DSG or Manual

[Smoltz]

Originally Posted by ruff

I read that Porche is having trouble perfecting a smooth DSG like transmission for their high reving engines and thus have not incorporated it into their cars yet. I have also read the dual clutch transmission in the Audi R8 has some kinks in it as well. It must be an engineering enigma to figure out how to make a smooth dual clutch gearbox in automatic mode while still having it run full bore in manual mode. Hopefully, the M boys are on to something.

The R8 doesn't have a dual clutch gearbox. It has a gearbox similar in design to SMG II in the E46 M3.

-Adam

[ruff]

Originally Posted by Smoltz

The R8 doesn't have a dual clutch gearbox. It has a gearbox similar in design to SMG II in the E46 M3.

-Adam

Adam,
Thanks for the correction. You are right. DSG is their only dual clutch gear box.

[enigma]

Originally Posted by JEllis

What I was trying to say has nothing to do with performance. To me the standard 6MT will be more driver involving than the M-DCT tranny. I do suspect the DCT tranny will provide a better performing car but will also make the driver feel further detached from the traditional M driving experience. Of course this is all subjective.

Its very subjective and I would completly disagree with you. I find nothing "involving" about stomping a pedal and shoving around a lever.

If you took the steering wheel off a car and replaced it with a aircraft style stick you would still be driving the car. You would still retain the same control. It would just be a diffrent interface. Same thing applies here.

The only thing you lose is the ability to screw up a shift at a critical time and gernade an engine or stuff the car into a wall.

BTW: For those doing the math I usually make 7 under load upshifts per lap at Laguna. I would prefer to make 10 but 3 are spaced too close to turns to be worth it in a manual car. Its the diffrence between a 1:42 and a 1:41. Its not a trivial thing.

The other thing I hate about a manual, of the last 3 spins I have had at the track, two were from getting tangled up in the not so ideal pedals trying to heel and toe on downshifts. When you have a 50-70k car on the line at the track, I would rather not take that chance and be slower just so I can push around a level and stomp a pedal.. Real racers seem to agree.

Shifting is not driving. I am sure some people were unhappy when the carburator went away because they could no longer tune their own cars. same thing, its the march of progress.

[///Murdock]

I <3 SMGIII in my M5, and i LOVE my 6MT M3... it is a very hard decision, ill have to drive both

[JEllis]

Shifting is not driving. I am sure some people were unhappy when the carburator went away because they could no longer tune their own cars. same thing, its the march of progress.

You and I are two different wave lengths... from a performance point of view or a race car drivers point of view, the DCT is an awesome thing. I am not saying it isnt. Of course any racing team is going to choose the higher tech and better performing unit over anything else.

However, I like shifting... I like the involvement required to get the job done. I like the aircraft stick analogy you used because as a military pilot ,flying the latest and greatest, things like autopilot, autothrottles, and integrated approaches make me feel detached from the aircraft despite how much easier they make the job. Sometimes its just nice to fly around without all the technology helping me out.

Same goes for guys that actually perfer their carburated engines over the high tech powerplants of today, or boaters that would rather have a boat with a wooden hull over fiberlgass despite the extra care that is required. And some crazy guys would rather ride there horse than drive a sports car. I know the DCT is better but will I like driving one everyday better than I like a standard. Maybe its a little backwards to enjoy rowing through the gears on an on ramp but I dont really care.

In the end I am still on the fence. The jury is still out and I will have to read some reviews on both before I make my decision.

Jason

[Caravello]

I prefer manual because it allows me to brace/balance my weight. I just feel more comfortable having something to help me balance my body through a turn.

The SMG or DC or whatever it's called, maybe if you had an F1 body harness on and you could brace your weight that way then it would be better. But in a production car, I just don't like the feel of it, using the steerign wheel to brace your body and balance your wiehgt, etc.

