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I have never driven a car with automatic gearbox where automatic shifting can be disabled completely. It is very strange to me that you can select manual mode, and the gearbox still does kickdowns or shifts up at the rev limiter, and I would never buy such a car. If BMW has finally fixed this annoying flaw, that is great news.
If I drive at 1200 RPM and floor the throttle, I want maximum torque at 1200 RPM, not a down shift. If I want a down shift, I will activate the shift paddle or put it in auto mode.
I recently drove a Volvo S40 with small engine and automatic gearbox. Going uphill on highways, it could not keep up the speed in 7th gear, so it automatically selected 6th gear. Then it accelerated. If I lifted the throttle enough to stop accelerating, it shifted back up to 7th. Then I gave it enough throttle to keep the speed, and it went back down to 6th. Impossible to keep a constant speed! Even with cruise control, it went through this silly cycle repeatedly.
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