Good Car Bad Car: BMW RECALLS BRAND NEW M3 WITH DOUBLE-CLUTCH GEARBOX


BMW RECALLS BRAND NEW M3 WITH DOUBLE-CLUTCH GEARBOX


Fitment of BMW's first double-clutch gearbox (like Volkswagen's DSG, Nissan's GT-R tranny, and the SST in Mitsubishi's Evo X) went slightly wrong for at least 2,500 M3s, NHTSA concludes. "In a situation of rapid vehicle deceleration, the transmission software may perform a multistage downshift." Unanticipated stalling may occur; and that's dangerous.


Updated software is the answer, unsurprisingly. BMW dealers will reprogram the engine and transmission control units. The M3s involved are from the 2008 and 2009 model year, and you surely know if you've not been rowing your own gears lately. Been having problems with downshifts, oh ye M3 owners? Your problem will soon be solved.

 

Update has been out for about a month now. Had it done on my car during the first service and it also eliminated the delay which used to occur on upshifts. For those who had not heard of the problem, there used to be a slight delay from the time the paddle was pulled to the time the gearbox actually shifted. The shifts themselves were blazing fast, but the delay made it tough to shift near redline without hitting the limiter. Another issue which has been addressed by the update was the ignored downshift issue. M3 owners who tracked their cars complained that the gearbox would ignore downshift requests during threshold braking. From what I hear, this issue has also been corrected. I'm sure we will see many more software updates for the DCT transmission, but at least BMW is working to resolve the issues.

 

Never knew about this. Guess it's best to wait for the second or third year run of the car.