And lastly, I don't think the popularity of SMG and DCT is because it better replicates the F1 experience (you would need a body harness for that and much else) but b/c buyers of these cars are getting older, and they are designing cars to reflect that and to compensate for aging. They just sell the F1 concept b/c it invokes youthfulness and virility and passion and so forth, but the real reason is because people who can afford these cars are getting older (and more women too) and a DCT is easier for them, requires less reflexes, etc.

I remember when I studied marketing in grad school a good many moons ago (graduated 1992) that this whole idea was just then becoming the norm. We read case study after case study where the car manufacturrs were thinking of ways to break an aging and more female-oriented marketplace into new car concepts. So they sell the idea of F1 racing heritage, and maybe they are faster around the track, but that is not the impetus behind it. Trust me on this. No F1 car would have airbags and a DVD player and a built-in BT phone and GPS, for example. These are convenience items packaged in a way to make you think or perceive you are on the cutting edge and F1 inspired when the basic fact is they sell you these things b/c you are getting old and b/c so many car-buying decisions now are made by women and the woman of the house.

[swamp2]

Originally Posted by Caravello

I prefer manual because it allows me to brace/balance my weight. I just feel more comfortable having something to help me balance my body through a turn.

Wow, what a poor, misguided idea. Why not consider using a screwdriver to take off a wheel lug nut as well! A good seat with good side bolsters along with holding on to the steering wheel and a decent seat belt are absolutely everything required to hold ones self firmly in their seat. Using the transmission lever to keep you upright is quite frankly absurd.

Originally Posted by Caravello

And lastly, I don't think the popularity of SMG and DCT is because it better replicates the F1 experience ... they are designing cars to reflect that and to compensate for aging. They just sell the F1 concept b/c it invokes youthfulness and virility and passion and so forth, but the real reason is because people who can afford these cars are getting older ... and a DCT is easier for them, requires less reflexes, etc. ... These are convenience items packaged in a way to make you think or perceive you are on the cutting edge and F1 inspired when the basic fact is they sell you these things b/c you are getting old and b/c so many car-buying decisions now are made by women and the woman of the house.

Wrong again. No one said that an M3 is an F1 experience. However, the shifting, esp. with SMG III is getting darn close to F1. Would you claim that bringing as many elements of F1 to a street car is without merits? Don't we all want speed, power, revs, awesome brakes, tons of traction, adequate down force, etc? Look, folks have bought SMG and will buy DCT for a variety of reasons dominated by quest for performance and robustness and second for convenience. Also the M3 market is absolutely dominated by men, heck read the boards a bit. Sure many wives will want some input on their husbands car buying but that also will not be a dominant effect in this demographic.

[Phoenix 21st]

Originally Posted by Caravello

I prefer manual because it allows me to brace/balance my weight. I just feel more comfortable having something to help me balance my body through a turn.

The SMG or DC or whatever it's called, maybe if you had an F1 body harness on and you could brace your weight that way then it would be better. But in a production car, I just don't like the feel of it, using the steerign wheel to brace your body and balance your wiehgt, etc.

And lastly, I don't think the popularity of SMG and DCT is because it better replicates the F1 experience (you would need a body harness for that and much else) but b/c buyers of these cars are getting older, and they are designing cars to reflect that and to compensate for aging. They just sell the F1 concept b/c it invokes youthfulness and virility and passion and so forth, but the real reason is because people who can afford these cars are getting older (and more women too) and a DCT is easier for them, requires less reflexes, etc.

I remember when I studied marketing in grad school a good many moons ago (graduated 1992) that this whole idea was just then becoming the norm. We read case study after case study where the car manufacturrs were thinking of ways to break an aging and more female-oriented marketplace into new car concepts. So they sell the idea of F1 racing heritage, and maybe they are faster around the track, but that is not the impetus behind it. Trust me on this. No F1 car would have airbags and a DVD player and a built-in BT phone and GPS, for example. These are convenience items packaged in a way to make you think or perceive you are on the cutting edge and F1 inspired when the basic fact is they sell you these things b/c you are getting old and b/c so many car-buying decisions now are made by women and the woman of the house.

