I'm sorry but this is the normal way to shift. Not sure if its Xbox games that makes everyone think its wrong. But when you accelerate you pull back thus pull back to up shift and the opposite for braking. All 1/4 mile cars shifters, if not paddle, pull back to go up a gear.

 

Vw in there tiptronic automatics are push forward to go up and pull back to go down and we have one of those and the dart so its easy to get the shift patterns mixed up

 

Reality is that every automatic I've ever seen or driven has the lower gears down (closer to the driver) and upper gears up (closer to the firewall). My Audi was set up that way on it's tip-tronic as well.

My focus on this post is to figure out if the tip-tronic can be reverse wired so as to reverse the shift pattern.

 

It's not a "giant ergonomic defect", but in theory it should be possible to change it. It is electronic, after all. When you push/pull the shifter, you are sending the ECU a request to downshift/upshift. It may or may not oblige, depending on circumstances.

Pressing forward to downshift and back to upshift, while not universal, is the more common standard and more natural. It's based on the sequential gearboxes first developed for racing, where the driver needs to shift at up to 2-3 Gs. Under braking, it's much more natural to push forward on the shifter, and under acceleration it's natural to pull back.

I would be more concerned about the DDCT taking a very lackadaisical approach to manual shifting. It takes well over a second to go from pressing the shifter and it actually starting to shift. In that time, it may force an automatic shift (like under heavy acceleration where it reaches the red line) and you end up with a double shift. Since my attempts at shifting manually are obviously viewed as interference by the ECU, I usually just let it do its thing. I did pay a premium for this newfangled high-tech automatic transmission, after all.

 

You should get that checked out. Mine shifts in about a 1/2 second.

 

I have a VW and a Dart and for me re-learning the Dart pattern is more intuitive. Pull back = speed up; push forward = slow down.

 

Before the recent PCM Recall I had stuff like that happening pretty frequently. Now it seems like a new car.

 

Get the recall done. Totally different car.

 

I may be stating the obvious here, but you can only get a recall taken care of if your car is actually subject to a recall. According to Dodge Canada, "No Incomplete Recalls or Customer Satisfaction Notifications Exist" for my car. I suspect that my car was built with the changes that this ECU flash installs (which I understand is to address a cold starting issue).

Incidentally, if you have a Canadian Dart, you can check for recalls here (you need the 8 last characters of your VIN):
Dodge - Contact Us

 

Pretty boy Floyd I was just going to say that. My shifting since the update is almost instantaneous and very smooth. And because you get to the 2,500 rpms so much quicker I don't even notice the turbo lag.

 

The fast lane cars actually said that the dart is one of a few cars that has the auto stick the right way.