I have a good old friend who is ranting over my choices: diesel & auto, booooooring he says... But it's my choice and I like it. No problems with that.

As for the auto, he says it changes gear in 0.5s, I know that's not true, is here anyone who knows how fast it actually does change gear?

 

I don?t feel the changes, so they most be very quick, If your friend says Diesel and autotrans. is boring , He don?t know what He is talking about.

 

I'd say the transmission shifts faster than that -- especially the sport automatic!

The following is an article from WARD'S AutoWorld that mentions some shift times but I'm not sure if they apply to the non-sport transmission.

Ward__s_ZF_DCT_fighter_article.pdf

 

There's indeed a difference between the automatic transmission of the Diesels and Gasolines from my feeling. My 523iA is in the factory in Munich for repair and they gave me a fully loaded 530d on Thursday for replacement. The transmission is very stiff with my gasoline engine when accelerating the needle of the rotation is increasing almost like with a gearbox very steady. The 530d that I drive now shows the typical auto behaviour it runs much longer on the converter and the needle of the rotations jumps up when accelerating in order to cope with the torque I assume.

 

+1

 

shouldn't it be the opposite?

for example, on an m5, if you select the faster smg modes, they'll feel like shotgun blasts.
(i know its not an auto, so not the same. but intuitively, slower = smoother...?)

btw, my guess is somewhere around 100-200 milliseconds, since alpina said they were able to cut their shift times in half from 200ms to 100ms in their lci b5. i assume their auto is at least related to the lci auto, if not the same...

 

that is correct, a fast "auto" will not be smooth, because smoother usually = power being zapped by the tc.
Which is why a GM and Toyota auto feels...smooth.

 

That general rule seems to have been broken with the SAT. In sport mode, the shifts are as faster than anything and very smooth...

 

sounds impressive. Would you say its faster than the DSG box in VAG cars?

 

I don't know -- I've never experienced the DSG in those cars. I can only imagine it's close in speed...