[sinbad4]

So.. I love to drive. Not just, get in the car and go, but really drive. That's why I figured I'd always prefer a stick and watching manual transmissions fade into extinction has had me feeling down. I say this to set up a perspective. I suspect many audienced here will have a similar point of view.

I love the BMW B58 engine. I6 engines are my favorite - perfectly balanced w/ good low end torque. V8's will gurgle pleasantly and have plenty of torque, but do not run as smooth. I4's.. well, they are OK if counterbalanced, but lack low end torque off the line. They have improved.. but.. Inline 6 is my favorite and BMW has nailed it. It is powerful, quick revving and so very smooth, it's hard to know what it's doing, as the car is well sound insulated. I turned off the BMW Active Sound Design.. so yeah.. I can see why they add it, though I prefer it off.

The 8HP 8-speed transmission is pure genius. It's used in Lambos, Jags, Jeeps, Bentlys, RAM trucks.. etc. Huge list of applications. That said, manufactures 'tune' them to their specific application. The engineers at BMW have done a shocking good job at implementing the 8HP with the B58. I listed computer in the title, as, of course, the engine and transmission are computer controlled. BMW did several things really well.

Computer mappings for engine and transmission - along with shock damping control (note: absolutely get the 'active suspension' option) and variable force and rate steering is done really well and mapped to various drive modes:

Comfort:

• Default mode. Entirely meh. I mostly hate this mode. My wife loves it.

Sport:

• Tight steering
• Faster shifts
• More responsive throttle
• Firmer suspension
• Louder exhaust w/ pops.
• Engine RPMS stay higher.
• Tranmission is locked in gear. Torque converter never disengages. This makes it drive and feel like a DSG or manual clutched car.

Sport Plus:

• Very tight, firm steering
• Throttle so sensitive it's touchy
• Tight suspension
• Exhaust pops & crackles on the down shifts and farts on the up shifts under throttle
• When in Sport Mode (shifter to left), Engine RPMS very high, doesn't like to drop below 3k rpms. Shifting is very close to what I would do in a manual while driving in spirited fashion. Really, really good.
• Tranmission is locked in gear. Torque converter never disengages. This makes it drive and feel like a DSG or manual clutched car. I love this.

Eco Pro:

• Comfortable steering and suspension.
• Soft, early shifts. Car feels like I'm in 6th gear before 35 mph.
• Throttle feels broken. ;-) Slow and soft to respond. Car will move if pedal is mashed.
• Transmission will 'coast' easily. Torque converter disengages and car coasts while engine throttles down some. Stats show I coast over 30 miles per tank fill. This surprised me.

Then there are two user configured modes: Sport Individual and Economy Individual. Both these modes start like their name sakes, but allow you to twiddle various aspects. This is super awesome. I love that BMW gives me the option to customize my ride, steering, engine and transmission. This rocks!

Adaptive:
This is a dynamic mode and only available if you have the Adaptive Suspension option. All options - steering, dampers, transmission, engine adjust on-the-fly as needed which is determined by conditions and driver input. That is, slow easy driving - everything scales down in sensitivity - mash the pedal and 'instant sport mode' kicks in. I frequently drive in this mode. IMHO, when you have the Adaptive Suspension option, the car should default to this mode (X3 defaults to 'comfort' each time you start the car).

Each mode has more aggressive shifts by moving shift lever to left (M/S). It's still in auto mode, until you shift up/down via paddles or shifter. At that point, you're in manual mode until shifter returns to the right.

Transmission management is very nice. It doesn't auto shift up for you in M mode (like many cars do), but will will down shift automatically to keep you from killing engine. This is OK, as, like I said, it's so quiet sometimes (frequently), I forget. ;-) I've read the 8HP does not have to downshift sequentially.. that it can actually shift from 8 to 2 (and few other tricks). That's cool.

So.. how does it drive? How does having all these options work in the real world? Exceptionally well.

