Who has driven a BMW with SMG?

Looking for some real feedback on the driving experience. Mainly DD. Would you go from a 5 speed 330 E46 to an SMG M3 for a small upcharge?

What version? I would not want an E46 M3 with SMG at all. Too rough for the street, too problematic for the track. Do not want.

I have not driven the variant in the E92 or later cars but the manual is very nice :)

E46 M3 with SMG. That's what I've heard but looking for more feedback from people that have been behind the wheel. I've never driven an SMG car.

I haven't heard anything good.

I had one for 60k miles that I sold. 2005

I now have a 2004 with 90k miles that I bought at 74k miles.

I love it, but its a love hate type of transmission. You either like it or not.

See if you can test drive one. If you are close to south Florida you can take mine for an extended test drive. If you drive with me you would not know the difference with a manual, you need some practice to shift smoothly.

The SMG is controlled by its own separate DME. I have a TTFS tune on it which completely transformed it.

You can also remove the SMGII for around $2k.

They can be converted to a row-your-own. I say it's worth a test drive. Please note, it's still a manual transmission, and must be driven like one to enjoy it. Lift for upshifts, or it'll be clunky as hell. Enjoy the paddles, they're pretty much cheating on a track.

Huckleberry wrote: What version? I would not want an E46 M3 with SMG at all. Too rough for the street, too problematic for the track. Do not want. I have not driven the variant in the E92 or later cars but the manual is very nice :)

STOP!

SMG != DCT

The DCT is brilliant.

Sub Machine Gun? An MP5 should fit.

z31maniac wrote:

Huckleberry wrote: What version? I would not want an E46 M3 with SMG at all. Too rough for the street, too problematic for the track. Do not want. I have not driven the variant in the E92 or later cars but the manual is very nice :)

STOP! SMG != DCT The DCT is brilliant.

BMW SMG == normal ZF six speed with really wide gates, CPU and a system of valves/solenoids doing the shifting for you.

In stock form it is abrupt and clunky. Fine when you are driving fast but really annoying when you are not (IMHO!). It is in no way sublime or polished like the Porsche system. Also, guys who brought them to the track eventually ended up stuck in a gear and watching everyone else drive around until the tow truck arrived. Until it broke though - it was pretty freaking brilliant at fast shifts - so much so that I briefly flirted with the idea of putting one in my E30 C-Mod race car if it could be made reliable. It would have been good for 1 sec a lap in just executing faster throws. The consensus among club racers and race shops was - it could not be made any more reliable than it was. Several tried it and none kept it so... do not want.

Converting them leaves you with a ZF six speed with wide, vague gates a computer could hit with a solenoid throw. If you go that route just get a trans from a manual car along with everything else you need.

I owned a 2002 M3 with an SMG earlier this year. I only used it as a street car and found it to be mostly fine. The more I drove it, the more accustomed I became to it. On occasion, I would find it and me not on the same page, but, overall, it's actually pretty great for the street. I never once put it in 'auto' mode, and almost exclusively used the paddles.

The first couple gens of SMG in the e46 were pretty bad. It's a single clutch (standard gearbox) with hydraulically actuated shifter and slave cylinder. Very slow and clunky. I've always compared it to the feeling of a young driver learning a stick.

If you learn to predict the auto shifts you can lift and smooth the jerkiness. I've also found if you clear the adaptations and drive casually it's smoother too.

Pretty sure SMG stands for E36 M3ty Motherberkeleying Gearbox.

The e90 is a vast improvement.

Yes, the DCT is a nice piece of kit. Several acquaintances and I drive it around town and on track, and all have good things to say. As for SMG, I have several acquaintances that drive the E46 around town and on track, and they all steer clear of the SMG.

DCT can be a little clumsy with the 1-2 shift around town. And it is annoying when I'm parallel parking the car -- there is a 1.5 second lag getting the car from a dead stop to forward or reverse motion, and there's a lack of really fine speed control associated with that. It's a subtle lurch, basically.

But wow, on the track, I can shift the car absolutely anywhere I want to. No alteration in the car's dynamics, just "blip" I'm in another gear. Only problem is keeping track of the exact gear number, because the display is small and located in the gauge cluster such that it's only visible when the wheel is at the neutral position.

Still not up to the P-car system's excellence, though. With their system, it just handles the track shifting for you. Their factory drivers are slower around the Ring if they try to pick the shift points themselves.

Personally, I think the E46 M3 is hands-down the most beautiful version of the 3 series. If one came my way in Laguna Seca blue with an SMG for the right price, I would probably just buy it anyway. Utter car porn.

That's because the Porsche is a DCT (PDK in their lingo) as well.

In reply to z31maniac: Yeah but their programming actually works on the track, whereas the BMW needs the driver to make the decisions. Not that it's hard . . . .

I have a 2005 SMG M3 and I love it.

I used the "automatic" mode once and never used it again. It is garbage.

When set to Drive and when you're controlling the gears it functions exactly as a manual transmission that happens to be able to shift a lot faster than you or me.

At part throttle and around town it can be a little jerky.

At full throttle it is sublime. BLIP. BLIP. BLIP. Rev matches downshifts. Brilliant.

It also comes with launch control. I got mine mainly for autocross use because the launch control and the instant shifts are worth a couple of tenths which actually matter in autocross - plus they remove the human error element.