Interesting thing I ust started noticing on my vehicle. When i mash on the accelerator down to the floor and let it up immediately, all this while cruising at any given speed, the engine revs upwards to 5500RPM for a minimum of 3 seconds. i ran this test because i was noticing a slight delay when starting from a standstill after i would start pressing on the accelerator. i have not ever experienced this in my 325xi. I'm taking my car into the shop tomorrow so they can hopefully diagnose and fix this. Anyone experience anything similar?
So here i am posting a reply to my own thread. I spoke with a very knowledgeable tech at BMW today at our local shop. Apparently all of the automatics come with a kick down switch which was designed as a passing gear. there is an actual switch located behind the accelerator which when you press it all the way down gives you more RPMs for passing. Gotta love the BMW engineers for thinking of this one.
You do have to love the Germans for their designs. My father still has the 1967 Mercedes Benz 200 D that my grandfather bought new in Germany. It is an automatic and has a switch under the gas pedal to downshift when the car is floored. When my grandfather first got it and was driving around Germany he was going up a steep hill in the town of Marburg and couldn't make it up the hill. My dad (who was in school there) had to rescue my grandfather and show him that by flooring the car the gas pedel hits a switch on the floor and downshifts the car! It was my father who encouraged my grandfather to buy the car. In the past he had always bought GM cars, mostly manual trans powerful Pontiacs. Here is a picture of the MB next to two of my Bimmers. GR
I'll tell you what is awesome about that is 3 months before i was born my parents bought a '75 240D brand new. i drove it from age 16 until 18 when the floor literally rotted away, and i remember that by flooring it and hitting that switch i got the extra boost i needed. had completely forgotten about that. i owned a 2002 benz slk320 for a few yrs and sold it, just wasnt the same as those old classic diesels.
Yes there is something about the old classic MBs, especially the diesels. My dad got the car in the late 70s, a few years after I was born. I can remember riding in it and thing it was so cool. On my prom night in high school I took the old 200 of course and at that time upon start up the would often set off a huge blue smoke screen. So on prom night it of course performed this magical smoke screen for me. It caused quite a laugh amongst my friends, although I don't think most really appreciated it so much considering you could barely breath! Some reason though, it does not do this anymore. The thing fixed it's self I guess. Was is amazing though is all the mechanical linkages under the car that tell the auto when to shift. It has inputs from road speed, throttle position, the switch under the gas pedal, etc and it is all mechanical! No computers here! GR
how many miles are on yours? at 165k my father and i rebuilt the engine. when i got rid of it is was at about 250k, just breaking in. the last road trip i took in it was to a grateful dead show in '94. man i miss that car.
Ours has "only" 125,000 miles on it. Back around 83 or so my dad put a Classic license plate on it. Here in PA you can put a Classic plate on a car that is 15 years old or an Antique Plate on a car that is 25 years old. A few years ago my dad put the Antique Plate on it. ( I have a classic plate on my 88 M3) So the car has not been in regular use since the early 80s. In fact that last ten years it has averaged less than 500 miles a year. We just use it around town on nice days. It really is too slow for highway use, so it hasn't seen a road trip in a long time. Although it would probably be good for it. It is amazing the technology in such an old car. Even though it was the bottom of the line MB it still had dual heating in the cabin. The driver and pass each had their own heating controls! I can understand why you miss it. I think this one will always be in the family! GR
Even better is.... Two downshift taps of the paddle shifter down to 4th from 6th and passing four cars at once and seeing folks gasp as I blow on by em all!! Then looking at the speedometer and noticing that I am clocking 115mph!! Those BMW brakes ROCK as I angle into the next turn!! All that and I still avoided the redline! Ultimate Driving Machine for sure!! I'm still exploring the upper reaches of what this car can do! The above mentioned pass was quite the shocker for my wife the first time I did it with her in the car! I am now asked to "warn" her prior to blasting past cars on a two lane road! Hang on babe here we GO!!