It take s a little getting used to. All these drive modes and, frankly, all these gears. I'm coming off 6 speed manual and 6 speed autos. It's strange to feel so many up-shifts taking off from a stop. Manual shifting is more challenging. Oh, the ability is there. It works really fast. Numbers say it's not as fast as the DSG. It may be 1 hundredth of a second slower.. but I don't suspect most would be able to detect the difference. The lack of DSG was the only 'miss' on the BMW X3 M40i for me. After driving my M40i, I don't miss a DSG at all.

The challenge in manual shifting for me is mainly due to so many freaking gears, lack of noise (quiet car) and lack of vibration (excellent i6 w/ excellent smooth transmission). It would seriously help me if the RPMs and current gear selection displayed in the otherwise excellent HUD, but they don't. So, me manually shifting while sporting up my drive quickly escalates to, "what's my gear?" and "what's my rpm?" and "where am I?". Thankfully, the Sport Plus mode (or Sport Individual) with the shifter moved left to the M/S mode, is really near perfect. It drives like I want to - constantly keeping rpms high and changes very quickly. Honestly, as much as I hate to say it, it probably does a much better shifting job than I can do.

This combo also allows for something near magic. The 8HP has extra low gear for quick off-the-line starts and extra tall gear for excellent freeway mpg. It allows a 4,300 lbs car to get 0-60 in 4.4 sec, quarter mile in < 13s and 29 MPG on the freeway. I say 'magic' as those number simply don't make sense. They don't make sense in any historical comparison.

Compare to my 2008 Z4M Roadster, for instance. The X3 M40i is 1,200 pounds heavier, yet gets to 60 more than half a second faster! Plus, the X3 get 6 miles more per gallon on the freeway. WTF? I mean, really, WTF????

Conclusion: Kick ass engine, mated to a genius 8HP transmission, with some BMW programming talent. Factor in the ability to custom tailor your ride mode. Man-o-Man! This is so awesome!


Last note to any reading this who are considering purchase of an X3. Get the Adaptive Suspension!

Good article on BMW's B58 Engine here: youwheel.com

Wiki article on transmission: ZF 8HP Transmission

Tranmission applications: at popular mechanics

More transmission: truthaboutcars.com

DSG info: wikipedia

C&D: article on ZF 8HP

Info on Mercedes AMG MCT transmission: autoevolution.com

Edit1: Sport Pro = Sport Plus, Thx GT500R

Edit2: Shift times. It bothered be not to have specifics on shift times vs dual clutch system. On thing that bothers me about dual clutch systems is that your next gear is 'pre-selected', thus a shift can be very fast as transmission applies on clutch as the first one lifts off. BUT, what if you're down shifting? or double shifting (like, on freeway, I will bump down 2 gears by default for fast passing).

Keep in mind, blinking takes ruffly 300 milliseconds, or 0.30 seconds. Generally 0.5-1s for manual vertical shifts and 1-2s manual horizontal shifts. (I read this @ wiki, but find the article to be lacking and incomplete)

ZF 8HP
200ms - this is pretty standard number, but 8HP can be quicker with ZF wet-plate clutch pack for faster shifts. I have found no information regarding BMW and this wet-plate option.

DSG:
Upshift: 8ms (with gear preselected)
Downshift: 600ms
Time when shifting to a gear ratio which the transmission control unit did not anticipate (around 1100 ms, depending on the situation)

Porsche PDK
<100ms - is what I've seen in print, nothing regarding down shifts or unanticipated shifts.
Quote from a 2006 Cayman S brochure: "In manual mode, the driver can change gears by hand using rocker controls located on the steering wheel. Gearshifts are completed in about 0.2 seconds with virtually no interruption in drive—very comparable to a well executed gearshift in a manual transmission car."

