Slk 55 paddle shift

[funbobby]

I've noticed from 2007 ? Onwards they look to have a paddle shift, is this a better change than the earlier buttons which I found on a test drive to be pretty horrible ?

[DJRC]

My14...solid metal paddles. Niceish. Manual process is crap anyway so ignore it.

[funbobby]

Just slow or clunky ?

[DJRC]

More the fact that it still changes gear automatically anyway or won't change gear when you want if it doesn't think its efficient or something like that. That means I don't instinctively know what gear Im in so no point. I just leave it in Sport. It does a decent enough job.

[ricky s]

funbobby said:

I've noticed from 2007 ? Onwards they look to have a paddle shift, is this a better change than the earlier buttons which I found on a test drive to be pretty horrible ?

The buttons or paddles have no bearing on the shifting, both shift as they do, the buttons/paddles are just a make and break contact's, lots of the W211 E55 late 04 onwards guys have swapped out the OEM buttons to the alloy paddles inc myself, easy fitment, and also looks a lot better that the original buttons.

Regards shifting I recently took my wife's 14 SLK55 out for a spirited run, I was quite disappointed with it compared to my own E55, my thoughts were it was quite slow in shifting. This said, have been at AMG over the weekend, am told by them, that putting the car in Manuel mode, the shifting will be more responsive, but not had time to test this theory out at date. I suppose its all what you want from the car yourself, some want to drive it hard, some want to cruise.

[eldar]

DJRC said:

More the fact that it still changes gear automatically anyway or won't change gear when you want if it doesn't think its efficient or something like that. That means I don't instinctively know what gear Im in so no point. I just leave it in Sport. It does a decent enough job.

Sport is pretty good, certainly.

The AMG has different software in the 7G box, and is much more aggressive in sticking to the manual override. If parameter steering was an option on the non-amg versions a slightly softer version of the AMG software replaced the ordinary.

My 350 has the snappier software and it works a treat, none of the symptoms you describe.