The Automatic Gearbox And Its Failings

The Automatic Gearbox And Its Failings

Author
Discussion

Clivey

5,108 posts

203 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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bennyboysvuk said:
As I say, I've tried everything. It just won't do it when getting on the throttle. I'd dearly love for it to handle like the 325 in that vid, but even with a Scandinavian flick it won't behave like that, the fronts just scrub into horrific understeer, the kind where it doesn't matter what direction you point the wheel the car's trajectory is still the same.

I guess I can paint lines, but with the front wheels instead of the rear. It reminds me of driving a Metro, except I had a manual Metro so it was more fun. smile
What tyres are on it (make/model/sizes)? I don't know about the E90 but the E46 is very sensitive to them and if you drive one on the "wrong" rubber, you won't come away enamoured with it.

ORD said:
For me, the more heinous crime is the chronic understeer in the 3 series. Never mentioned by the fawning press but so bad it's almost dangerous. When I had a 320d for a few days, I explained to my wife that it will in fact go around a corner properly if you trail brake it in and then use a bit of throttle to balance it. Her perfectly sensible response was 'I'm hardly racing the thing! It should steer by the steering wheel'.

If I had reviewed it, I would have had a section in bold saying 'This car understeers like a pig unless you manage the weight transfers yourself' which I would have thought should be inconsistent with a 5 star rating.

Before someone shouts 'driving God', most of this driving was very sedate indeed. It will understeer at the kind of speeds a granny would drive it on A roads.
Is that the E90 & F30 you're referring to? I haven't spent enough time in them to comment on the handling and I'm not questioning your personal experiences but there's a big discrepancy between the opinions I'm hearing (see below). confused

Evo Review - F30 335i said:
The rest of the dynamic experience is pretty similar to that we’ve encountered in the 328i and 320d with an agile, responsive chassis. It’s more mature than previous 3-series, and perhaps a little bit less willing to go and play, but drive it hard and you’ll find benign manners and a well-judged chassis balance that keeps both front and rear ends working in harmony under enthusiastic real world driving. There’s more than enough power to steer the car from the back, should you be so minded – although the heavier six-cylinder engine does take the slightest edge of the front end responses compared to the lighter four-cylinders.

bennyboysvuk

Original Poster:

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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jamieduff1981 said:
Why not get rid of both and get something decent? The 120d is a nice chassis but the engine is st and really lets the car down. It's so peaky and slow to respond to pedal inputs that you just can't enjoy that chassis properly without overcommitting to corners like an idiot.

Ditch both and get something that's actually driving focused - a 1M, M135, M3 or perhaps even something from another manufacturer!
We do need an estate car for family duties and my perfect solution would be an E46 M3 Touring, but that doesn't exist. I know what I want though:

Estate car
RWD
Few driver aids
LSD
Manual gearbox

Edited to add that the 1 series chassis is indeed excellent. I find the engine a means to an end in it though, but at the time of purchase, the diesel made sense. I would consider PX-ing it for a 130i though.

Edited by bennyboysvuk on Friday 25th July 10:50

bennyboysvuk

Original Poster:

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
Go to Ebay and buy a set of 318 or 320 wheels. Your tyres will then be half the price and the right ones for the car. smile
That's not a bad idea. I've considered replacing the rear Michelins once they wear out with some ditchfinders to restore some sort of handling balance.

bennyboysvuk

Original Poster:

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
Clivey said:
What tyres are on it (make/model/sizes)? I don't know about the E90 but the E46 is very sensitive to them and if you drive one on the "wrong" rubber, you won't come away enamoured with it.
It's running Michelin PS2s 225 front, 255 rear. I've tried putting 40psi in the rears to increase oversteer and keeping the fronts at the regular pressure, but the front camber isn't enough to keep the tyres planted, so the top of the 'Michelin' logo is being slowly scrubbed from the sidewall.