AMG MCT
100ms - numbers from AMG

Conclusion on shifting speeds. BMW X3 M40i has a very fast transmission. Dual-Clutch based system can be faster on up-shift, but can also be much, much slower in certain circumstances. AMG has interesting solution. In researching this, many people with DSG and PDK backgrounds praise even prefer the ZF 8HP solution over a dual clutch. So if, like me, you find yourself very impressed and very pleased with your X3's ZF 8HP transmission, you're not alone.

[TxHornX3M40iGuy]

Originally Posted by sinbad4

So.. I love to drive. Not just, get in the car and go, but really drive. That's why I figured I'd always prefer a stick and watching manual transmissions fade into extinction has had me feeling down. I say this to set up a perspective. I suspect many audienced here will have a similar point of view.

I love the BMW B58 engine. I6 engines are my favorite - perfectly balanced w/ good low end torque. V8's will gurgle pleasantly and have plenty of torque, but do not run as smooth. I4's.. well, they are OK if counterbalanced, but lack low end torque off the line. They have improved.. but.. Inline 6 is my favorite and BMW has nailed it. It is powerful, quick revving and so very smooth, it's hard to know what it's doing, as the car is well sound insulated. I turned off the BMW Active Sound Design.. so yeah.. I can see why they add it, though I prefer it off.

The 8HP 8-speed transmission is pure genius. It's used in Lambos, Jags, Jeeps, Bentlys, RAM trucks.. etc. Huge list of applications. That said, manufactures 'tune' them to their specific application. The engineers at BMW have done a shocking good job at implementing the 8HP with the B58. I listed computer in the title, as, of course, the engine and transmission are computer controlled. BMW did several things really well.

Computer mappings for engine and transmission - along with shock damping control (note: absolutely get the 'active suspension' option) and variable force and rate steering is done really well and mapped to various drive modes:

Comfort:

• Default mode. Entirely meh. I mostly hate this mode. My wife loves it.

Sport:

• Tight steering
• Faster shifts
• More responsive throttle
• Firmer suspension
• Louder exhaust w/ pops.
• Engine RPMS stay higher.
• Tranmission is locked in gear. Torque converter never disengages. This makes it drive and feel like a DSG or manual clutched car.

Sport Pro:

• Very tight, firm steering
• Throttle so sensitive it's touchy
• Tight suspension
• Exhaust pops & crackles on the down shifts and farts on the up shifts under throttle
• When in Sport Mode (shifter to left), Engine RPMS very high, doesn't like to drop below 3k rpms. Shifting is very close to what I would do in a manual while driving in spirited fashion. Really, really good.
• Tranmission is locked in gear. Torque converter never disengages. This makes it drive and feel like a DSG or manual clutched car. I love this.

Economy Pro:

• Comfortable steering and suspension.
• Soft, early shifts. Car feels like I'm in 6th gear before 35 mph.
• Throttle feels broken. ;-) Slow and soft to respond. Car will move if pedal is mashed.
• Transmission will 'coast' easily. Torque converter disengages and car coasts while engine throttles down some. Stats show I coast over 30 miles per tank fill. This surprised me.

Then there are two user configured modes: Sport Individual and Economy Individual. Both these modes start like their name sakes, but allow you to twiddle various aspects. This is super awesome. I love that BMW gives me the option to customize my ride, steering, engine and transmission. This rocks!

Automatic:
This is a dynamic mode and only available if you have the Adaptive Suspension option. All options - steering, dampers, transmission, engine adjust on-the-fly as needed which is determined by conditions and driver input. That is, slow easy driving - everything scales down in sensitivity - mash the pedal and 'instant sport mode' kicks in. I frequently drive in this mode.

Each mode has more aggressive shifts by moving shift lever to left (M/S). It's still in auto mode, until you shift up/down via paddles or shifter. At that point, you're in manual mode until shifter returns to the right.

Transmission management is very nice. It doesn't auto shift up for you in M mode (like many cars do), but will will down shift automatically to keep you from killing engine. This is OK, as, like I said, it's so quiet sometimes (frequently), I forget. ;-) I've read the 8HP does not have to downshift sequentially.. that it can actually shift from 8 to 2 (and few other tricks). That's cool.

