Down Shift problem when cruising?
 

Does everyone experience automatic downshifting when taking your foot off the gas? It seems like my brand new X5 (less than 200 miles) downshifts rapidly from 40 mph to 10 mph and gets a bit jerky. This must be sucking away good gas mileage and is quite awkward. For example, my mercedes will maintain the gear and allow the car to coast for a bit before downshifting.

It's not normal for the trans to downshift as soon as you take your foot off the gas. Check with the dealer, as I'm sure they have a multitude of trans s/w updates.

Just out of curiosity, do you have factory trailer hitch?

no trailer hitch.

If I understand what you are saying I get this "downshifting effect" too, but not at speeds as high as 40 mph as you indicated. I experience it more in city driving. It feels like the brake is being applied as soon as I let off of the accelerator (i.e. it doesn't coast easily to a stop like any other car I have driven before but rather wants to slow down right away). If I am up to highway speeds (or probably even less) it coasts to a stop in a more natural manner.

I noticed this effect on test drives with a wide variety of 3.0si and 4.8i X5s, so I think they are all supposed to behave this way at low speeds. I have never driven a BMW before getting my X5 and just chalked it up to the way BMWs transmission is designed to work, since all of the other E70 X5s I drove (at least 5) did this. Perhaps other people here are just use to this so that they hardly notice. Now that I am used to driving it I rarely find myself completely taking my foot off of the accelerator at low speeds, so I have kinda forgotten about it myself.

I have to say that this effect, along with the "jerky transmission" issues posted elsewhere on this board, seems to go away completely when I drive even moderately aggressive. When I drive in a very reserved manner (accelerate and come to stops more slowly) these things are much more prononounced. It seems like the X5 just wants to be driven hard all of the time. In a sense I love this because the SAV is extremely fun to drive like this, but I wish it was a little smoother when "taking it easy"!

I wouldn't disagree with any of that except to say that its a pain in the arse to drive slowly :yikes: almost ,.. embarrasing if you have a passenger who thinks you cant drive your car properly :stickpoke To master it at sub 40 speeds you need to be super smooth with the pedal.

I had an incident the other day when the 4.8 was quietly accelerating and it just lept all of a sudden then stopped, it was like someone shoved 10kva up the gearbox :yikes: WTF is going on with this cars electrics ?:swear:

Welcome to the wonderful world of BMW software programs. There are times, literally when the transmission jerks so hard, it physically hurts! Does the same on the '07 750Li. On the highway, the E70 (especially the 4.8i) is really superb. City driving, especially like you said, if you have passenger(s)...they think you don't know how to handle an accelerator, or you have "too much car" than you should. The '08 4.8i is the worst transmission I have ever had...and we've had a minimum of 25 new cars in the last 15 years (almost all BMW & Benz)!!

The city driving is exactly what I'm talking about. I am usually between 30-40 mph max speed on city driving and let it coast to the red light but in my new X5, I can never get to the light without continuing to keep my foot on the gas. If I take my foot off the gas it just down shifts and I end up coming to a almost complete crawl well before I get to the light. I don't recall this happening on the test drive but maybe because I didn't let it coast.

I think I'm going to try it in manual and sport mode also to see if this changes.

Thanks for the responses. In a way I'm relieved that it's not just me, but I can't believe that's the way the trans. is built

Yep - LOKI described it best!

True. I complained about this before in another post.

But what I experience is slightly different. Yes, the transmission downshifts as soon as my foot leaves the accelerator pedal, but it seems to upshift again about 4 or 5 seconds later. Because, after taking my foot off, I can feel the downshift and the car going way slower, but then about 5 seconds later, the braking sensation disappears and it coasts normally just like any other cars.

I was expecting this to go away once thing's got broken in, but I guess other people are experiencing it even beyond the break in period.

But shifts are never jerky though. I have the 3.0, so your mileage may vary depending on the engine.

Yep, I get this, I started noticing it when I started driving "gently" to save on gas.
With the wife's car I can take my feet off the gas once I turn into the street and that last push of the pedal coasts me all the way to the garage....

With the X? Nope, it downshifts as if I am trying to use the engine as a break. I put it down to how a BMW drives...?? It is not a violent downshifting though...

On the bright side, it reduces the gaddem break dust by slowing the car down!

+1

yup, mine's the same way, it actually lets me step on the brake much much less frequently while driving in the city so I kind of like it.

I only feel this in DS mode (not manual)... and figured it was normal for a sports feature.

Unlike RH71, I definitely get this in standard D mode (i.e. non-sport) on my 4.8i. I also recall it occuring on the 3.0si in standard D mode during test drives. I only have 1200 miles on my car, so perhaps this does go away after a longer break-in (as RH71 suggested previously). Though that would be pretty strange, since this seems like the way the transmission is designed to operate for whatever reason.

It is .. I have to say I was very Impressed with my 4.6 E53 X5 when I was towing a trailer down a steep hill, when for the very first time I noticed.....after a good few years of owning other automatics, it actually changed down a gear :excited: ... to increase engine braking .. good idea I thought ... but the BMW engineers have taken it to a stupid level to reduce emissions with the E70, the sad fact is, it increases them as the engine is locked in a lower ratio for longer and you look like an idiot whilst it does so:( and the end result is a stupid transmission set up that doesnt work unless you thrash it .. soo no surprises at the fuel consumption then.. idiots .. who comes up with this stuff and designs these gearboxes ?? :clueless: :clueless:

Have noticed that it stops this behavior somewhat if the HVAC unit is fully off. If your weather permits, try driving without the HVAC and see if it makes a difference. Obvious question is why it would make a difference.

the most definite solution is to drive in manual mode. it will hold gear as long as the rpm is above threshold (then it auto downshifts).