Volkswagen DQ500 / DQ381
7-speed dual-clutch · transverse · 2009–present
Also known as: dq500, dq381, dq380, 0bt, 0dl, 0dw, vw 7-speed wet dsg
Volkswagen's wet seven-speed DSGs — the heavy-duty DQ500 and the later DQ381 — in the Audi A3, the Golf R and the Jetta.
Wet is the distinction that matters and the group's own naming hides it. The DQ200 is a dry seven-speed with a very different reputation, and both are sold as "7-speed DSG" — so the low-speed judder written about at length applies to one of them and not to these. A shudder from rest on a DQ500 is a fault.
The DQ500 was built for torque — it is the gearbox behind the Golf R and the Audi RS3 — and its clutches are not the wear item the dry unit's are.
Its expensive failure is the mechatronic unit, presenting electrically: a gear refused, a limp mode, a solenoid code. Nothing slips first.
Fluid is the whole of the maintenance and the interval is real — a wet DSG shares its oil between the clutches and the hydraulics, so worn fluid makes it change badly long before it makes anything fail. VW specifies a change; the handbook's silence on some markets is not an exemption.
Cars fitted with this gearbox
3 generations. Only where a source names the model and the generation together — a gearbox is documented as a product far more often than as a fitment, so this list is deliberately shorter than the truth.
Volkswagen
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