So.. how does it drive? How does having all these options work in the real world? Exceptionally well.

It take s a little getting used to. All these drive modes and, frankly, all these gears. I'm coming off 6 speed manual and 6 speed autos. It's strange to feel so many up-shifts taking off from a stop. Manual shifting is more challenging. Oh, the ability is there. I works really fast. Numbers say it's not as fast as the DSG. It may be 1 hundredth of a second slower.. but I don't suspect most would be able to detect the difference. The lack of DSG was the only 'miss' on the BMW X3 M40i for me. After driving my M40i, I don't miss a DSG at all.

The challenge in manual shifting for me is mainly due to so many freaking gears, lack of noise (quiet car) and lack of vibration (excellent i6 w/ excellent smooth transmission). It would seriously help me if the RPMs and current gear selection displayed in the otherwise excellent HUD, but they don't. So, me manually shifting while sporting up my drive quickly escalates to, "what's my gear?" and "what's my rpm?" and "where am I?". Thankfully, the Sport Plus mode (or Sport Individual) with the shifter moved left to the M/S mode, is really near perfect. It drives like I want to - constantly keeping rpms high and changes very quickly. Honestly, as much as I hate to say it, it probably does a much better shifting job than I can do.

This combo also allows for something near magic. The 8HP has extra low gear for quick off-the-line starts and extra tall gear for excellent freeway mpg. It allows a 4,300 lbs car to get 0-60 in 4.4 sec, quarter mile in < 13s and 29 MPG on the freeway. I say 'magic' as those number simply don't make sense. They don't make sense in any historical comparison.

Compare to my 2008 Z4M Roadster, for instance. The X3 M40i is 1,200 pounds heavier, yet gets to 60 more than half a second faster! Plus, the X3 get 6 miles more per gallon on the freeway. WTF? I mean, really, WTF????

Conclusion: Kick ass engine, mated to a genius 8HP transmission, with some BMW programming talent. Factor in the ability to custom tailor your ride mode. Man-o-Man! This is so awesome!


Last note to any reading this who are considering purchase of an X3. Get the Adaptive Suspension!

Good article on BMW's B58 Engine here: youwheel.com

Wiki article on transmission: ZF 8HP Transmission

Tranmission applications: at popular mechanics

More transmission: truthaboutcars.com

Great write-up!

[kamek]

I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing!

[yllwwgn]

Spot on summary, thanks and 100% agree!

[ParadigmDawg]

Very nice and useful post.

With just an intake and mild piggyback tune, this car has become one of my favorites.

[GT500R]

Originally Posted by sinbad4

The 8HP 8-speed transmission is pure genius. It's used in Lambos, Jags, Jeeps, Bentlys, RAM trucks.. etc. Huge list of applications. That said, manufactures 'tune' them to their specific application. The engineers at BMW have done a shocking good job at implementing the 8HP with the B58. I listed computer in the title, as, of course, the engine and transmission are computer controlled. BMW did several things really well.

Computer mappings for engine and transmission - along with shock damping control (note: absolutely get the 'active suspension' option) and variable force and rate steering is done really well and mapped to various drive modes:

Sport:

• Tight steering
• Faster shifts
• More responsive throttle
• Firmer suspension
• Louder exhaust w/ pops.
• Engine RPMS stay higher.
• Tranmission is locked in gear. Torque converter never disengages. This makes it drive and feel like a DSG or manual clutched car.

Sport Pro:

• Very tight, firm steering
• Throttle so sensitive it's touchy
• Tight suspension
• Exhaust pops & crackles on the down shifts and farts on the up shifts under throttle
• When in Sport Mode (shifter to left), Engine RPMS very high, doesn't like to drop below 3k rpms. Shifting is very close to what I would do in a manual while driving in spirited fashion. Really, really good.
• Tranmission is locked in gear. Torque converter never disengages. This makes it drive and feel like a DSG or manual clutched car. I love this.

