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      11-23-2011, 02:23 PM   #267
Hephaesta
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Drives: '08 E90 M3
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Kansas City

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Ever since I finished the break in period I have had this issue with my 08 M3. Happens about 1 out of every 3-4 times. At first I thought I was doing something wrong so I went through a variety of techniques trying to find the "magic formula" that would make the issue go away. Never could find one.

I brought this up with my SA a couple of years ago and they said that the transmission was OK. But they didn't test it under full throttle at red line. At the time I sort of let it go since I rarely do 0-60 runs.

Since I'm approaching the end of my warranty period (next April) and the car is soon to go into limited hibernation for the winter I thought I would see if the general break in of the car had improved it. Nope, even at 21,000 miles it was still there and bugged the heck out of me.

So I sent a link to this thread to my SA and made sure that they knew I wasn't talking about normal driving 1-2 shifts, but high rpm shifts. They had me bring the car in and take the shop foreman for a drive so that I could demonstrate it to him. And of course I promptly ripped off 8+ flawless runs (I have found that if it shifts well the first time it will continue well for subsequent runs and if it won't go the first time it most likely will continue to fail).

At the least I got confirmation from the shop foreman that my technique for shifting was not the issue. He thought I was doing everything in that regards OK.

As luck (?) would have it I had a sensor go bad the next week so I had to take the car back in for that. When I dropped it off I told them that the evening after I demoed the car I had the shift failure happen again. I told them to just keep the car for a few days and for either my SA or the shop foreman to drive it home, on errands, whatever, for a few days and to do 0-60 runs every time they drive it. (Yes, that makes me a little edgy but at this point I wanted this fixed).

And lo and behold it happened to the shop foreman. At that point they knew the problem was legit and that it wasn't from my doing a bad shift. They called the engineers in Germany. The engineers said they had never heard of this as an issue with early 08 cars but as a "courtesy" they would replace my transmission. Supposedly I make only the second transmission replacement in the USA.

Unfortunately since I've gotten the car back I haven't had as many chances to drive it as I would like (the weather has turned rotten) but I have tried about 10-12 0-60 runs on different days and so far it has performed flawlessly. This is finally the car I thought I was buying 3.5 years ago! (And, yes I was told that the initial break in period of the car is for the engine and that the new tranny was good to go).

A side note for any other 08 M3 owners: I asked for them to replace the clutch while they were doing the transmission replacement. Only 21k miles on it but since they were going to have it all the way apart anyways and the clutch kit was only $470 I figured I might as well start with a new clutch too. When they got everything apart they found out that a new clutch kit won't work on our cars. They changed the flywheel somewhere along the way. So when you eventually need a new clutch you'll have to get a new flywheel too. They inspected my current clutch, said it looked good and put it back in.
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2007 E91 328xi, 6MT
2008 E90 M3, 6MT
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