Farewell!
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 7
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From: Charlotte, NC
Well it was a brief affair, but I had my 550i SMG for about 2 months before trading it in last night. Long story short, the SMG drove me completely insane in so many ways. I'm a dedicated stick fan and my experience with autos has not been so great, so I figured SMG - great - essentially a stick, but the wife can drive it!
Yeah...except it shifted far slower than I could shift a stick, plus it was rougher than a manual shifter AND the throttle responsiveness of the engine/car was abysmal (arguably a different topic, but yet another reason I traded it in)/
I had the 550i in for a rattly BC button and in the meantime got a chance to drive a Z4 Steptronic for 4 days, in which time I fell in love with the Step.
The Steptronic with paddle shifters is what the SMG should have been, pure and simple. It is TOTALLY clear to me why they stopped selling the SMG while they offer the Steptronic - it shifts faster and smoother and is more responsive than the SMG. It's not even close. It blows the SMG out of the water. And this is coming from a life-long manual trans lover and life-long automatic trans hater.
Anyhow, I'm loving the 2007 335i I picked up. Throttle responsiveness is far better, acceleration is better (believe it or not), and the Steptronic is great. Even the seats are more bucket-ed than the 5's, which I tended to slide around in a bit.
So Farewell 5 series...off to the 3 series boards I go. It was nice knowing you guys for the (very) brief time I did :-)
Yeah...except it shifted far slower than I could shift a stick, plus it was rougher than a manual shifter AND the throttle responsiveness of the engine/car was abysmal (arguably a different topic, but yet another reason I traded it in)/
I had the 550i in for a rattly BC button and in the meantime got a chance to drive a Z4 Steptronic for 4 days, in which time I fell in love with the Step.
The Steptronic with paddle shifters is what the SMG should have been, pure and simple. It is TOTALLY clear to me why they stopped selling the SMG while they offer the Steptronic - it shifts faster and smoother and is more responsive than the SMG. It's not even close. It blows the SMG out of the water. And this is coming from a life-long manual trans lover and life-long automatic trans hater.
Anyhow, I'm loving the 2007 335i I picked up. Throttle responsiveness is far better, acceleration is better (believe it or not), and the Steptronic is great. Even the seats are more bucket-ed than the 5's, which I tended to slide around in a bit.
So Farewell 5 series...off to the 3 series boards I go. It was nice knowing you guys for the (very) brief time I did :-)
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Joined: Jul 2008
Posts: 4,410
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From: Chicago
Well it was a brief affair, but I had my 550i SMG for about 2 months before trading it in last night. Long story short, the SMG drove me completely insane in so many ways. I'm a dedicated stick fan and my experience with autos has not been so great, so I figured SMG - great - essentially a stick, but the wife can drive it!
Yeah...except it shifted far slower than I could shift a stick, plus it was rougher than a manual shifter AND the throttle responsiveness of the engine/car was abysmal (arguably a different topic, but yet another reason I traded it in)/
I had the 550i in for a rattly BC button and in the meantime got a chance to drive a Z4 Steptronic for 4 days, in which time I fell in love with the Step.
The Steptronic with paddle shifters is what the SMG should have been, pure and simple. It is TOTALLY clear to me why they stopped selling the SMG while they offer the Steptronic - it shifts faster and smoother and is more responsive than the SMG. It's not even close. It blows the SMG out of the water. And this is coming from a life-long manual trans lover and life-long automatic trans hater.
Anyhow, I'm loving the 2007 335i I picked up. Throttle responsiveness is far better, acceleration is better (believe it or not), and the Steptronic is great. Even the seats are more bucket-ed than the 5's, which I tended to slide around in a bit.
So Farewell 5 series...off to the 3 series boards I go. It was nice knowing you guys for the (very) brief time I did :-)
Yeah...except it shifted far slower than I could shift a stick, plus it was rougher than a manual shifter AND the throttle responsiveness of the engine/car was abysmal (arguably a different topic, but yet another reason I traded it in)/
I had the 550i in for a rattly BC button and in the meantime got a chance to drive a Z4 Steptronic for 4 days, in which time I fell in love with the Step.
The Steptronic with paddle shifters is what the SMG should have been, pure and simple. It is TOTALLY clear to me why they stopped selling the SMG while they offer the Steptronic - it shifts faster and smoother and is more responsive than the SMG. It's not even close. It blows the SMG out of the water. And this is coming from a life-long manual trans lover and life-long automatic trans hater.
Anyhow, I'm loving the 2007 335i I picked up. Throttle responsiveness is far better, acceleration is better (believe it or not), and the Steptronic is great. Even the seats are more bucket-ed than the 5's, which I tended to slide around in a bit.
So Farewell 5 series...off to the 3 series boards I go. It was nice knowing you guys for the (very) brief time I did :-)
