Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveC
Until I bought an M135i with 8AT I'd never been a fan of automatic transmissions.....but the M135i changed that. I loved the 8AT....Super fast shifts, always in the right gear, always felt instantly hooked up. I rarely used flappy paddles because the auto always made really good decisions and was instantly responsive. None of that typical AT torque convertor 'slush'.
Then I traded the M135i for an F10 M5 with DCT. This car redefined fast....dry, warm tarmac in the middle of July and traction control was still flashing in 4th gear!
Between the M135i and M5, the 8AT was the best automatic shifter. The M5 7DCT was brilliant in Sequential mode and its flappy paddle shifting was way faster than the 8AT, but in Automatic 'D mode', the transmission's downshifting often left you in 7th on an overtake, where 5th or 6th would have been better choices, resulting in a lot of manual overrides and button pushing.
Finally I've just traded in the M5 for an M4 Competition 6MT. So where does the 6MT fit? Well all I can say is, I'm so happy to be back in a manual...I've absolutely bonded with the M4 and just love taking it out for drives. It obviously doesn't shift as fast as either the 8AT or 7DCT but with the auto throttle blips on downshifts, they're super smooth, super slick and plenty fast vs a regular MT. It does however require a change in driving style, requiring that you dump the clutch instantly after the shift to catch the revs while they're still high. In a regular MT this would make for a very jerky ride but in the M4 it leads to super smooth, super fast downshifts due to perfectly matched revs.....ideal for a nice winding road!
So personally, faced with the choice between 6MT and 8AT, it would almost certainly depend on how I used the car. Lots of town, city and freeway commuting with queuing traffic? An 8AT for sure. Alternatively, lots of weekend and pleasure driving for fun? A 6MT without a doubt.
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Steve - I agree with a lot of what you've said!
- but i've (surprisingly) never found the 8AT wanting or ever been caught out with it before.. but then again a lot of owners don't even know that the 8AT has a fully automatic sports mode (which is separate from the dynamic driver control modes which map the throttle)..
I've found that slipping the auto in sports mode when intending on doing some spirited driving works amazingly well - think it might have something to do with being the LCI being plugged into the sat nav as well? - but when the gearbox is in full auto sports mode - it will blip on the downshifts for you and always seems to be in the the right/best gears for corners.. I can count probably on one hand the amount of times I've used the flappy paddles!! LOL
I'm not slating the manual - but questioning the validity that there is now one perceived performance preference (manual v auto) as this argument might have been valid 10 or 15 years ago... but it certainly isn't the case now..
horses for courses though!
