My first BMW

[jnkhan82]

oh another question, sorry for so many questions.

Lets say I get off the highway on to local streets and I'm in 5th gear as I take the exit, The red light is still a bit away but the speed limit is 30mph, can I stay in the high gear just doing 30mph? or do I need to down shift If I don't really need the power? I've just been riding in 5th til I get to the light and dropping it in N once i stop. Is that bad in anyway for the gear? or clutch?

[dekaliber]

Originally Posted by jnkhan82

oh another question, sorry for so many questions.

Lets say I get off the highway on to local streets and I'm in 5th gear as I take the exit, The red light is still a bit away but the speed limit is 30mph, can I stay in the high gear just doing 30mph? or do I need to down shift If I don't really need the power? I've just been riding in 5th til I get to the light and dropping it in N once i stop. Is that bad in anyway for the gear? or clutch?

As far as coasting in 5th and letting the engine braking help slow you down, that's fine.

Just don't let the engine speed fall under ~1000 RPM. In 5th gear the engine's going to get pretty bogged down once you start to really slow down. You can feel it. The engine has a natural tendency to idle around 800 or 900 RPM and you don't want the speed of the car to force it below that. It stresses the engine unnecessarily and you might stall.

Some people always downshift through the gears as they decelerate but personally I find that it's too much work if I know I'm just going to stop. Plus I'm not good enough to rev-match perfectly every time and it just seems like more opportunity to introduce clutch wear.

[nmulax]

Yeah, coasting to a stop in neutral is fine (not the safest thing - incase you have to accelerate quickly to avoid an accident), but don't let the engine bog down. Basically make sure you keep the RPMs above at least 1k.

[Hawkeye]

^^WHS. I personally like to downshift to keep in a good RPM range in case I need to perform some sort of evasive manuvers (probably carries over from my motorcycle riding). I usually don't go below 1.5K RPM, coasting in neutral is a good way to go cause it saves gas if that is appealing at all to you (I hope not too much if you are driving an M car!)

[Juice84]

Staying in gear coming to a stop actually causes leaner fuel ratios if you are coasting to save fuel(vs neutral), also it would reduce brake pad wear. All of this would be minimal savings though.

[Flying Scotsman]

Originally Posted by ebruder

This entire post was dead on, so I'll just post this cut & paste from the Owner's Manual.

EB

Drive-off assistant
The drive-off assistant enables you to drive off smoothly on uphill gradients. It is not necessary to use the parking brake for this.
1. Hold the car in place by depressing the brake.
2. Release the brake and drive off without delay.

The drive-off assistant holds the car in place for approx. 2 seconds after the
brake is released. Depending on vehicle load, the car may roll backwards a little during this time span. Drive off without delay after releasing the brake. Otherwise, the drive-off assistant will no longer hold the car in place after approx. 2 seconds and the car will start to roll backwards.<

Yeah!, exactly what model and year are you talking about???, bearing in mind the OP,s car is a 2003 as is mine, in fact i have a 2005 handbook and still no mention of this.

[LHB]

Originally Posted by Flying Scotsman

Yeah!, exactly what model and year are you talking about???, bearing in mind the OP,s car is a 2003 as is mine, in fact i have a 2005 handbook and still no mention of this.

I've driven 3 2007-2008 Z4M's and all of them have this "hill stop" feature or whatever it's called that keeps the brake applied for about 2 seconds after you remove your foot from the brake when you're taking off from a standing stop. It would have been very handy when I was driving a stick in Knoxville, TN, which may have San Francisco beat for the hilliest in-town streets I've ever seen.

It used to take deity-like abilities to parallel park with a MT on some of the streets around the UTK campus.