Saw an old lady getting out of a BMW X7 M60i (the high performance version). I asked her what made her choose the M60i and she just said “I dunno, the salesman said it was the best one they had”.
Saw an old lady getting out of a BMW X7 M60i (the high performance version). I asked her what made her choose the M60i and she just said “I dunno, the salesman said it was the best one they had”.
Eh, downvote me, but manuals are overrated. Humans just can’t react as quickly anymore, especially with the power output now.
Now give me a gently used B58 or N63TU3 engine and I’ll be quite happy. Luckily these people that just “buy the best” don’t know what they have and just putt around town for a couple years.
It’s not always about reaction speed or power. Manuals are just more fun.
Sorry but what do you mean you have to react quickly when manuals are overrated? What should you be able to do so fast in manual?
Agreed. Manual shifting is superior because you understand what you’re going to do and can plan the shift vs acceleration. An automatic can only respond to your attempts to accelerate. An automatic will prevent moments where you shift too early and lose accelerative ability, but driven accurately, a manual will be more effective. The fun mentioned in other comments is the process of mastering this balance. An automatic will (should) never approach the boundary of what the engine/transmission is capable of. With a manual, your destiny is in your hands.
Yeah they do 5 mile journeys which turns the oil into fuel, then they follow the BMW service interval of 20k which is about 4x too long for a performance engine.
Lots of ‘gentle use’ means the bottom end spent it’s whole life at minimum oil pressure, oil which was probably trash most the time.
It’s not the clueless pensioners fault, but man the industry sucks now
Yeah you need to change the oil in these cars every 5k. They are high performance turbo engines. I would never buy a BMW that just was returned from lease. Walking disaster
You talking about the old Italian tune-up? I’m all about it. I drive a WRX, and the majority of my trips are with my kids to and from where we walk to school. Tiny trips. So I feel inclined to really get on her when I have my occasional trips elsewhere. It’d be wrong not to.
It’s also a manual, and I know it wasn’t you (or maybe it was), but I don’t drive manual because it’s the best performance option. I know that flappy paddle gearbox, to steal a line from Clarkson, is a faster, more accurate shift than I ever could do, but it’s just fun driving stick. I just feel more connected to the road driving stick.
I got this car new in October '24, and it’s my goal to keep it forever, because I’m not sure how long for the world stick is in general. Or ICE engines. And that’s okay, it’ll be a relic.
When I can’t buy a manual anymore I’ll just kill myself. Lol. They are just so immensely satisfying to operate.
Worse than automatics in 2026 though in every way except fun.
B58 will probably be my next car. My n55 has almost 200k on it and the problems are getting kind of frequent.