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Originally Posted by thakid22
It’s interesting that you mention your 328i E90 had had a quieter engine and exhaust than the F10 535xi. Yeah those N52 engines were SUPER smooth and quiet. I was almost shocked by the amount of intake sound in my F10 535i by comparison. It’s very vocal at high rpms... for a luxury car.
But back to that 328i, I had my windows down as one briskly took off beside me and it emitted a noticeable purr as it revved out. Not as much as the E90 330 or 335i, but definitely some (from the outside). I would have thought it’d be audible inside too.
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My E90 328i (pre-LCI, if it matters) was so quiet it took away from the experience somewhat. I wanted an exhaust for it but never got around to it. The M PE sound on the N52 wasn't a slam dunk for my preferences and I never ended up getting anything while I had it. It was a 6MT and with the windows down driving in the country I was mostly driving by feel and just knowing the car instead of by ear.
My '98 E39 528i 5MT had a Dinan exhaust on it, which I greatly preferred to the M PE I now have on my F10 535xi, and I was used to hearing something with the windows down.
My F10 (with stock exhaust) had more engine induction noise than the 328i without a doubt.
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I haven’t heard a stock F10 from outside, but I assumed it was silent to bystanders, in regards to exhaust. Maybe it too, just isn’t audible inside.
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I generally put my stock exhaust back on for the winter, since the M PE adds drone and no joy without windows-down driving. The stock exhaust completely changes the character of the sound, not just the volume. It is definitely tuned to suit the super-low-rev base tuning of the 8AT in "D" mode so that it makes a little purr without any drone to sound like it's lugging it. High revs is pointless with stock exhaust, IME, and it's just a reading on the tach with no meaningful engagement of the driver. At least the M PE makes me feel a little more like I'm driving an I6 car with MT where "lowest possible revs" isn't the sweet spot.
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Speaking of the tranny... you are right the SAT ZF8 F10 shifts wayyy faster than the ZF6 in the E90. But I have noticed that the shifts are not as lightning quick as the SAT ZF6 in my old E60 535i, judging by the speed with which the tach flicks during/after shifts. That may not be a true indicator of actual shift speed though.
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I was actually saying that I personally observed F30 ZF8 SAT is very noticeably (to me anyways) different from an F30 ZF8 non-SAT. Since ZF8s are in both, I expanded my guess that F10 SAT also differs from the non-SAT in ways that don't appear in brochures. I can even hear cars on the road with non-stock exhausts that have shift programs I don't have in my non-SAT, just like I heard in the F30 SAT, so I think I'm probably right.
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One more thing... BMW rev matching leaves a bit to be desired. It’s much less entertaining, smooth, and sharp than Infiniti’s implementation of the feature. This applies to both the ZF6 and ZF8 (with or without) SAT. I’d like to drive another brands car with the ZF8 and see if the rev matching feature is any different. I forget to test it every time I drive another make. I have a feeling Bmw just programs it the way it does.
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Honestly it's all far less engaging than doing it myself with my feet so... meh. The ZF8 is the only tolerable AT I've ever driven.
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One awesome trait of all the BMW automatics is that they respond almost instantly to manual commands via the shift lever or the paddles. Lots of other cars have a bit of lag between the time the paddle (or lever) is pulled and the execution of the shift. The industry is just starting to catch up there.
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Here I also observed F30s with SAT respond much quicker than non-SAT.
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