A feature I found after 3 years of ownership

[wht125i]

Here's one for you. I was looking at getting an M3 DCT and had one for the weekend. The internet has plenty of videos on the cool quick down shift function of the DCT. Basically, you press the kick down button with the accelerator, and then you pull the down shift paddle, and the transmission will go to lowest safest gear. Great function.

So it got me thinking. I wonder if my e82 will do that. I know it's got a basic GM gearbox... but maybe... and maybe turned into... Yes. Yes it does. In fact, it drops all the way to first if you're doing city speeds. Awesome!! straight into the torque curve. Now when I'm doing highway driving and keen to overtake, instead of playing around with sport mode, I can just floor it, flick the drop down paddle, and off I go in lowest fastest gear. It's such a great function.

But I'm curious, did you know that the 125i/128i auto transmission had this feature? I've been trawling this forum for years and never picked up on it anywhere. Makes me wish I knew about this 3 years ago, it's that much fun...

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my mind blown event for the week.

[champignon]

Originally Posted by wht125i

Here's one for you. I was looking at getting an M3 DCT and had one for the weekend. The internet has plenty of videos on the cool quick down shift function of the DCT. Basically, you press the kick down button with the accelerator, and then you pull the down shift paddle, and the transmission will go to lowest safest gear. Great function.

So it got me thinking. I wonder if my e82 will do that. I know it's got a basic GM gearbox... but maybe... and maybe turned into... Yes. Yes it does. In fact, it drops all the way to first if you're doing city speeds. Awesome!! straight into the torque curve. Now when I'm doing highway driving and keen to overtake, instead of playing around with sport mode, I can just floor it, flick the drop down paddle, and off I go in lowest fastest gear. It's such a great function.

But I'm curious, did you know that the 125i/128i auto transmission had this feature? I've been trawling this forum for years and never picked up on it anywhere. Makes me wish I knew about this 3 years ago, it's that much fun...

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my mind blown event for the week.

Gosh, I wonder what people do if all they have is a manual transmission?


:-)

[Matticus91]

Originally Posted by wht125i

Here's one for you. I was looking at getting an M3 DCT and had one for the weekend. The internet has plenty of videos on the cool quick down shift function of the DCT. Basically, you press the kick down button with the accelerator, and then you pull the down shift paddle, and the transmission will go to lowest safest gear. Great function.

So it got me thinking. I wonder if my e82 will do that. I know it's got a basic GM gearbox... but maybe... and maybe turned into... Yes. Yes it does. In fact, it drops all the way to first if you're doing city speeds. Awesome!! straight into the torque curve. Now when I'm doing highway driving and keen to overtake, instead of playing around with sport mode, I can just floor it, flick the drop down paddle, and off I go in lowest fastest gear. It's such a great function.

But I'm curious, did you know that the 125i/128i auto transmission had this feature? I've been trawling this forum for years and never picked up on it anywhere. Makes me wish I knew about this 3 years ago, it's that much fun...

Anyway, I thought I'd share with you my mind blown event for the week.

Nice! That's pretty cool. Didn't know they did that. I only knew about the launch control on DCTs which I am pretty fond of

[MrKevinRosales]

Originally Posted by champignon

Gosh, I wonder what people do if all they have is a manual transmission?


:-)

A quick dab of the accelerator and downshift. In time you get to know what gear you can downshift to for a given speed. You just have to match the revs that you'll be in in the lower gear. A lot simpler than it sounds

[iminhell1]

So it'll skip gears?

Say doing 35 in 5th. press acc peddle then downshift and it'll jump right to 2nd?

[bagekko]

My friend keeps talking about this... on my 135 w/ DCT I keep telling him all I have to do is mash the gas fully down and it will go to the lowest gear possible.

[PDXE82]

I thought that downshifting while accelerating was hard on DCTs? Something about the software and computer thinking that if you are accelerating, the next gear change will be to a higher gear. I always try to be off throttle or light throttle when shifting down through the gears.

[gjm120]

Cool. Have to try that.

