04-06-2009, 05:46 AM
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#9 (permalink)
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A True Z Fanatic
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 4,024
Drives: too slow
Rep Power: 3596
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ZCarGo
No matter which way you cut it, the paddle shifters are nowhere near what a manual will feel like. It's difficult to paddle down into a curve, especially if you want to drop from 6th or 7th to 3rd or 2nd and ease off the clutch and apply gas as you are moving through the curve. It's really difficult to get the down shift to the right gear when you are worried about paying attention to the curve and can't look at the damn display. Sometimes I depress the paddle three times and it only drops two gears, sometimes more...WTF??
Since the transmission is always engaged, it revs up to the appropriate level, but it's definately not the same as a manual when you have so much more control through turns.
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Some of this is a matter of adapting how and when you use the M-mode. If you need to drop 3 gears that fast, you were at low rpms to begin with. Start downshifting earlier and stay in the power band  I find that when driving aggressively and keeping the revs up, shifting through corners is very natural for me with the 7AT. If you're in 6 or 7 coming into a tight corner, you may as well just have left it in "D" 
Another interesting thing about technique with flipping between D and M is initial gear selection. If you've been cruising at any reasonable highway-ish speed, "D" will be in 7th gear at the time. However, if you flip the lever over to "M" at that point, it immediately downshifts to 5 before giving you control (on the assumption you're taking over to downshift into a corner I guess). In situations where you don't want that, simply click the upshift paddle first before flipping the shift knob to M, and you'll stay in 7 through the transition. In general, it's easiest to make the D-to-M transition by first using the paddles in D (which "temporarily" puts it in M-mode) and then flipping the shifter to M, as it avoids surprise gear changes.
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