You think that's annoying? Try moving here from the UK and having to drive on the wrong side of the road with the stick with your right hand rather than your left; through a bloody four-way stop thing.

 

actually i did move here from the UK... i used to reach for the door every time i went to shift gears :-)

still dont quite get the stop thingys... give me a roundabout any day

 

Ever picked up a relative from the airport and watched them try to get into the drivers side (yes my life is that boring)? I do miss resting my right elbow on the open window and cupping the shifter with my left hand. Went to Colorado for the first time last summer. They actually have roundabouts there! Must still be a commonwealth. Cheers.

 

Ahh ...no...

Four of the constituent states of the United States officially designate themselves Commonwealths: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But not Colorado...

 

No it doesn't, it's just typical engineering NIH. As stated every race car has had it the other way for years. Both my DCT and the SMG on my M3's had it this way, perfectly intuitive. Also I disagree that the steering wheel paddles need to be fixed to the column for track work. I've done plenty of track days and I've yet to have a problem with steering wheel mounted paddles. Even a street ratio steering rack rarely has you crossing hands over at a race track. Maybe autocrossing, but there you're in one or two gears. In any case at the track I exclusively use the paddles, so the shift lever orientation is immaterial to me!

 

to be honest it's a moot point for me as if I had (have) paddle shifters I would use them almost exclusively rather than the center stick but I completely agree with previous poster Montoya that having the downshift in the up position and upshift in the down positions makes more sense and is more intuitive!

If I remember correctly, Indy cars had sequential automatic shifters in aforementioned positions. But F1 (started with Ferrari) had the paddle shifters so the drivers can shifter faster amd keep both hands on the wheel for better driver safety and control... sans the incredible flying qualifying lap of the Aryton's Famous Monaco drive with one hand steering and the other shifting!

 

Could any competent electronic / electrical engineer not reverse or crossover the micro switches in the stick?

 

When you get into the driver's seat, take a moment to visualize the PDK shifter as a 2nd <->3rd gear shift. Works for me in cars with push to change up. In BMWs, you have to visualize it as a 3rd <-> 4th gear shift. The thing I've never been able to do is accommodate to the PDK push/pull buttons. I'm always pulling the right hand button at redline.

 

Manual gearboxes are so 60 seconds ago......

 

i was disappointed to find out the pdk shift that way as well.

i dont know of any other company than bmw that does it "correctly."

 

Learn your car and you'll know your car. They can't learn you.

 

I am driving a new Mazda 6 rental right now that has '-' forward and '+' back, like my BMW.

 

I agree, all manufacturers should install one of these. The original.
If you gonna do it, do it right..

 

At least BMW has it correct. My X5 has it correct for ffs!

I got in the 991, loved the pdk and hated that the shifting is BACKWARDS..

I totally hate it too.. almost makes getting a car with pdk a non starter because its such a huge blunder...

no idea how they could get this wrong.
someone at porsche needs to be slapped

 

Maybe it's just me, but when I watched Champion's video above, I couldn't help but notice a delay between the time the driver shifts the car using the paddles, and the actual upshift.

I have paddles in my '10 Carrera, and when I knock it over into 'manual shift' mode, it shifts 'now!' when I pull a paddle (either up or downshift) - no delay.

Curious... hmmmm....