Hi everyone - new member coming over from the BMW world. I'm in the market for an XE 35t r-sport or XE-S. I know the ZF8HP box can be very fast if tuned correctly. For you current owners, how do you find the factory transmission tuning? Anything annoy you with shift speed or rev matching on downshifts? Will it hold gears in manual mode?

I understand VAP has a transmission tune but it only works on the 2017 cars. Wondering if I need to limit my search to 2017 cars for tunability or if I can include 2018 cars as well.

 

I have a 2018 XES and I had my gearbox and diff fluid replaced when I bought the car about 18 months ago. If I'm in D or S and trying to give it some berries the shifting isn't great, it sometimes drops down a gear when it probably shouldn't and other times it seems to be in too high a gear for the situation... but this is my first auto vehicle so I think this might be more to do with me driving manual for the past 30-odd years. If I put it in D and just plod around like I'm not in a rush, it seems to handle that well.

In Dynamic + paddle mode it will still change down if you hit the kickdown switch or get the revs too low, or change up if you get near the rev limiter.. so it's not a "manual" in that sense, it lets you pick the gears but it doesn't give you 100% complete control. The kickdown switch is the biggest issue... I'll shift into the right gear way before I'm ready to make a move, then drop the pedal at the right moment and it'll disengage the clutch to shift down RIGHT when I need power. This has been annoying many times, and was very very dangerous two or three times. My solution was to 3D print a little cover that goes over the kickdown switch and stops the pedal level with the top face of the switch, works well but it had to be taped on due to the shape of the switch so it a) is a very inelegant solution and b) sometimes falls off 😂

 

Thanks for your input. I'm also a #savethemanuals guy. This will be my second car with an auto box. Sounds like the factory tuning will bug me in manual mode. I'll limit my search to 2017s.

 

Honestly I'm not sure it's the tuning, I just hate autos lol. I am getting used to this car and have learned to drive it but I spend probably 80% of my time using the paddles. I drive it fairly aggressively but even just cruising around I use the paddles to shift down as I approach a stop, then when I take off I use the paddles until I'm at cruising speed at which point I hold the upshift paddle long enough to put it back in D. In dynamic sport "manual" mode the tune is irrelevant, it only changes gears when it thinks you're about to either stall it or send a rod out the side of the block.

The car itself is fricken amazing and I love it, I'm just finding it hard to adjust to an auto. The only thing I really really didn't like was the kickdown switch, that was a bit sketchy..