Hey guys.. I ordered a 550i with SMG and i was wondering how fast does it shift? Is it pretty close to M ones? I hope its not as bad as the Z4 ones. Thanks for all your help

 

Good question and good topic.
It would be nice to have all 4 tranmission types compared:
manual (the fastest change possible by a racing driver), steptronic (ds), smg and smg III.

 

In normal mode its slow. When you first drive it you'll think its rather slow. Its better in Sports mode but its not as fast as the Ms especially when compared to the Ms in S6 mode.

I cant say how fast it is compared to the M's but my guess will be normal would be S2? and our sport would be maybe S4? and durining acceleration Assistant maybe S5 speed.

Its better than the Z4. I drove the Z4 and was like NO WAY if it drives like this I'm NOT getting SMG. Then I was able to test drive a 545 SMG and it was completly different. Operates the same but different drive feel.

 

I'll agree that the E60 SMG is slower than the M cars but I'll also add that some of the slowness is a perception thing. What I mean is that when you first drive any SMG, before you really learn how to drive one, it seems even slower than it is because of how you time things like lifting and re-applying the throttle.

Once you master the timing of everything, even in normal mode the speed of the shifts seems faster and is much more acceptable...

 

I gotta say, My SMG does seem slower than the M I drove, but in sport mode, the SMG in my 2006 550i is consistantly quick. I love it. (and I am a manual kind of guy.)

 

if your look for fast try a audi tt dcs my wife is wickly fast. hear that bmw will be using this transmition in the future???

 

Audi's DSG? Ya it uses a dual clutch system and BMW will use it sometime... introduced in the 3 series first I think. Called ZSG?

 

I believe the common mis-conception of SMG is most people compare the speed of the shift point to an automatic transmission which thanks to the use of a torque converter has a relatively fast/firm feeling shift. Try timing how fast you actually shift a manual transmission in normal driving and I believe you will find SMG very comparible.

You can defineatly feel the clutch ingage and see your passengers get thrust forward before the power comes on! I can attest...SMG in sport mode does shift faster but it also depends on the amount of throttle input as well.

SMG behind the 550i V8 is like night and day over the 330i I test drove last year. I don't have any experience with an //M or the Z4 but I'm sure the //Ms are that much better over the 550i.