Is "Sport Pro" = "Sport Plus"?

The trans torque converter never disengaging is very, very interesting...

One thing I noticed is the shifts when engaging launch control are the most aggressive I have ever felt. Its like a different shift map is used then in Sport Plus and just punching it.

[GT500R]

Oh and one more thing, anyone know if you can alter the launch control points?

Thanks.

[nxa]

One small correction: when the gear shift is pushed left and you have used the shifters to go into manual mode, you can return to auto by holding one paddle and tapping the other. No need to move the gear shift right again. This way you can easily flip between bothbwithout taking hands off the wheel.

[abcsoup]

Originally Posted by natd

One small correction: when the gear shift is pushed left and you have used the shifters to go into manual mode, you can return to auto by holding one paddle and tapping the other. No need to move the gear shift right again. This way you can easily flip between bothbwithout taking hands off the wheel.

Didn't know you could cancel it like that; another way is to just hold the upshift/right paddle, which will also disengage manual mode.

[GT500R]

Originally Posted by natd

One small correction: when the gear shift is pushed left and you have used the shifters to go into manual mode, you can return to auto by holding one paddle and tapping the other. No need to move the gear shift right again. This way you can easily flip between bothbwithout taking hands off the wheel.

[nxa]

Originally Posted by abcsoup

Didn't know you could cancel it like that; another way is to just hold the upshift/right paddle, which will also disengage manual mode.

I think that works too, but it's faster with the two paddle method as you don't have to wait for it to register as a 'long hold'.

[sahajesh]

Looking to get an X3 in a year or so, keep the write-ups coming.

Will try the tips to flip from manual to auto, I always did shifter right and left so will try on my F30.

Thanks guys!

[sinbad4]

Thx for feedback. I updated OP with some shift time information.

[Alexm1982]

Great write up. Is there any way to get the car to stay in the mode it was previously in? It’s getting annoying to switch into adaptive or sport every time when the car turns on.

[sinbad4]

Originally Posted by Alexm1982

Great write up. Is there any way to get the car to stay in the mode it was previously in? It’s getting annoying to switch into adaptive or sport every time when the car turns on.

Sadly, no, not from BMW. Not at this time. And from what I've read, coding groups have had a hard time changing it. I've followed two people who managed to code it off of comfort (I think they both went to Sport), but both no longer have Comfort as a workable option.

I like BimmerCode. Option isn't there (many options are not there).

[DigiSage]

Almaretto was able to code my 2018 X3 M40i such that it always starts in Sports Individual mode, which you can configure to be anything you want. And, I still have access to Comfort mode, too. It took him maybe 15 minutes.

[sinbad4]

Originally Posted by DigiSage

Almaretto was able to code my 2018 X3 M40i such that it always starts in Sports Individual mode, which you can configure to be anything you want. And, I still have access to Comfort mode, too. It took him maybe 15 minutes.

I wondered if he had that worked out. Almaretto seems pretty awesome. I've only held back w/ him as I want ability to turn off, on, back to factory at will. I've looked into the ESYS coding. Was pretty optimistic, as I've been programming my own cars for 15 years.. but ESYS is pretty daunting. I started to, but backed out. It would help if I new German. ;-)

It really should be something we could set in the iDrive.

[DigiSage]

Originally Posted by sinbad4

I wondered if he had that worked out. Almaretto seems pretty awesome. I've only held back w/ him as I want ability to turn off, on, back to factory at will. I've looked into the ESYS coding. Was pretty optimistic, as I've been programming my own cars for 15 years.. but ESYS is pretty daunting. I started to, but backed out. It would help if I new German. ;-)

It really should be something we could set in the iDrive.

If you ask him to, I am pretty sure he can show you how to do what you want with ESYS (including installing it for you) and some 'cheatcode' files. I asked him a similar question and he had no trouble explaining.