Thinking of next car, thoughts on gearboxes

[HFLagos]

Well I love my CSL, adore it. Amongst the many things I like, the SMG is right up there as being one of its best features.

About 3 months ago I had the wheels refurbed and 4 new tyres put on. It's now with Gareth and Emma at Elms having an Insp2 done and lots of other things (e.g. new rear box, AP discs, coolant, brake fluid etc etc). On top of this, looks like its also going to get the boot floor done. Will not have the car back till March, in the meantime I am looking at other exhaust options (currently have Supersprint centre pipe and race cats).

So it will have had a lot of money spent on it, but its deserved. It's a relative low miler (25k miles) and I asked Elms to address everything they found, even if some of the stuff was not particularly pressing.

The thing is, I just cannot think of a comparable car at the same money. Aside from all the stuff we love about the car (noise, looks, handling, generous use of CF), I also love the fact there are rear seats, the boot is big enough for my golf clubs and it's not stuck to the road so I don't have any problems with speed humps.

However, as I have some thinking time until I get the CSL back, my mind has been having inconsiderate thoughts about what I could replace it with one day. Now I know anything else will cost me more, but I was keen to hear peoples thoughts on other gearboxes.

e.g. if the SMG was not available, is there any other gearbox (aside from manual) you would consider as being appropriate for the CSL.

I was not overly impressed with the PDK, maybe I was not driving it in the right settings. I've found with VAG DSG boxes that the shift time is very quick, but there's no drama to it.

There's one car I want, but I don't want to drive it yet in case the illusion is shattered based on the box. It's a CLK63 Black Series, if any CSL owner has driven one, could you kindly post your thoughts please.

Cheers, Taz

[Barry C]

I haven't driven one but my neighbour has one. I think the CLK Black is in another league to the CSL. I'm sure the box is great, it's called 'F1 paddle shift' after all

http://classifieds.pistonheads.com/c...arranty/965694

[HFLagos]

Ha! Thanks. Romans International are down the road from me, I have been interested to see their CLK63 Black has come down to £65k now. Am sure it was in the low-mid 70's not that long ago.

[_Nathan_]

M-DCT on the e92 makes SMG seem properly agricultural, agree on DSG, really bland but didn't find that with M-DCT in the quickest manual modes it felt awesome. The feeling of interaction that VW completely forgot about with DSG is there in abundance.

[HFLagos]

Nathan, thanks. So is the M-DCT like a CSL in S6 with even quicker shifts?

[MAKHNO]

Just to make sure there's no misunderstanding - Porsche PDK and all other VW group double clutch variants have nothing in common. Porsche built their PDK entirely on their own.
But, if you want the very hard shift like the SMG in the CSL, you must have the Porsche option Sports Chrono. With this option you get a "Sport Plus" button, this will change gears in the the PDK like a hammer, close to the CSL

[HFLagos]

Thanks Makhno, my original sentences were perhaps a bit misleading!

I was not lumping Porsche PDK and VAG DSG together, I understand they are different.

I did feel the PDK car I drove (997.2 C4S) was a bit too smooth with the gearchanges, I suspected there was more to play with in the settings. I don't believe the Sports Chrono option was used, hence your comments make perfect sense.

Unfortunately, I also don't like depreciation very much, so this tends to exclude Porsche's recent offerings with PDK.

[digi]

my lp570 gives a good kick in the back.

[HFLagos]

I am sure it does!

What about the R35?