I've tried to learn what gear the car is in at a given speed to know how many paddle downshifts I could do without it making a fuss. This makes that moot.

[tock172]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

So it'll skip gears?

Say doing 35 in 5th. press acc peddle then downshift and it'll jump right to 2nd?

Most likely not. Almost no torque converter auto can do this. DCT can though. If you quickly tap the down shift paddle twice, you can skip gears on the way down, going directly form 7th to 5th, for example.

Originally Posted by PDXE82

I thought that downshifting while accelerating was hard on DCTs? Something about the software and computer thinking that if you are accelerating, the next gear change will be to a higher gear. I always try to be off throttle or light throttle when shifting down through the gears.

Where did you get this notion from? DCT is designed to shift (up or down) extremely fast, under almost any circumstances. If I floor it on the freeway, it instantly drops from 7th all the way to 3rd and the car just takes off, pulling through to redline and then instantly shifting into 4th.

When you press the downshift paddle or shift DCT into a lower gear by using the lever, it automatically blips the throttle to match engine speed for the selected gear. As for upshifting, DCT is designed to eliminate the power interruption between gears. Keep the pedal mashed, it's designed for a seamless transmission into the next ratio.

[chris_flies]

Originally Posted by tock172

Where did you get this notion from? DCT is designed to shift (up or down) extremely fast, under almost any circumstances. If I floor it on the freeway, it instantly drops from 7th all the way to 3rd and the car just takes off, pulling through to redline and then instantly shifting into 4th.

When you press the downshift paddle or shift DCT into a lower gear by using the lever, it automatically blips the throttle to match engine speed for the selected gear. As for upshifting, DCT is designed to eliminate the power interruption between gears. Keep the pedal mashed, it's designed for a seamless transmission into the next ratio.

He might be thinking that the DCT (in manual mode, mind you) will try to predict the next shift event. It is, after all, a reactionary device in manual mode, and doesn't know exactly what you want to do next; whereas, in auto mode, it can control what it's doing and always rip off the best shift possible.

Am I making much sense?

[ShocknAwe]

Originally Posted by champignon

Gosh, I wonder what people do if all they have is a manual transmission?

:-)

A+ for cheek.

Originally Posted by MrKevinRosales

A quick dab of the accelerator and downshift. In time you get to know what gear you can downshift to for a given speed. You just have to match the revs that you'll be in in the lower gear. A lot simpler than it sounds

Read it again.

[iminhell1]

Originally Posted by tock172

Most likely not. Almost no torque converter auto can do this. DCT can though. If you quickly tap the down shift paddle twice, you can skip gears on the way down, going directly form 7th to 5th, for example.

He is saying the standard automatic transmission does this.

[champignon]

All I know is what I read in the forums, and what I read in the forums is that pushing a DCT to it's limits can result in premature failure, and whatever kind of failure you have with these things, when they are out of warranty you better bring your checkbook.

[wht125i]

This is the thing, it's not the DCT transmission I'm talking about, it's the slush box torque converter from GM that does it. And yes, it does skip gears, in the same way that a full press would kick down to lowest, but it goes all the way to the lowest gear and also into Sport (manual) mode for the auto. This means that it won't change up as quickly.

[iminhell1]

I found a video explaining it,

[tock172]

Originally Posted by iminhell1

He is saying the standard automatic transmission does this.

On kick down, absolutely. Otherwise, in a convention torque converter automatic, if you wish to drop more than one gear without mashing the accelerator beyond the kick down detent point, you need to cycle through the other ratios before you arrive at the desire choice. With DCT, because there are two sets of clutches (one or odd ratios, the other for even) you can can skip gears. If I am cruising in 7th and don't want to do the dramatic kick down shift into 3rd by flooring it, I can quickly tap the downshift paddle twice and go straight from 7th to 5th.

[Dylanize]

You don't need to shift, just hit the kickdown.

[Sancs]

Originally Posted by Dylanize

You don't need to shift, just hit the kickdown.

+1