Quote:
Originally Posted by akhter
My F10 isn't here yet, but my last car was a 335i AT w/paddles and I loved the paddles.
I would say 70% of the time I drove in manual mode with paddles. The reason is, with only a couple of clicks (like a PC mouse double-click, in less than a second) I could perfectly increase the acceleration to the precise rate I wanted. Had gone to kick-down instead, the revs would reach much higher (& louder) and I would get much higher acceleration than I often wanted. For me a double-click was for regular passing around town and kick-down was more for freeway passing.
For example, when doing about doing 40mph, the car would be in M5 while cruising and 2 clicks and I am on M3@3000rpm for passing. If I am in auto and I went the kickdown route instead, I'd drop from M5 to M2 and doing closer to 4500rpm. While the latter is more exciting, in a 335i, frequent kickdown around town is a receipe for tickets or accidents. Before people jump in and say all this is much easier accomplished in an MT, I agree, but my wife needed AT and I quite enjoyed my AT as well once I got fully used to manual mode w/paddles.
The feeling/effect of down-shifting is much more like how MT drivers drive (I can drive stick), than kickdown which on the 335i is quite brutal (in a good way).
|
Now that you have mentioned it, this is precisely why I prefer the paddles. The kickdown can be quite unpredictable in its response (lag) and intensity (too low a gear/too high an engine speed) at times. With the paddles, if you are still a gear too high after the initial click, another click would do the trick.