Manual vs. steptronic

I too have driven both for a very long time - although when I learnt to drive autos were somewhat of a rarity in the UK. But since I'm fascinated by things mechanical I'm fascinated by autos. They may seem mundane to those brought up on them - but not to me. I look at each development - CVT, DSG etc - and think now is the answer to the efficiency issue with a torque convertor transmission. But am always disappointed with them in some way. Then 'they' improve the conventional auto.

I still enjoy driving a good manual under some conditions. But not everyday. And a good manual to me is still a four speed - no 5 or 6 I've driven has a perfect selector mechanism due to the extra plane. My ideal is a four with electrically operated overdrive. ;-)

You mean like parking at Luton airparks? ;-)

Like my Triumph 2500TC that I had from 1979 to 1981.

OTOH if you dropped it out of overdrive third at over ~90mph you would overspeed the engine!

Despite Triumph's reliability reputation, it only suffered one breakdown - the [over-used] throttle cable snapped on the M62. The RAC had it moving again within 40 minutes.

Boxes that have first opposite reverse (e.g. Renault 4) are a pain and IIRC BMW close ratio box layout is not ideal either. But a five or six speed box where the dentent is to the 3/4 axis are fine.

My manual gearbox broke before my clutch wore out on my E36. That was at about 160k miles. I know some earlier BMW auto boxes had a limited life without proper maintenance, but in my BMW ownership the auto is ahead :-)

I'm not sure what a torque converter is exactly, I"ll look it up.

But if you're in sport mode, won't it keep the gear you're in unless you're at incredibly high rpms or low rpms? ie you can downshift before a corner and keep it in that gear all the way through...wouldn't that have the same effect of having your speed proportional to rpms?

Ah - dunno. I live close to the Brighton line so always use rail to Gatwick. Last time I parked at an airport you walked to and from your car to the bus. And waited ages for the jump start trolley to arrive.;-) Hence preferring the train. As well as the stories about some of these firms parking up your car on some country road.

Of course I really meant what you see in US movies - you arrive at even a modest restaurant and they whisk the car away for you. Tyres smoking.

Yup. My brother has a Stag which has probably the same box and overdrive.

Easily prevented these days, though.

Wish I could say the same about his Stag. But to be fair it was bought as a project car. Not sure what the projected finish date is, though.

I'm rather uncertain which layout of many I dislike least. ;-)

The best box I ever had by far was funnily enough in a van. A GM Vauxhall Viva HA dating from the '60s. Just like operating a well engineered light switch. Wonder where things went wrong?

I used to use an outfit at Heathrow who parked your car for you.

One Friday afternoon in February 1990 I turn up to collect the my 735i and notice an oil track across the car park :-(

When I get in and reverse up I notice another oil track across the car park :-((

When I look under the car I notice oil pouring out of the bottom of the engine :-((((

So I switch off immediately and call the RAC. They diagnose the fault to the seal blowing out of the side of the oil filter, so they screw it up and top the oil.

Fortunately my contact at Altwood BMW in Slough has been promoted to service manager, so I call in a big favour and actually get to take it in and get it on a ramp at ~15:00 on a Friday.

The diagnosis is the same, but we replace the oil and filter just to be sure. I got another ten years out of the car without major unprovoked failure.

As it was February, what had obviosly happened was that the 'valet' driver had got in floored it when it was stone cold and blown out the seal - very lucky it wasn't a siezed engine!

I don't know what evidence you have for that statement. I've always been of the opinion that auto trannies are one thing that GM does pretty well.

Really? GM were way off the mark with introducing electronic control and multi speeds. Even Vauxhall and Opel who are owned by GM went to a different maker for a 4 speed in the '80s. Jaguar - before being owned by Ford - swapped to ZF after using GM for ages. Rolls too. BMW for some reason known only to themselves fitted 4 speed GM boxes to the E39 for US only - the rest of the world got the ZF 5 speed.

Not true, my daughter took her driver test on a manual, and passed first try. The biggest advantage is the grand you save. The mileage and maint. savings is not that significant anymore.

For those of us in the USA, what's an E39?

Oh, puhleaze. There are plenty of us in the USA that know perfectly well what an E39 is. Even us non-BMW drivers ;-)

It's the predecessor to the current model 5 series...

/daytripper '00 s4 6spd

You read this BMW group but have to ask?

It's the factory designation for the last generation 5 Series.

Hmm... My "US" E46 has a GM-made 5-speed auto. Are you sure the E39 got a 4-speed? Me thinks you're mistaken.

Anyway, I will concede that GM trannies have not been "state of the art" in the last decade, but that doesn't make them unreliable (or "crap", as was asserted).

We've also have heard of google. 8)

The '96 -99 528 used the GM 4L30E, whereas BMW introduced the ZF 5HP18 on the E34 525 and continued with it in the Euro spec E39 6 cylinder models. It wasn't until 2000 that GM produced a 5 speed. Like nearly 10 years later. And if you've driven the two versions the five speed is simply light years ahead of the 4.

I wouldn't say the GM 180 as fitted to my 'other' car from the '80s is an example of a long lived transmission. It works well enough, though.

'Crap' really meant in relation to others. GM used to be the market leader in autos as well they might with such strong home sales. Hence the likes of Rolls Royce etc using them - and cost wasn't the object here. If the lead had subsequently been taken - like with so much else - by a third world country offering cheap prices through low labour costs then so be it

- but it wasn't, but Germany.

This is why the last time I went to a "we park it for you whereever we like" carpark I took my '90 Carlton estate. They didn't move it very far.

Didn't they buy out Borg-Warner?

Anyway whilst the US were first to go for large scale adoption of auto boxes. In the US and UK most boxes remained three speed until very late on for instance an early 80's Rover 3500SD1 had either a five speed manual or a basic three speed auto, where top had the same ratio as 4th (25mph / 1krpm) in the manual and peak torque was < 100kmph. An equivalent 7 series of the time had a four speed auto with top at ~33mph/1krpm.