Surprised to hear this as I would have thought the enormous amount of torque will be sufficient to pull the car in most situations. Yes, agree with you that in normal auto mode the transmission is a bit reluctant to downshift unless you step harder on the gas pedal or it when it detects too much lugging and by this time I am annoyed by it. I have a 523i and I feel that it is underpowered especially when I am a light footed driver so I thought this problem was confined to only the smaller less powerful engines, and to avoid this I now will shift to DS mode whenever I am approaching an incline or feel that the engine will lug instead of having to step harder on the gas pedal.

 

noise is better decribed as a rattle mixed with moaning

Can I use this description when explaining noise to repair dept.? They look at me like I'm nuts trying to describe the symptoms. Happened only 3 times so far, once with the wife in the car. Her hair stood straight up 'cause she thought the trans fell out of the car. Just hit a 1000 miles on the car.

 

Your episode sounded quite bad. I guess I did not allow my situtuation to go so far but the engine did feel pretty tired and sometimes I can feel some jerkiness. Now I just put into DS whenever I think the engine will encounter a situation like this or simply step harder on the gas pedal a little earlier.

 

Actually, it wasn't that bad, more shocking than anything to hear gurgles and moans from your car. It was kind of funny because the night before my wife heard it, I came home trying to explain to her what I heard. She gave me the "You been drinking again" look. Trying to explain this noise would be hilarious if it wasn't on my car!
Seems to happen when the trans should be shifting from 2nd to 1st or 3rd to 2nd. Low speed, anyway. Hope there's an explanation and solution.

 

Any updates to this? My 2007 550i is doing something that sounds just like this.