[FC]

Is this an M5 thing, a BMW thing, or is something off? I have a new-to-me 2021 F90.

When slowing down from basically any speed and at any rate of deceleration, I don't recall ever feeling a car downshift as the car slows. It just basically does its thing in the background. I've driven many automatics and I don't recall this. The cars just come smoothly to a stop and when you are ready to go again, it is in 1st gear.

On the M5, I can feel the car down shift to 3rd, 2nd, etc. It's not abrupt, or jerky, but you notice it. It can feel sporty and cool but in efficient+comfort mode, you'd expect this to go away and give you a normal, unnoticeable downshift to 1st. Maybe this is a DCT thing and they wanted to mimic the effect? Also, as I slow and creep towards a parked car and I have a soft amount of pressure on the brake pedal, the car will downshift (2-1?) and all of a sudden it slows less slowly and I have to adjust the rate of braking.

Today I was stuck on some awful traffic where I was at a stop-crawl for an hour. I noticed that while on "efficient" the car would right away shift to 2nd and as I needed to stop again, this noticeable 2-1 shift happened every time. I found that changing the car to Sport made it hold 1st gear through ~5mph and avoided this constant 1-2-1 shift.

Any thoughts?

[pmsteinm]

What drive logic setting are you using?

I don't feel down shifts in D1. In slow traffic coasting it usually doesn't even select 1st until I get below 2mph, sometimes not even until I'm at a complete stop.

In D3 I sometimes feel downshifts and it can be more jerky in slow traffic or abrupt throttle inputs. D3 is supposed to feel like a DCT so if you are in that setting things might be normal.

I generally drive my car in D1 or S3, but lately I've been playing around with D2 and S2. I used D3 at Thermal, but on normal roads it just holds too high a gear after ripping it to the 45mph speed limit and then doesn't ever use 7 or 8th.

[willyp]

What is your transmission setting (little button on the shift knob.) I would bet its on 2 or 3. 1 should be pretty smooth... Ive never driven my M5 in auto or D so cant say how the transmission in the car handles downshifts but I will say compared to the downshifts in the DCT (f90 is not DCT btw) the ZF is significantly smoother around town and in traffic. Which honestly surprised me when moving from the F10 DCT to the ZF in the F90. Because of that I really like the ZF 8 speed, its IMO a better transmission for the m5. Hate on me its OK lol