Dear BMW: Please Sort Out Your Manual Gearbox
After driving a manual BMW, and again being left utterly disappointed with the gear shift, I think it's about time we called on BMW to make a manual worthy of the brilliant cars it makes
However, this week I spent time with both a 2016 M235i and
2011 1M Coupe, and the manual problem persists. First up the new car,
and immediately on moving the thing around a car park I noticed that
changing gear required a bit of force. (In fact, finding reverse
requires you to almost punch the shifter across past first, so why not
just use a lift or depress of the shifter like other manufacturers do?)
Once you’re going at speed, the problems are exacerbated. The
throw isn’t as long as in the old E46, but it’s anything but short.
Worst of all, changing gear requires you to really concentrate and ram
the shifter into place; the action of moving the stick doesn’t inspire
great confidence as to where exactly you are in the gate, and when you
push the stick into a gear, you have to get past an initial resistance.
It’s almost like the stick is catching on something.
The 1M, despite being older, is actually a little better, but
it’s far from perfect. I found with both cars that the shift action is
vastly improved by rev matching, so perhaps the problem lies in the
syncromesh? When giving the 1M stick in Sport mode, braking hard and
applying a heel-and-toe blip of the throttle as you downshift improves
things immeasurably. Unfortunately that’s not very practical in most
driving situations.
It’s frustrating, because in all other aspects you make
fantastic cars, BMW. Sure, the interiors hardly ever change between
generations and the orange dials feel hopelessly outdated in 2016, but
it all works nicely. As a driving experience, you’re on top of your game
in chassis feel and engine performance - if you could fix arguably the
most important feature of tying everything together, you’d have 10 out
of 10 cars.
I think if you spent a bit of time with some of the elites of the manual world, you’d see where I’m coming from. In a
Honda Civic Type R,
every movement of the stick is purposeful and it feels solid
underneath. You know exactly where you’re going and there’s a satisfying
slotting action. The king of this is the
Toyota GT86.
It almost feels artificial in its brilliance, as it’s like the stick is
sucked into place with a pleasurable thunk. The merest suggestion of a
shift and you clunk quickly into place. It’s a wonderfully tactile
experience and it means that when you’re really pressing on you’re not
taken out of the moment because you’re having to focus so hard on making
the gear stick.
(CarThrottle.com)