Clivey

5,108 posts

203 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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bennyboysvuk said:
That's not a bad idea. I've considered replacing the rear Michelins once they wear out with some ditchfinders to restore some sort of handling balance.
Whilst that initially sounds like a good idea, the nature of some ditchfinders can make them unpredictable. IMO DonkeyApple knows what he's talking about; smaller wheels & tyres (decent ones) would probably do wonders. Nice video for you here (you may want to turn on the English subtitles).

bennyboysvuk said:
It's running Michelin PS2s 225 front, 255 rear. I've tried putting 40psi in the rears to increase oversteer and keeping the fronts at the regular pressure, but the front camber isn't enough to keep the tyres planted, so the top of the 'Michelin' logo is being slowly scrubbed from the sidewall.
yes I have 225 front, 255 wide Avon ZZ5s and the limits of grip are very high. The Michelin's might be even grippier. Some suggest swapping for the same-size wheel & tyres all round but I'd speak to someone who knows how to set-up these cars before you do.

Edited by Clivey on Friday 25th July 10:52

DonkeyApple

54,921 posts

168 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Clivey said:
yes I have 225 front, 255 wide Avon ZZ5s and the limits of grip are very high. The Michelin's might be even grippier. Some suggest swapping for the same-size wheel & tyres all round but I'd speak to someone who knows how to set-up these cars before you do.

Edited by Clivey on Friday 25th July 10:52
Yup. You still need quality tyres.

Putting 225s on the rear shouldn't be an issue but if going smaller on the front then it's worth considering if you should adjust the set up. It shouldn't need it but you never know.

The 120D runs 205 and 225 and I really believe these are far better sizes for the 130. The standard Fandango spec is really far too much rubber.

ORD

18,086 posts

126 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
Clivey said:
bennyboysvuk said:
As I say, I've tried everything. It just won't do it when getting on the throttle. I'd dearly love for it to handle like the 325 in that vid, but even with a Scandinavian flick it won't behave like that, the fronts just scrub into horrific understeer, the kind where it doesn't matter what direction you point the wheel the car's trajectory is still the same.

I guess I can paint lines, but with the front wheels instead of the rear. It reminds me of driving a Metro, except I had a manual Metro so it was more fun. smile
What tyres are on it (make/model/sizes)? I don't know about the E90 but the E46 is very sensitive to them and if you drive one on the "wrong" rubber, you won't come away enamoured with it.

ORD said:
For me, the more heinous crime is the chronic understeer in the 3 series. Never mentioned by the fawning press but so bad it's almost dangerous. When I had a 320d for a few days, I explained to my wife that it will in fact go around a corner properly if you trail brake it in and then use a bit of throttle to balance it. Her perfectly sensible response was 'I'm hardly racing the thing! It should steer by the steering wheel'.

If I had reviewed it, I would have had a section in bold saying 'This car understeers like a pig unless you manage the weight transfers yourself' which I would have thought should be inconsistent with a 5 star rating.

Before someone shouts 'driving God', most of this driving was very sedate indeed. It will understeer at the kind of speeds a granny would drive it on A roads.
Is that the E90 & F30 you're referring to? I haven't spent enough time in them to comment on the handling and I'm not questioning your personal experiences but there's a big discrepancy between the opinions I'm hearing (see below). confused

Evo Review - F30 335i said:
The rest of the dynamic experience is pretty similar to that we’ve encountered in the 328i and 320d with an agile, responsive chassis. It’s more mature than previous 3-series, and perhaps a little bit less willing to go and play, but drive it hard and you’ll find benign manners and a well-judged chassis balance that keeps both front and rear ends working in harmony under enthusiastic real world driving. There’s more than enough power to steer the car from the back, should you be so minded – although the heavier six-cylinder engine does take the slightest edge of the front end responses compared to the lighter four-cylinders.
F30. It is the first and only time my wife has ever complained about the handling on any car.

I suspect a big part of the discrepancy is that all press cars seem to have the M Sport suspension, which I think must fix everything that is otherwise very wrong with handling and ride.

The precious iteration of the 3 series seemed pretty good to me even on standard suspension.

bennyboysvuk

Original Poster:

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
ORD said:
For me, the more heinous crime is the chronic understeer in the 3 series. Never mentioned by the fawning press but so bad it's almost dangerous. When I had a 320d for a few days, I explained to my wife that it will in fact go around a corner properly if you trail brake it in and then use a bit of throttle to balance it. Her perfectly sensible response was 'I'm hardly racing the thing! It should steer by the steering wheel'.

If I had reviewed it, I would have had a section in bold saying 'This car understeers like a pig unless you manage the weight transfers yourself' which I would have thought should be inconsistent with a 5 star rating.

