Hi,

I've been progressing a problem through my local dealership (Damon Hill BMW, Warwick UK) regarding what appears to be referred to on this and other boards as 'transmission slam'. I have been experiencing it on my March '05 530d Sport Auto since around 6000 miles and it is getting worse.

Essentially when you come to pull away from a rolling stop the car appears to move off very slowly while the revs climb and suddenly it kicks down at around 2500 revs and roars away. It's quite disconcerting when you need to pull out in a gap and you don't know if the car is going to get you away in time. From what I understand the car downshifts to 2nd when you are coming to a rolling stop and if you apply the accelerator anywhere up to the kickdown stop it begins to pull away in 2nd then decides to kick down to first some time later.

Initially the car was reprogrammed and appeared to cure the problem, unfortunately after around 1500 miles it appeared again implying it is a function of the adaptive gearbox. Last week I demonstrated it to the local technical advisor who acknowledged how dangerous it was and he confirmed he had seen it on other cars and would need to escalate it to BMW's tecnical zone manager. A BMW representative by the name of Lloyd Truman drove the car today, experienced the problem but has given the official BMW response that it is perfectly normal response for the car.

I appears that I have no recourse with the dealer now and that I am going to have to go after BMW directly as this is a serious safety issue and can't just be swept under the carpet looking at the number of people who have experienced the same fault on this and other boards.

To that and I am looking to collate as much information as I can from other people who have/are experiencing the same problem in order to put pressure on BMW to investigate the problem further and develop a propper fix.

If anyone else is experiencing the same problem then PM me and we can lobby BMW collectively. I would also appreciate if anyone else who has had success applying pressure on BMW would like to share the approach they took.

Regards

Dave Leask

 

I have a may 05 e60 and have the same problem. The pproblem did not go away after a software upgrade and now I am talking to BMW about it. I think it is a serious safety issue and would dearly love my old e39 back because of it.

 

Damon Hill BMW has a very nice showroom - popped in once when I was working at Tachbrook Park.

I owned a 530d for 19.5k miles noticed that when you wanted to pull away quickly, say into traffic from a side road, you would put your foot down and nothing happened for what seemed like seconds then it would jerk forward. This was caused by turbo lag of course. It would also do it from a rolling start with a bit more of a jerk because it was changing down a gear at the same time. So I would say BMW are correct when they say its normal on every 530d. It would also keep changing down through the gears when coasting downhill which used to drive me mad.

On my 535d there is no noticable lag at all and the autobox behaves itself well. I drove an X5 3.0 (184bhp) and that was terrible as the turbo lag really needed planning.

 

Merv,

This definetly isn't solely turbo lag issue because if you manually select 1st gear or put into DS it does not occur. The problem is compounded when the turbo does kick in around 2500 rpm coupled with a kick down at that point so the car immediately red lines then changes up again within a split second.

Damon Hill have agreed to remap the car which will make the problem dissapear for around 1500 miles but it will then 'adapt' itself again.

Incidentally how many miles have you on the 535d as mine started to show the problem around 6000 miles.

Regards

Dave

 

I drive a 2.5 Litre Petrol and I have this Transmission Slam problem

 

Sorry, I can't help you but I have the same problem in my 05 545i. Very infuriating so I sold the car just today actually. Took a big hit, but i don't want a car that is unpredictable.

It seems to me that it is human nature to adapt to machines and when BMW tried this adaptive technology the machines are messing up trying to adapt to humans.

Why doesn't BMW just stick to first calss engineering and leave the techno wizardry to the Japanese?

 

The 'slam' problem is with downshifts (AFAIK usually from 2nd to 1st).

This issue is different. I looks like when stopping the gearbox doesn't shift down to 1st. Then when requesting 'rapid' acceleration that gearbox decides it wants to shift to 1st a little too late...

 

I believe that all powerfull E60 owners (545, 535, 530, etc...) are suffering from an eratic gearbox behaviour (slam, convertor slip,etc...) THis problem is known and affect not only BMW but also Jaguar which are equiped with ZF 6 HP26 trans (and also 4HP24?).

I made my car upgratded to vers 19.02: it improves the situation but not completely but also it decreased the torque...

Let's hope that BMW will find a definitive solution.

PS: I believe to have seen earlier on the site a link with a dedicated site on Jaguar ZF trans. problem

 

Do you have 'the lemon law' in the UK? Using the lemon law is a very effective tool in getting their attention. Proceed as if you are going to go thru with it and you will probably find BMW wanting to buy your car back before you go thru with it. Don't back off.
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Not so simple... If BMW/Dealer decides it's 'normal' then you have to fight your own case. Could be expensive!

 

Compared to the US, the European consumer is nearly "naked" facing car manufacturer.

Are class action legal in UK: not in France at least.

We should realy try to alarm BMW by ourself usign this site.