWD Tip

I have a 99.5 1.8T FWD and have also experienced this problem; it's only happened a couple of times, so I haven't brought it in to the dealer yet, but I will if it continues. I'll keep you posted.

My 99.5 1.8TQTip would make a loud "thunking" noise and "slam" into gear when starting from a stop, but only when the transmission (not just the engine) was completely warmed up. A large jolt could be felt through the rear seat. This happened the first day I owned the car.

After a week, I returned the car to the dealer. They ended up replacing the "valve body" (still not sure exactly what this is), and when I complained about having such a serious problem in a new car, the warranty was extended for another year/20000 km.

Perhaps this "valve body" might be something to mention to the service people?

Good luck.

Mac