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      05-31-2013, 10:57 AM   #185
bradleyland
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WJGreer View Post
Still, nobody seems to be complaining about the ZF8.
That's probably because the ZF8 is such a fantastic auto transmission. It's silly to buy an automatic, then complain that it's not a good manual I'll take a moment to complain about it though

I'm a manual fanatic, simply for the engagement and enjoyment of rowing gears, manually rev-matching, and skip-shifting. I can't stand the ZF8. It's a great automatic, but it's still an automatic. The killer for me is the increased delay between gear selection and engagement. I owned a DSG GTI, which was much, much better, and I've test driven a DCT 135i on several occasions (also much better). The predictability of the shifts with a dual-clutch gearbox is light years ahead of the ZF8, even in sport trim.

Some people are more tolerant of this delay, but I can't stand it. For me, shifting gears is like having a conversation with the car. Ever try to have a conversation with someone over a phone with a bad delay? You end up talking over each other and getting really frustrated. That's how I feel when I drive a ZF8 auto with the paddles.

I've always been confused by the availability of DCT in the 135i, but on the 3-series side, you have to bump up to a 335is. I wonder how BMW will handle this with the 4-series. I'm kind of assuming they'll introduce an M435i with DCT. The 2-series lack of a vanilla 235i in the states gives me hope that they'll continue to offer DCT in the M235i model, although there's a lot of suggestion that it will follow in the footsteps of the M135i with the ZF8 (barf).
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Last edited by bradleyland; 05-31-2013 at 11:05 AM..
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