darkside

I really haven't done much manual shifting with the 550 Step until recently. Really, it is kind of neat. The shifts are much more immediate than they were in my 01 530. I almost wish I had paddles on the steering wheel like I had in my M3; if so I might use the manual mode all of the time.

VTec

Plenty of posts for putting in a paddle kit. Didn't look up the links, but just do a search. Of course, someone can jump in here with the info. The ones I have seen look very polished and factory.

I have an '04 545 and was just thinking today how great Step would be w/out the delay. I'm glad to hear your shifts are quick.

EBMCS03

See here. I've seen it in person... REALLY NICE!! Didnt use it tho.

http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=28266

my530i

Look here.
http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=28266

CVTBenhogan

Paddles probably should be on the 550 step. The E60 is a equal blend of luxury and sport. For me, I rarely use the manual shifting on the Step as the car is faster in auto. Why bother if your not going any faster than auto?? Besides, with all the motor's torque the car flies in every gear, especially in DS mode.

Then again the engine does sound great when revving.

A DSG type gearbox would be interesting.


CVT Benhogan

BetterMakeWay

Hey hey..didn't want to start a new thread for such a lil thing but here goes...sice we are already talking about manual shifting in steptronics, has anyone experienced a strange situation like this:
you prepare yourself for a drag race or a possible drag or traffic run and get dsc off, switch to manual sport, select M1 from stand still, floor it and then rev it to red line in 1st, but in 2nd it sometimes won't go all the way to redline but about 1000rpm less and change automaticly to 3rd gear and thus loosing some time. Now i can't say for sure if when that happened (for a few times) i was with my foot planted on that kick down button under the throttle pedal, so i might have been just above it (like 90% of the throttle) but anyway that doesn't count right. In manual mode the car should go to the redline regardless how brutal you are with the throttle and only change gear at redline. I dunno but it happned to me for a few times. I thought that it might be smth with the gearbox...not necesarely smth bad or wrong but anyway...

Did you experience such a thing?

gwf545

I don't think I've ever had early shifting happen before, but something almost opposite happened a few days ago. I was nearly stopped, in manual mode, apparently in first, and didn't realize it. I thought I was in DS. When I floored it to get around a slow car in front of me, instead of shifting at redline, the rev limiter kicked in! I experienced ugly surging a few times until I realized I needed to manually shift it to second.

BetterMakeWay

That's even more weird...

madoon

BetterMakeWay...do you mean you lose 100rpms or 1000rpms...
with the newer upgrades i've heard a few thing about the car reaching the revlimiter in 1st gear and then changes mine does the same thing, 2nd however changer normally at the red line without the revlimiter, just shy a couple of hundred rpms from the revlimiter, but well in the white strips....

LowOrbit

FYI - Just read in Road & Track (p.164) that Getrag's DCT (their version of DSG) should be in production next year.

Does BMW use these guys? Is so, that would mean the 5-series should get DCT hopefully in 2007 with the facelift!