Do the SMG Herky Jerky

Originally Posted by Ågent99

I realize that BMW are the automotive engineering gods but I can't believe ANYONE would like the SMG auto-shifting in non-sport mode. It isn't at all comfortable or smooth. It is very herky-jerky....putz. Maybe it was just my SMG acting this way but it was pretty bad....

I remember you bitching about that while we were tooling all over Germany last month. My experience is diff. I found it very smooth on the shifts. Way smoother than my Z4 3.0 SMG. Maybe its because I've trained myself to ease up on the gas (ala stick) when anticipating a SMG shift.

Originally Posted by arnolds

I remember you bitching about that while we were tooling all over Germany last month. My experience is diff. I found it very smooth on the shifts. Way smoother than my Z4 3.0 SMG. Maybe its because I've trained myself to ease up on the gas (ala stick) when anticipating a SMG shift.

I dunno...Bill thought is was pretty horrible, too. Maybe my tranny s/w is screwed or needs reimaged??

All I can say is on my car, the SMG in auto mode, non-sport, was awful and that sport button was the first thing I would hit upon restarting the car.

Originally Posted by Ågent99

I dunno...Bill thought is was pretty horrible, too. Maybe my tranny s/w is screwed or needs reimaged??

All I can say is on my car, the SMG in auto mode, non-sport, was awful and that sport button was the first thing I would hit upon restarting the car.

The SMG "automatic" was like a normal automatic low on fluid, seemingly not shifting at the right point. It did not seem broken in any way, just suboptimized. The sport mode made it much better.

While it could certainly be better than previous incarnations of the software, it wasn't great.

That said, I would get SMG in a heartbeat and my non-manual-driving wife would use the auto mode.


Bill

Originally Posted by BillP

The SMG "automatic" was like a normal automatic low on fluid, seemingly not shifting at the right point. It did not seem broken in any way, just suboptimized. The sport mode made it much better.

While it could certainly be better than previous incarnations of the software, it wasn't great.

That said, I would get SMG in a heartbeat and my non-manual-driving wife would use the auto mode.


Bill

That's the way auto mode in the M3 smg felt as well. I only used it if I got a phone call or something...otherwise it was manual mode the whole time.

Originally Posted by BillP

The SMG "automatic" was like a normal automatic low on fluid, seemingly not shifting at the right point. It did not seem broken in any way, just suboptimized. The sport mode made it much better.

While it could certainly be better than previous incarnations of the software, it wasn't great.

That said, I would get SMG in a heartbeat and my non-manual-driving wife would use the auto mode.


Bill

Is auto in sport mode pretty much comparable to a regular auto then?

Originally Posted by BillP

The SMG "automatic" was like a normal automatic low on fluid, seemingly not shifting at the right point. It did not seem broken in any way, just suboptimized. The sport mode made it much better.

While it could certainly be better than previous incarnations of the software, it wasn't great.

That said, I would get SMG in a heartbeat and my non-manual-driving wife would use the auto mode.


Bill

How does your wife like the auto mode? I'm thinking of ordering an '05 M3 for my wife and she is a non-manual driver. I want to make sure that this would be functional and easily learned for her.

Thanks

To answer both of the above questions:

* Auto/sport in SMG is comparable, though still not quite as smooth, as a standard auto. I drove this way for perhaps half of the time I was in the car with part city and part autobahn.
* I don't own an E60, I only drove it around while the owner, Agent99, was snoozing in the passenger seat. Seriously, SMG auto is straightforward and should not be a problem.


Bill

Originally Posted by BillP

The SMG "automatic" was like a normal automatic low on fluid, seemingly not shifting at the right point. It did not seem broken in any way, just suboptimized. The sport mode made it much better.

While it could certainly be better than previous incarnations of the software, it wasn't great.

That said, I would get SMG in a heartbeat and my non-manual-driving wife would use the auto mode.


Bill

No she won't. She will complain how unsmooth the transmission is in auto mode. In fact, she may stumble quiet easily from dead stop.

I thought it was impossible to stall SMG. But my genius wife not only stalls SMG also took out the quarter panel and part of the garage cabinet, and door.

Originally Posted by KAOSINLA

How does your wife like the auto mode? I'm thinking of ordering an '05 M3 for my wife and she is a non-manual driver. I want to make sure that this would be functional and easily learned for her.

Thanks

The E60 SMG is different from the SMGII on the M3. (E60 SMG is version of alfa romemo selespeed, while the SMG-II M3 is a BMW/siemens design).

They do behave differently.

Learning is not as easy as it sounds. I got the M3 to test the SMG and later gave that car to my wife as daily driver.

All I can say is that, it's not easy as it sounds. You have to learn to time the gas pedal (like a manual car) to drive it smoothly. For someone that has never drive a manual in her life, its a difficult task to learn.

It's easy to learn how to shift or use SMG. the difficult part is to how to drive it smoothly and don't do the herky jerky thing.