Anyone been fortunate enough to drive the new M3 with DCT, which is supposed to be far superior to SMG in 5's and 6's? I drove the M3 sedan today for first time. Smooth for an M!
I dont know if smooth is good for me, I drove them too, I like the rawness and the holigan feel of my e46 M3.
I'm hoping to find out soon as a colleague has the 1st M-DKG car to arrive at the Austin dealership. But maybe he won't let me drive it as one of the local guys has already had an accident in his (deer avoidance, not driver error) so i suspect he'll be really risk-averse about his new baby ... www.m3post.com has some good reviews of M-DKG so try there.
I was fortunate enough to drive both within a few days of each other. SMG at the Performance Center in Greenville (M5's and M6's), and now my own M3 with the DCT. The main problem I had with the old SMG is the power interruption during shifting. In comparison the DCT is almost completely seamless. I can't exercise it too far up the power band just yet, but from what I have seen up to 5000 RPM (and from previous test drives), for my taste this is the tranny to have.
I have ~1150 miles on my new AW E92 M-DCT. My previous two cars were an 05 E46 SMG-II and an 06 E60 SMG-III, which I both loved after learning to feather the shifts when tooling around in traffic. Of course this was not necessary under full throttle in the various SMG drivelogic programs, as the shifts are fast and accurate, and accomplished with varying intensities between velvet glove (program 1) and sledge hammer (program 5). Even with all this experience with the successive iterations of SMG, my wife didn't like to ride in the M5 because of the rocking horse effect and inherent jerkiness. Well I can tell you that the DCT is a totally different creature, with silky smooth almost imperceptible shifts in D1-2 in stop and go traffic. The shift points change at D3-5 but they are no less smooth. Under partial full throttle the gear changes are instantaneous with no interruption in power application to the road. It's an amazing feeling and I can't wait to experience the feeling when I can wind the engine to redline. The shifts are equally smooth in sequential mode, but being limited to 5500 rpm to this point, I have not explored driving in sequential mode too much. More after 1200 mile service.
I've converted from 6MT to DCT and seems like Im a DCT believer too. The Performance Center recently had their new M3 DCT lineup going to the breakin procedure to get it ready for the Spring M Driving Classes. I cant wait to get there next year and experience these cars going full throttle on a open tracks. MDCTFTW
