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2015 BMW 2 Series - Edmunds Road Test

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 10,315
edited December 2015 in BMW
2015 BMW 2 Series - Edmunds Road Test

Road Test Editor Carlos Lago expounded on the smart design of the 2015 BMW M235i shifter some weeks ago, but stopped short of explaining the logic behind the manual shift orientation. I'll pick it up from here in a second.

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    daryleasondaryleason Member Posts: 501
    Regarding the transmission, I think of the normal manual transmission layout. Lower gears above higher gears. "1" above "2", "3" above "4", & so on. So to me, the shift pattern makes sense. As for the zoom control, I'd think clockwise to zoom in and counterclockwise to zoom out because that's how all of my binoculars & rifle scopes function.
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    thepuffthepuff Member Posts: 87
    Clockwise to zoom is also how camera lenses work
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    allthingshondaallthingshonda Member Posts: 878
    For the transmission the logical part of my brain equates push up to up shift and vice versa. But I also get the idea of downshifting while braking would feel natural to push up since g forces are pushing you forward. And clockwise to zoom in counter to zoom out.
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    legacygtlegacygt Member Posts: 599
    The direction of forces under acceleration and braking always comes up as a way to laud or complain about the manual shift direction on these transmissions. Some say BMW and Mazda have it right. Some say they have it wrong. I don't care either way but I have a real problem with the "forces" argument in support of one approach vs. the other. Almost all enthusiasts agree that the most engaging driving experiences can be found in cars with manual transmissions. The manual transmission shift patter requires pushes and pulls and lateral movement in order to work through the gears. Every one of these shifts can be fun and it has absolutely nothing to do with the forces being felt by the driver. If you're in the "forces" camp and you accelerate in a manual transmission car, then half of your shifts will be in the "wrong" direction. Same thing when braking. But you know what? It's still a lot of fun.
    The most annoying thing is that there's no standard for these transmissions so you need to re-learn the proper direction for each car. I wish there was a standard and I'm sure we'd all be able to get used to it whichever way it went.
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    sockpuppet1969sockpuppet1969 Member Posts: 308
    When turning clockwise, you are not turning the knob "away from you". You are turning the distal half of the knob away from you and the proximal half towards you. I agree with the screw analogy, turning clockwise (to the right) should zoom in. This also makes sense because the linear zoom indicator usually has the zoomed out view on the left of the screen and the zoomed in view on the right.
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    stevej2001stevej2001 Member Posts: 10
    None of this stuff is relevant in the real world. I'm on my 2nd BMW with the new shifter, and all this stuff comes naturally in a week or two of driving. It's only a problem if you're jumping from car to car.

    In 1974 I bought a Fiat 128 on the basis of multiple glowing reviews. The only complaint in each was that the window cranks worked backwards from all other cars. The reviewers missed that it was a total piece of crap. I easily got used to the window cranks but not all the problems.
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    csubowtiecsubowtie Member Posts: 143
    It should be turn clockwise to zoom in.
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