Before someone shouts 'driving God', most of this driving was very sedate indeed. It will understeer at the kind of speeds a granny would drive it on A roads.
The understeer really is dreadful. The most similar handling car I've owned in the past was a £325 Volvo 460. Even my shed Mondeo was far more playful. I place the blame on the thickness of the ARBs and the new front suspension design that favours positive camber of the outside front wheel during cornering, ensuring that the front end loses loads of grip mid-corner. I assume that they put a wimp of a rear ARB on to reduce the lift on the inside rear wheel during cornering so that they didn't have to fit an LSD.

Funnily enough, my wife said something similar about the cornering.

Hasbeen

2,073 posts

220 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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While an auto is great in peak hour traffic, & I have a ZF high stall in the 330 BHP TR8, which will kick back to second & take off like a scalded cat, quicker than I could ever do it manually, it still lacks that supreme driving pleasure.

That feeling when braking hard into a corner, you give a quick blip of the throttle, & make a perfectly smooth change back to second or third, as you poor the thing into the corner, & balance the tail with just the right amount of throttle, all in perfect timing & harmony.

It is even better when you do it with a crash/dog box, like the Hewland in the 60s F1s & F2s.

Ozzie Osmond

21,189 posts

245 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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ORD said:
The precious iteration of the 3 series seemed pretty good to me even on standard suspension.
In the days when I had a 3 series the back was keen to overtake the front at any opportunity and the cars were often criticised for this. Now people are complaining about the built-in safety understeer which is found in pretty much every modern car.

Mind you, the way most small Audis and BMWs seem to get driven these days - thrashed within an inch of their horrid dieselly lives - it's fortunate the manufacturers minimise the scope for gross muppetry.

Clivey

5,108 posts

203 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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"Safety understeer". That's enough to make me cower in a corner (my first car was an '04 Corsa). cry

ORD

18,086 posts

126 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
ORD said:
The precious iteration of the 3 series seemed pretty good to me even on standard suspension.
In the days when I had a 3 series the back was keen to overtake the front at any opportunity and the cars were often criticised for this. Now people are complaining about the built-in safety understeer which is found in pretty much every modern car.

Mind you, the way most small Audis and BMWs seem to get driven these days - thrashed within an inch of their horrid dieselly lives - it's fortunate the manufacturers minimise the scope for gross muppetry.
Almost all road cars will understeer a bit towards the limit for safety reasons. In this case, there is no way I was at or near the limits of absolute grip and yet the front end kept pushing wide. The window of understeer is enormous and can only be quelled with trail braking even at leisurely speeds.

To be clear, I am not saying I found the ride and handling bad for a 3 series. I found them bad for any car - FWD hatch, Mondeo, SUV...

I think the set up in my mum's older (2008) 335i is far better and a lot more neutral.


cerb4.5lee

30,182 posts

179 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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ORD said:
To be clear, I am not saying I found the ride and handling bad for a 3 series. I found them bad for any car - FWD hatch, Mondeo, SUV...
I found the understeer on the V6 mondeos to be pretty bad at times and I remember once turning into a corner and nearly ended up in a front garden of a house because it just ploughed straight on and it gave me a bit of a fright.

I don't find the understeer bad at all in my 330 but I suppose that's because I get to drive an Audi TTS regular so compared to that the 3 series will feel pretty good!!

bennyboysvuk

Original Poster:

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
cerb4.5lee said:
I found the understeer on the V6 mondeos to be pretty bad at times and I remember once turning into a corner and nearly ended up in a front garden of a house because it just ploughed straight on and it gave me a bit of a fright.

I don't find the understeer bad at all in my 330 but I suppose that's because I get to drive an Audi TTS regular so compared to that the 3 series will feel pretty good!!
Have you had any decent drifts in your 330 though? I've tried and failed. Maybe you were lucky and someone fitted M3 suspension parts to your car before you purchased it. wink

bennyboysvuk

Original Poster:

3,491 posts

247 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
In the days when I had a 3 series the back was keen to overtake the front at any opportunity and the cars were often criticised for this. Now people are complaining about the built-in safety understeer which is found in pretty much every modern car.
I loved my E30 325 Sport Touring and my E36 328 Sport. Both had LSDs and no traction control and were hugely entertaining. It felt like they had very sporty drivetrains in fairly normal cars. I thought the E91 330 would be similar at least, but it doesn't have anything like the character and playful handling of those cars.