What a great first post

Swamp +1

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Caravello

Trust me on this.

no.

[Garrett]

Originally Posted by enigma

Its very subjective and I would completly disagree with you. I find nothing "involving" about stomping a pedal and shoving around a lever.

If you took the steering wheel off a car and replaced it with a aircraft style stick you would still be driving the car. You would still retain the same control. It would just be a diffrent interface. Same thing applies here.

The only thing you lose is the ability to screw up a shift at a critical time and gernade an engine or stuff the car into a wall.

BTW: For those doing the math I usually make 7 under load upshifts per lap at Laguna. I would prefer to make 10 but 3 are spaced too close to turns to be worth it in a manual car. Its the diffrence between a 1:42 and a 1:41. Its not a trivial thing.

Shifting is not driving. I am sure some people were unhappy when the carburator went away because they could no longer tune their own cars. same thing, its the march of progress.

I completly dissagree...!

Shifting IS driving. When you have a shifter you have a manual feedback from your engine. You can go directly to the gear you want you can shift without a tach because the feedback threw the shifter. You can "feel" the car better.

Don't discount the tactile feedback from having a manual over a SMG/DSG, if youm live your life by 0.50 seconds, then yes the DSG is your choice. But, to the rest of the world the "driving experience" is better than the detached feel you get when using a clutchless manual...!







-Garrett

[Caravello]

Originally Posted by swamp2

Wow, what a poor, misguided idea. Why not consider using a screwdriver to take off a wheel lug nut as well! A good seat with good side bolsters along with holding on to the steering wheel and a decent seat belt are absolutely everything required to hold ones self firmly in their seat. Using the transmission lever to keep you upright is quite frankly absurd.



Wrong again. No one said that an M3 is an F1 experience. However, the shifting, esp. with SMG III is getting darn close to F1. Would you claim that bringing as many elements of F1 to a street car is without merits? Don't we all want speed, power, revs, awesome brakes, tons of traction, adequate down force, etc? Look, folks have bought SMG and will buy DCT for a variety of reasons dominated by quest for performance and robustness and second for convenience. Also the M3 market is absolutely dominated by men, heck read the boards a bit. Sure many wives will want some input on their husbands car buying but that also will not be a dominant effect in this demographic.

What a dumb thing to say in Paragraph 1. Mine is a common feeling, to hold the stickshift for a feeling of balance. It makes you feel you can take the road on more agressively. But I guess this offends you?

And plenty of people promote the SMG and DCT because it replicates F1 experience. Are you for real? Have you ever read the articles about these things? Everyone will mention how it is tech borrowed and perfected in F1 cars. I am sure the BMW marketing material says the same thing.

M3 is dominated by men, of course it is, but men who are getting older. Who else can afford these things. Out the door the new M3 will be $70K. This is not a car for 20 somethings, but a few will end up with them b/c their dads will buy them. How old are you? How old are most in here? I'm 40. My income is well more than it was when I was 20 or 30 when I drove cheap cars or used trucks. Robustness? You make it sound like a cup of coffee.

[swamp2]

Originally Posted by Caravello

What a dumb thing to say in Paragraph 1. Mine is a common feeling, to hold the stickshift for a feeling of balance. It makes you feel you can take the road on more agressively. But I guess this offends you?

And plenty of people promote the SMG and DCT because it replicates F1 experience. Are you for real? Have you ever read the articles about these things? Everyone will mention how it is tech borrowed and perfected in F1 cars. I am sure the BMW marketing material says the same thing.

M3 is dominated by men, of course it is, but men who are getting older. Who else can afford these things. Out the door the new M3 will be $70K. This is not a car for 20 somethings, but a few will end up with them b/c their dads will buy them. How old are you? How old are most in here? I'm 40. My income is well more than it was when I was 20 or 30 when I drove cheap cars or used trucks. Robustness? You make it sound like a cup of coffee.

