[M-drive]

Hi. I am new to this forum as I have just joined. I have a 2009 E90 M3 with DCT and live in Sydney, Australia. The car is standard with no mods. I have had the car for about 4 years and while overall it is am impressive car, it has some really annoying faults that have recently be solved and thought I would share with you.
1. The car suffered from incessant pinging when the outside air temperature was between 16 deg C (61 deg F) and 28 deg C (82 deg F), on a light throttle up to about 3500 rpm. I only use RON 98 fuel. I have tried having this resolved many times by BMW Australia, BMW Germany and M Division and all I got back was that the car was operating as designed and this pinging was normal and related to emission laws in Europe. This has been a huge frustration that such a sophisticated car could suffer from something as basic as pinging due to ignition timing or fuel mixture, made worse as BMW were not prepared to resolve it.
2. I have previously always had manual transmission cars and regretted getting this DCT for a few reasons. Downshifts when coming to a stop or slowing down were often jerky and often unexpected in D mode. Coming to a complete stop was also often jerky as the DCT tries to engage the creep forward mode just before stopping resulting that I have to brake harder than required to overcome this when stopping. Smooth stops were almost impossible to achieve. Trying to make quick three point turns were almost impossible as the delay in switching between 1st and reverse and back to 1st gear are excessively long. This can be embarrassing while you wait for the transmission to catch up with your selection. There is also an excessive amount of clutch slip on normal pull off.

Recently, I discovered BPM Sport and found out that they offer a number of different tuning packages. One for the engine tune and the other for the DCT. After lots of correspondence with Mike Benvo of BPM, I reflashed my cars ECU with both the Stage 1 engine tune and the DCT Shift tune. The service I received from Mike and his team was fantastic. He helped me with the download through a remote portal so that while he was in Los Angeles, I did the download at my home in Sydney.

The result is amazing. The pinging has been cured, the gear change is smooth, the stopping is smooth, the switching between 1st and reverse is noticeably quicker and the clutch slip on pull off is reduced. The car is now so much better to drive. In my opinion this is the way it should have been from the start. My only regret is not discovering Mike and BPM Sport sooner as I am delighted with the result.

Additionally, the car feels quicker although I did not do a dyno run before and after so I cannot say how much more power and torque is achieved. There are a number of other improvements that make the car so much better to drive.

I just thought I would share my experience with you as the results and BPM's service have really been exceptional.

[maddmatth]

Surprised to hear your DCT complaints. I have a 335i with DCT and it's incredibly smooth, in Drive I can hardly sense it downshifting when I slow down and there is no jerkiness when I stop.
However, I tested another 335i with DCT when shopping around and in that one I could feel a slight kick as it upshifted.

Guess they're not all built the same? Maybe software differences.

Mine is a 2010 with N55 engine, other one was an 08 with N54.

Only issue I share is it's a bit slow to switch between forward and reverse.
Another issue I find is when I quickly transition from slowing down to acceleration it feels like it can take a second before it responds, like it has a very slow gear change at that moment. Happens sometimes approaching a roundabout.
It just throws you off because it's so responsive the rest of the time.

M3 DCT is the same unit I believe but different firmware with the extra shifting modes ect, so I guess behavior won't be exactly the same.

[supergoat]

Sounds normal to me. I've driven many BMWs with DCT and they all have issues. Driving them slowly in a parking lot feels like you are riding with someone that is still learning how to drive a manual.

[DOCTOR.Y]

Op thanks for the post. Would the stage 1 tune completely cure pinging? Is it an off the shelf tune or customized tune?