DonkeyApple

54,921 posts

168 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
bennyboysvuk said:
I loved my E30 325 Sport Touring and my E36 328 Sport. Both had LSDs and no traction control and were hugely entertaining. It felt like they had very sporty drivetrains in fairly normal cars. I thought the E91 330 would be similar at least, but it doesn't have anything like the character and playful handling of those cars.
195 tyres and higher profile. wink

All these modern cars have far too much rubber. By the time they are at the point of losing traction electronics have become essential because the snap when it comes is more than even good drivers can react to.

Wide wheels, four exhaust pipes. Every car seems to want to emulate a Pantera.

Fit the right tyres to these cars and loss of traction will be like the fat bird carving towards you across the room. Piss easy to spot and plenty of time to evade.

Clivey

5,108 posts

203 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
195 tyres and higher profile. wink

All these modern cars have far too much rubber. By the time they are at the point of losing traction electronics have become essential because the snap when it comes is more than even good drivers can react to.

Wide wheels, four exhaust pipes. Every car seems to want to emulate a Pantera.

Fit the right tyres to these cars and loss of traction will be like the fat bird carving towards you across the room. Piss easy to spot and plenty of time to evade.
laugh I know what you mean though. - You have to get brutal with my measly 170BHP in the dry (on 255 rears). I've given myself more of a fright in this car than other, much more powerful cars that I've driven.

DonkeyApple

54,921 posts

168 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
Clivey said:
DonkeyApple said:
195 tyres and higher profile. wink

All these modern cars have far too much rubber. By the time they are at the point of losing traction electronics have become essential because the snap when it comes is more than even good drivers can react to.

Wide wheels, four exhaust pipes. Every car seems to want to emulate a Pantera.

Fit the right tyres to these cars and loss of traction will be like the fat bird carving towards you across the room. Piss easy to spot and plenty of time to evade.
laugh I know what you mean though. - You have to get brutal with my measly 170BHP in the dry (on 255 rears). I've given myself more of a fright in this car than other, much more powerful cars that I've driven.
That's a humongous amount of rubber. I think this is also why some people at that the manual box gives more control. To get cars with this much rubber to break away and be a laugh while still being safe you have to bugger about with the clutch. With that much rubber the speed you'd need to be travelling to break away via the throttle and the skill to catch and hold something that is going to be snapping so suddenly it's just not sensible.

We all love the Pantera but we also know that Carlos Fandango's customers were tools. I think de-rubbering is the way forward to get soul and fun back into modern cars.

cerb4.5lee

30,182 posts

179 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
bennyboysvuk said:
cerb4.5lee said:
I found the understeer on the V6 mondeos to be pretty bad at times and I remember once turning into a corner and nearly ended up in a front garden of a house because it just ploughed straight on and it gave me a bit of a fright.

I don't find the understeer bad at all in my 330 but I suppose that's because I get to drive an Audi TTS regular so compared to that the 3 series will feel pretty good!!
Have you had any decent drifts in your 330 though? I've tried and failed. Maybe you were lucky and someone fitted M3 suspension parts to your car before you purchased it. wink
I have lots of time for you Ben and we are on a very similar wavelength and sometimes I go in the garage and see the 330 and I think its OK and then sometimes I go in and look at it and want to smash it to pieces because its such a boring motor but if it was a manual things might be a little different though.

Like you I like to have a little fun with the rear end and the auto just ruins that which is a serious shame but then with experience we should have known this anyway and that's why I get annoyed because I was daft enough to buy another car with just two pedals.banghead

cerb4.5lee

30,182 posts

179 months

Friday 25th July 2014
quotequote all
DonkeyApple said:
195 tyres and higher profile. wink

All these modern cars have far too much rubber. By the time they are at the point of losing traction electronics have become essential because the snap when it comes is more than even good drivers can react to.

Wide wheels, four exhaust pipes. Every car seems to want to emulate a Pantera.

Fit the right tyres to these cars and loss of traction will be like the fat bird carving towards you across the room. Piss easy to spot and plenty of time to evade.
This is such a top class post! thumbup its had me in stiches and its just so true! biggrin