My new X3

Hey everyone,

I have a question. I recently leased a new X3. I traded in my 3 series because my family is about to get bigger. Anyway, What I've noticed is that when I'm going up hills, the transmission seems to be winding up without shifting itself. I have to take my foot off the gas then lightly press on the gas again to shift.

Has anyone else had this problem?

How many miles and what is the date of manufacture?

not sure. I can find out.

If you read through the top "Sticky" addressing complaints with the '07 and (perhaps to a lesser extent) '08 AT's, you will find a poster or two with a similar complaint. I recall talking about my '07 doing that . . . once even as I was accelerating on an Interstate on-ramp that appears to me to even be downhill. Good luck!

From my experience it's part of the program. If I'm real light on the gas it shifts sooner. But, if I press hard enough to make it think I'm looking for action, it will shift out at its typical, for mine anyway, 3100 rpm hill shift point.

My belief is that it will try to keep the revs/torque up to provide you quick response if need be.

The more gears in auto the more careful you have to be regarding what signals you send. Your right foot conveys that information - suggesting that you are parallel parking and thus in need of delicate clutch engagement, or that you are trying to pull smartly away from a stoplight - so care must be taken not to send mixed signals. When you go uphill you should press down a little more so it know to work a little more. My car also got better after it learned my driving style.

Originally Posted by limpingpigeon

Hey everyone,

I have a question. I recently leased a new X3. I traded in my 3 series because my family is about to get bigger. Anyway, What I've noticed is that when I'm going up hills, the transmission seems to be winding up without shifting itself. I have to take my foot off the gas then lightly press on the gas again to shift.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Our X3 always holds gears way too long going uphill, and slow speeds are the worst (between 20-35mph). The tranny can't make up it's mind half of the time and the uphill shifting sucks to be honest. We live in the mountains so plenty of hills to experience. The only solution is to drop it in manual mode. Wonderful huh? I doubt BMW is going to fix it, as they have yet to even fix hesitation problem talked about in the sticky above.

Originally Posted by Bobert

Our X3 always holds gears way too long going uphill, and slow speeds are the worst (between 20-35mph). The tranny can't make up it's mind half of the time and the uphill shifting sucks to be honest. We live in the mountains so plenty of hills to experience. The only solution is to drop it in manual mode. Wonderful huh? I doubt BMW is going to fix it, as they have yet to even fix hesitation problem talked about in the sticky above.

Be aggressive. If you truly want it fixed and have gone through the proper procedures BMWNA will take care of it. There are many on this board that are proff of that.

Posting on this board does many things, but it is not the final solution.

If there is nothing actually wrong with the transmission, except that you do not care for the shift program, its seems extremely unlikely that anything will be done by BMW. My complaint about the transmission is just the opposite, it seems to shift up too soon, I prefer to hold the gears longer & have the car rev more. There is always manual mode.

Originally Posted by mikelahti

If there is nothing actually wrong with the transmission, except that you do not care for the shift program, its seems extremely unlikely that anything will be done by BMW. My complaint about the transmission is just the opposite, it seems to shift up too soon, I prefer to hold the gears longer & have the car rev more. There is always manual mode.

Are you talking about climbing hills everyday? Anyways sport mode holds gears longer if you want higher RPM.

Originally Posted by Evlengr

Be aggressive. If you truly want it fixed and have gone through the proper procedures BMWNA will take care of it. There are many on this board that are proff of that.

Posting on this board does many things, but it is not the final solution.

Evlengr if you talking about going for a trade assist for a manual, we don't want a manual. We bought auto because that's what we wanted. Another auto isn't going to solve anything either as I've seen more than a half dozen people on the board complain about uphill shifting so it's not isolated to our X3. Only hope is to wait for the new transmission program to come out, if it ever does.

It sounds normal, because the gearbox detects a gradient and therefore holds gears. I'm surprised it will even upshift when the OP lets off, because I know in my BMWs, once it engages that hill program, it will not upshift until the gradient has leveled off.