-Offended, no, wondering how you drive, yes.

-On the F1 thing I don't think we disagree. SMG is a direct application of F1 tech. to a street car. BMW promotes it as such for sure.

-I'm 37 just FYI, but I know a lot of folks in their 20s will either stretch themselves thin or be able to afford this car outright. I had an E36 M3 and E46 M3 in my 20s. If you look around here in California (granted not representative of the US nor world at large) it is not uncommon for young folks to have quite nice cars.

-Sorry you don't like the "robustness" term. Common engineering and software term, you probably don't appreciate the connotation because you don't have a technical background?

[M3_2010]

Using a paddle to shift is boring. Most will put the DSG in auto mode and will never bother with it.... It is like a self parking car..... not for me... I can park myself thank you....

[southlight]

I'm so bored with all that Manual Vs DSG stuff.

[ruff]

Originally Posted by southlight

I'm so bored with all that Manual Vs DSG stuff.

South,
It just shows how dead this forum has become with no new information on the M3 for some time. I read that the M3 will first be tested by an independent source in Spain in June. Anyone else heard this or any other information when the press will first get their hands on the M3?

[MisterBMW]

Originally Posted by southlight

I'm so bored with all that Manual Vs DSG stuff.

Since the end of 335i vs M3 that was debated to death, DSG vs Manual had since taken over....oh zheet !

[swamp2]

Well I guess we have beat it to death a bit, but honestly I like the debate. Many have mades some shite points but many very good ones as well. It is also certainly true that we all tend to debate minutia when there is no good information flowing from BMW.

Can you really believe that is is going to be 10 months until we have cars delivered to US customers? I keep holding out hope it will be less and for the simultaneous launch of 6MT and M-DCT in the US.

[GregW / Oregon]

Originally Posted by swamp2

I keep holding out hope it will be less and for the simultaneous launch of 6MT and M-DCT in the US.

I hope for that as well. Though I've always had manual in my performance cars, I want to give the dual clutch, semi-auto thing a shot. Frankly, the E46 M3 manual is not the smoothest and despite 43 years of driving manuals I've muffed a few shifts. I don't think I'd miss the clutch pedal, except it's fun to be able to give a litlle showoff rev using it!

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Caravello

What a dumb thing to say in Paragraph 1. Mine is a common feeling, to hold the stickshift for a feeling of balance. It makes you feel you can take the road on more agressively. But I guess this offends you?

And plenty of people promote the SMG and DCT because it replicates F1 experience. Are you for real? Have you ever read the articles about these things? Everyone will mention how it is tech borrowed and perfected in F1 cars. I am sure the BMW marketing material says the same thing.

M3 is dominated by men, of course it is, but men who are getting older. Who else can afford these things. Out the door the new M3 will be $70K. This is not a car for 20 somethings, but a few will end up with them b/c their dads will buy them. How old are you? How old are most in here? I'm 40. My income is well more than it was when I was 20 or 30 when I drove cheap cars or used trucks. Robustness? You make it sound like a cup of coffee.

1)stick shift for balance? - using the stickshift to somehow balance yourself is by no means common practice, and places you in a vast minority of people. more importantly though, you can just as easily rest your body weight on the dct/smg gear lever as you could a stickshift - either one will give you the support you're looking for (which of course will be close to zero). further as a matter of common sense, resting your body weight on any mechanism attached to the transmission is a poor idea.

2) the f1 issue - bmw M has always been steeped in the racing tradition. but even coming from that sort of ancestry, bmw has been anything but ostentatious about the new M3's ties to the F1 lineage. the printed collateral we've seen thusfar from bmw on the new M3 emphasizes much more the performance benefits of the DCT transmission, than its F1 lineage. probably because when it comes to options, the end consumer's primary concern is a palpable benefit - here performance - rather than something as tangential and attenuated as a car's lineage. read through these enthusiast forums, and you'll find that the people who've voiced an interest in purchasing the DCT transmission have placed very little (if any) emphasis on the transmission's F1 lineage as part of their decision. in fact for the most part, their interest was usually sparked by performance gains or ease of use.

