[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by pbonsalb

My F90 M5 is so responsive and quick shifting that I have never noticed lag. My turbo E36 M3, if I am in the wrong gear, I notice lag sometimes. My E90 M3, if I was in the wrong gear it was a lot like lag — wait until the engine gets to 5000 and starts pulling hard to 8500. An E39 M5 would feel more torquey down low though the E90 M3 3.85:1 diff multiplies the smaller displacement S65’s torque more to try to compensate.

The best argument in support of manuals is that they give you more to do. I can put my F90 M5 in manual mode and play with the paddle shifters but that does not take as much effort or involve my left leg. But I just don’t feel the need. I drove mostly manuals for 40 years and still have a manual turbo E36 M3 and am restoring a manual 75 2002, but for performance or daily driving or even fuel economy, I’ll choose an auto.

Come on man, modern autos don't deliver THAT much better fuel economy, maybe 1 to 2 MPG better, maybe. And that's in the EPA test regimen; real world street driving it's probably even. If modern autos delivered 5 to 10 MPG better economy you'd have a case, but in reality, modern autos are on par with their manual transmission counterparts at best. Here are the EPA numbers for two of my cars currently in the fleet that were available with both an auto or manual transmission behind the same engine.