I upshift manually, but usually let the car downshift.
Sometimes, when I manually downshift, the car downshifts the same second I do it, so I go down 2 gears instead of one....

Jochen

 

I always try to downshift before the car does. In my experience, the car downshifts only when you've really reached the bottom end of the curve for that gear. I never want to be in that postition. I always want to be in the lower gear earlier in case I choose to accelerate again. I don't want the car to labor if I ask it to accelerate without being in the proper gear. Also, it avoids the exact situation you describe -- going down two when you only want one.

 

Thats what I wanted to ask... if you're in manual mode and all of a sudden you need power and mashed the gas pedal down will it downshit for you? or does that only happen in auto mode?

 

Only in auto mode...

 

When I tested the SMG, one of the coolest thing I noticed about it, was the rev-match it does when you downshift, especially when you use it to aid in hard stops, I thought it made the car sound like a race car, pretty cool. If I had SMG I would downshift myself all the time, I even find myself doing it with the AUTO from time to time