How good could manual trannys be if they'd spent money on

[Mike W.]

How good could manual trannys be if they'd spent money on them like they have on auto boxes? Now I will admit with manuals there are limiting factors, unlike slushboxes, who wants a 8 or 10 speed manual? But manuals are a mature technology. not much evolving about it anymore, 6 speeds are pretty much the limit. Again, as a die hard M/T guy, I don't even want a 8 speed.

But, forever synchros? Clutchless shifting, though I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I'm sure they could make them shift better, but at what point do they detract from things? Even in the new to me E39 530i/MT, it's so quiet it's a little difficult taking off. Between gears it's like butter, oddly so much better than my E36 which shared the same ZF tranny, but especially if you're hearing is, lets say, less than stellar, such as mine is, there's no feedback when starting off.

However, on autos. They should be so much better than they are. Especially the bottom feeders. They upshift, they downshift, often with no apparent reason. Won't hold a gear on a hill, cycle endlessly between gears, downshift on a hill, RRRRRRRR, then upshift, dhhhhhhh, then upshift, RRRRRRRR, then... And so on. The maddening thing to me at least is the fact that they're all electronic now, so they're doing what they've been told to do. Had a '12 Toyota Corolla rental when it was new. A complete POS that may or may not give 300K trouble free miles, but it reminded me of nothing besides a US spec 320i. Similar size, similar power, albeit not rated, auto box, more doors, better space utilization, but FWD, a 4 speed auto instead of 3, but seemingly no progress in 30 years?

I have found Ford trucks to be outstanding, even if I would rather have had 3 pedals. Their performance on hills impressed me. Sometimes it seemed before I even crested, they would downshift for the downhill. Fairly aggressively, but they were a truck application. I'm talking 12-15' U haul vans, dualie rear tires, much more than a basic pickup.

But lets face it, even for us diehards, 3 pedal cars are getting hard to find, I spent 2 years casually and 6 months intensively looking for the E39, 530i/5 I bought recently. I probably should have just gotten a slushbox, I could have gotten a nicer car, lower mileage, for less money. On the other hand, just selling my E36 328is/5, I had people beating down my door to buy it. Kind of like mini pickups, high demand, everyone wants one, except the people who buy them new.

Thoughts? Discussion?

[Shawn D.]

We'll never know.

[jdb]

The technology of last 5 years or so with say a M4 includes rev matching for down shifts!!
So there is DME monitoring of gear selection and clutch pedal position.

Jeff