BMW Shifter

[DaveB]

And how many BMWs are on the road with this lever?
I think you'll find the electronics protect the system

No, thousands of BMW's have crashed and killed all the occupants because the gear lever is accidently bumped.

 

[emax]

Good evening,

after doing a road test with the IG I had some doubts about the gear selector:
- if the selector is accidentally moved towards neutral or reverse while driving, what happens?
- and if the PARK button is pressed?
- driving in manual, if by inserting a gear and pushing the lever forwards the PARK button is mistakenly pushed, what happens?

thanks

1. You can move the shifter to 'N' even if you are driving, also at significant speed (e.g. 100 Km/h is no problem).
2. Nothing happens, except that you're 'sailing' in 'N'.
3. You can go back to normal driving any time. The software automatically selects the highest gear which makes sense.
4. You can not move the shifter to 'R' while you're driving or sailing.
5. I didn't try 'P', but I think it won't have any effect while you're driving. It would be a fatal design error.
6. And as Tazzie has noted correctly: It's all allowed by software.

In face of the nanny policy which doesn't allow anything you would sometimes like to have, this can not be a coincidence. I think it's all considered normal operation. The manual doesn't list any restrictions.

All tested successfully.

As I wanted to exactly know this, I wrote this EMail to the ZF technical support:

Dear Sir or Madam,

in my new INEOS Grenadier Diesel your 8HP76 gearbox is installed, which harmonizes wonderfully with the B57 engine from BMW.

Now I have found (by accident) that it is possible to shift into "N" gear while driving.

The BMW gear stick allows this, and the vehicle/transmission software apparently does not block this.

Also the INEOS vehicle manual does not formulate any restrictions in this respect.

I would now like to know from you whether the HP8 76 is suitable for this mode of operation ("sailing"), or whether this can damage the transmission. Because in some stretches, at least here in the area, I can let my Grenadier roll for miles in "idle" without it getting faster or slower: The gradient is optimal, the speed settles at 70-80 Kmh. The consumption over my usual route reduces measurably.

However, I would like to avoid that the gearbox is damaged due to lack of lubrication (if this is reduced at idle) or also for other reasons.

Therefore, is your HP8 76 transmission suitable for such operation?

Thank you very much for your attention.

I am looking forward to your reply. Until then

best regards,
...

As was to be expected (but is a sad document of a typical "save-your-ass" response), the answer was not very informative:

Dear Mr. ...

from the ground up, you should refer to the vehicle's operating instructions.
From the technical side, the oil pump is driven in neutral and some parts are moved by the cardan shaft.
Unfortunately, I can not tell you if the gearbox is damaged by this. Usually the neutral position is only for certain situations.
( Towing, pushing or in the car wash etc. )

But look at

the oil pump is driven in neutral and some parts are moved by the cardan shaft

As there was no "NEVER DO THAT" and the oil pump is always active, I think there is no risk in doing such things, as long as you're not rolling down the Mount Everest at 150 Km/h in Neutral position for an hour or so.

But that's only my personal assessment.

 

[tkig]

...

The only thing I don't like: when in cruise control, and switching to manual mode to use the engine break, it should (in my opinion) switch of the cruise control, as it does when you put your foot on the break, but it doesn't.
Therefore, in lower gear (manual mode) the motor want's to accelerate while you want to slow it down.

Having driven a BMW with said transmission for many years, cruise control not getting switched off (in my opinion) is useful to compensate for a certain behaviour: If cruise control is on and you are driving down a slope, you might reach a gradient where the current gear does not produce sufficient engine braking to keep the set speed but accelerate beyond. Unfortunately, at least my car/transmission does not intentionally shift down in such a situation to maintain the speed (it does of course when going up a hill and would get below the set speed, but not the opposite) but instead would start to auto-engage the friction brakes, so I'd switch to Manual and set a lower gear to avoid unnecessary friction braking, all while cruise control continues taking care of the speed. But that's maybe just me

Regards