3) the M3's audience - i think you'll find that your demographic presumptions are just that... presumptive. here in the southern california area there is a disproportionately high number of M's than there is in most other parts of the world. in markets as M concentrated as the orange, los angeles, and san diego counties you'll find that not only are M cars not as much of a rarity, but also that many of them are driven by those much younger than your presumed 40-50 year+ demographic. here in so cal, there are a surprising number of 20 somethings who not only own their own M3's but have paid for them themselves. I count myself amongst this 20 year old demographic having purchased an M3 in the past, and will again be doing so upon the release of the e92 M3, well before my 30th. More importantly though... i'm not the exception to the rule... many of my friends all of whom are in there 20-somethings here in southern california, own M or AMG cars (which they've paid for with their own money). off the cuff, it seems to me that the M5 and M6 are more targeted to your 40 year demo+ than the M3 whose sportier look and feel lends itself to a slightly more youthful audience.

maybe in you future responses you can do us all a favor and refrain from becoming immediately insulting.

[Epacy]

Originally Posted by esquire

1)

the printed collateral we've seen thusfar from bmw on the new M3 emphasizes much more the performance benefits of the DCT transmission, than its F1 lineage.

Not true. There has been no printed information about the performance benefits of the DCT tranny.

[Caravello]

Originally Posted by swamp2

-Offended, no, wondering how you drive, yes.

-On the F1 thing I don't think we disagree. SMG is a direct application of F1 tech. to a street car. BMW promotes it as such for sure.

-I'm 37 just FYI, but I know a lot of folks in their 20s will either stretch themselves thin or be able to afford this car outright. I had an E36 M3 and E46 M3 in my 20s. If you look around here in California (granted not representative of the US nor world at large) it is not uncommon for young folks to have quite nice cars.

-Sorry you don't like the "robustness" term. Common engineering and software term, you probably don't appreciate the connotation because you don't have a technical background?

WRT SMG, I am being plainly honest here. And I thought I was like a lot of people. I mean it when I say, I like the feeling of baalnce it gives me to have something to hold onto. It's not that I put weight onto it and hold it for dear life, but it helps me at least feel like I am more into the car. I like purity in a car in other words, bare bones kind of thing. I like the "rawness" of shifting I guess you could say. Plus, I just can't get over this lingering idea that with SMG there is more things to go wrong. Cause I plan to hold onto this car for a long time. I think the M3s are classics in the making. I just love them. And I want to know that in 10 years, 15 years that the thing is still pretty basic in tech and in its approach to driving.

As for the age thing, I guess I came off a little pompous or whatever. But I believe what I said, and I see evidence of it everytime I read about a car or see an ad. America is getting older, and the car makers are thinking of ways to sell us on things that accomodate our aging but at the same time are not in-your-face about it. They don't want to come out and say so, because we like to stay young and energetic. But anyway, I probably could have afforded an M3 in my mid to late 20's, but I had kids and my wife was nagging me to buy a house, etc. And you're right, L.A. is not typical of the USA. I see kids all the time in M3s, and I talk to them and many times they have some sort of lease or their dad helps out, etc. I buy my cars btw. So for me the cost is what you see on the sticker, not amortized over a lease or loan.

As for robustness, I just see that term a lot. And it's funny, I see it in repsonse to videogames, for example. Such as "the online play will be robust.." No, I do not have a technical background, so the word jumps out, and my familiarity with that word is with regard to coffee beans and coffee flavor.

Anyway, glad there are no hard feelings. And look forward to seeing your pics of your new M3 when you get it. I will be going for the Blue coupe.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Epacy

Not true. There has been no printed information about the performance benefits of the DCT tranny.

my mistake. the printed collateral regarding DCT's performance benefits are not BMW sourced but rather 3rd party published


http://www.zeroshift.com/pdf/EAC906%2013.pdf