While Racing, u prefer Manual or Auto shift
 

Anyone here use manual shifting, how and when???? I drive stick shift, but I am not so comfortable with the manual shifting seems like does not work well when you don't anything to step on at the left foot.

SMG :thumbup:

LOL.. who are you racing?? geo metro's and
gremlins?? haha

I use manual shifting on my X5 90% of the time. I 'grew up' driving manual transmission and find the manual shifting of the X much more natural to me. It also gives direct control over which gear the car is on and consequently more control of the car. I will put it on fully automatic only when stucked in a traffic jam. A big advantage of gearing down without reducing speed (unlike with an automatic) is an increase in power from the engine, useful when climbing, passing or before entering a sharp curve. For example if I am driving a little bit 'sporty' mode on a little empty back road I shift down just before entering a sharp curve so as to get more control of the car via its engine power.

Excuse me Alpac but where are you from again :) , just kidding! but I can tell just from reading your post that it's the European driving school kicking ;) . I totally agree with you, I fell unstoppable when i have the manual trans on the X.

ummmm :confused: :whistle:

:tgif:

Don't you think that the manual mode is too low when you are going down from gear es: from 4° to 3° and so on?
And it doesn't give you the exactly sesation of the gear running in that moment? I have this sensation, so I don't like it and I use sport mode. Can you confirm me this?

Not sure what you exactly mean by 'too low'. I do like the manual mode and find it to suit my style of driving well. It is not exactly like a manual transmission though and there is a period of adaption but it is much better than the automatic, either normal or sport in my opinion. In addition I am sure it helps preserving the brakes. I did 28k miles since I bought my x5 and at the last check 2 weeks ago the pads looked still very good.

Sorry, I would say "too slow" and I have the sensation that I don't know exactly when one gear is on. I have continuous slipping of the rpm (I have a 3.0d model) that demotivate me to use it (expecially going up in the mountain).

Haven't done much racing in my 4900lb SUV, but when I use the M/S portion of the transmission there is a noticeable difference in performance.

No I do not have this kind of issue with my 4.4 when using manual. It is pretty fast to respond although it certainely cannot be compared to manual transmission.

Although it's no SMG/F1 I love to use manual mode because you can hold a gear for multiple turns.

Plus, the scream at 4500rpm and higher is just ... well it'll make ya pop a tent :D

Sometimes I wish BMW had made the X5 sound less beefy and more Ferrari-esque.