Transmission shifting problem

At the 1100 mile mark, my X1 x28i had a major transmission failure. The 'mechtronic' unit had to be replaced (23 days in the shop waiting for the part from Germany!). The failure manifested itself as the car locking itself in Park. After messing with the shifter and restarting several times it locked itself in Neutral and that's where it stayed until towing to the dealer. During the wait my dealer came through with a nice loaner car-a X3. While the X1 now shifts again, there is a nagging problem. When cold the AT has very abrupt downshifts from 2nd to first (at least compared to before the failure). After about 5 miles or so the abrupt downshifting gets better, but it is still somewhat noticeable. Fully warmed up the AT seems OK, though it hardly seems like a 'state of the art' system.

Curious if anyone else has had or heard of similar problems. I"m obviously concerned for the long term. In my experience, mediocre performance problems are hard to diagnose and very difficult to fix.

Otherwise, I really love the car and always look forward to driving it.

P.S.-the eco pro mode really sucks the life out of driving this car! Avoid using it!

I can't speak to that as I get my car next Friday. However, I had a brand new x3 loaner yesterday, and while the car was nice I did not care for the auto/start-stop feature at all. Sometimes (rarely) it was smooth, and sometimes it was down right bothersome. That's not Ultimate Driving Machine worthy IMO. It just doesn't seem well thought out. When I turned it off the car ws much more enjoyable to drive.

We're you using this feature when you had the failure, and could this in anyway be related to the poor execution of Start/Stop? I'm curious, and I would have them fix it further until it is "right". Good luck

It's sadly a common issue, google "bmw mechatronic fail" and you'll get lots of results about the problem.

Does anyone know if our 8-spd is the same unit as the X3, X5 and other cars across the product line? I had an X5 for the past 2 yrs and rarely read about tranny problems. In fact I have nothing but praise about the tranny, and a major reason I opted for the 28i to get the 8-spd again.

Originally Posted by edx1

It's sadly a common issue, google "bmw mechatronic fail" and you'll get lots of results about the problem.

Okay. I googled it. I got a bunch of threads posted more than 2 years ago and a couple of threads that were more recent (2011) but were about older vehicles. Googling "bmw mechatronic fail" with regards to recent X, 1 & 3 series 8 speed tranny failures is, in itself, a fail.
Perhaps you could post up(directly) the plethora of failure instances of which you speak. You have my attention.
TIA