E90 Auto box - what's it like?

[parapaul]

I quite fancy a 330d as my next car. I had a modern auto 'box in my previous car, and was sufficiently unimpressed that I deliberately picked a manual this time. However, the majority of 330d's seem to be autos so to rule them out would limit my choices significantly.

While for the majority of the time the auto was fine, my gripes were

1. That the bastid thing kept upshifting as I drove around corners. Even at 30ish round a roundabout, the gear change was enough to really upset the balance and made cornering a PITA. Short of putting it into tip mode for every single corner to hold the gear, there didn't seem a way around it.

2. It was far too keen to kick down under fairly gentle acceleration, and often resulted in a huge unwanted surge of speed. Now, I accept this may have been due to the gearbox software deciding there wasn't enough torque or whatever, but I knew there was.

So... A couple of questions really, to anyone who's driven one. Firstly, does it have a sport mode or anything similar, to discourage upshifting at low revs when I don't want it? And how smooth is it? There MUST be enough torque from that lump to stop it hunting under gentle driving conditions...

Thanks

[parapaul]

Good post, thanks

That's restored my faith a little bit - are the flappy paddles an option or standard?

I'll have to just get a decent test drive and see how it feels