I just bought an '03 540/6 and it is proving a challenge to drive smoothly from a dead stop (unless I go real slow). I'm pretty much a noob when it comes to stick so I can't tell if it's me or if it's the car ...

I'm really slow getting into 1st and then shifting to 2nd and I would like to improve the time it takes me to get the car moving at a reasonable speed (and do it all smoothly).

With that introduction, here are a few questions:

1. Is it bad to start from 2nd gear rather than from 1st at a dead stop?

2. How high should my RPMs be when I shift into 1st and then how high should they be when I go into 2nd? My goal is to smoothly get up to speed quickly.

3. I noticed that I don't have to give it any gas when I slowly release the clutch from a dead stop in 1st gear on a level road. The car will start moving all by itself. I start very smoothly and slowly if I release the clutch slow enough. Is this normal?

4. In 2nd gear, the car will not stall if I take my foot of the gas and keep it off. The car maintains ~1-5 mph on a level road. Is this also normal?

Any advice you can drop on how to effectively go to 1st and then to 2nd in this monster would be really appreciated.

1. No it isn't bad, though it will wear your clutch a bit more and can be difficult.

2. I'm assuming when you say "shift into 1st" you mean start from a stop, and in which case my revs don't really climb at all when I'm starting in first. If they do, it's maybe 100 rpm. I laugh at all the people who need to rev up to like 1500 in order to get moving. When you're learning it's totally acceptable, but after a while you should learn to drive without doing that. I've found that driving a BMW manual (the 540 especially because of all that torque) is very easy compared to like my old Audi with the turbo motor. Because of the lack of low-end torque it was very easy to stall my Audi, where I have only ever stalled my Bimmer maybe once or twice. You can shift into second whenever you want really, I usually go for the 1-2 shift around 3-4k when I'm just driving normally.

3. This is that low-end torque I was telling you about. It is normal, and you only have to give the car a very small amount of gas to get moving quickly.

4. This is also normal. The car wants to idle at a certain RPM whether it is in gear or not. Unless you use the brake to come to a full stop the engine will just keep idling along using that torque.

Advice: CDV. I couldn't drive the car smooth to save my life, especially in the 1-2 and 2-3 shifts before I took out the CDV. After I removed that, I could almost immediately drive the car totally smooth. If you do nothing else, take that out.

Wholy crap Vortec.
(www).zeckhausen.com/CDV.htm

From the zechausen's site the CDV (Clutch Delay Valve) is DEFFINITELY the root cause of what I'm going through. And the entire time I thought I wasn't shifting correctly. I CAN NOT BELIEVE THIS IS HOW THE THESE CARS WERE DESIGNED/BUILT. Either BMW royally screwed this one up, or there is some other underlying reason for the CDV that zeckhausen missed.

Regardless, I need to either replace it w/ one of their modified ones or remove it alltogether. I read through the removal/installation steps and I'm pretty sure that it's not something that I'll be able to do myself. Did you pay to have it done? Also, what's the benefit of using one of their modified CDVs instead of just removing it entirely?

Thanks a ton for the post!

There is a big reason for the CDV but its too much for me to go into at the moment. hehehe.

Dont bother getting any zeckhacker valve, it takes 10 minutes to remove your own forever and that includes bleeding the system.

No problem! The CDV was very easy to remove, and it really did only take 10 minutes or so. You do need to bend the tube a tiny bit but it was no big deal at all. As long as you're careful when you rethread the bolt in you will be just fine. The biggest reason for the CDV in their design is to keep drivetrain shock to a minimum. The less shock there is, the less warranty repair they will need to do.

No problem! The CDV was very easy to remove, and it really did only take 10 minutes or so. You do need to bend the tube a tiny bit but it was no big deal at all. As long as you're careful when you rethread the bolt in you will be just fine. The biggest reason for the CDV in their design is to keep drivetrain shock to a minimum. The less shock there is, the less warranty repair they will need to do.


was it really 10 minutes? Everything i read tells me I have to have 1-2 other people to help bleed the system afterwards - and that worries me that i might mess something up?

It's just like bleeding a brake system. If you can bleed the brakes in a car, you can do the CDV delete.

even if you have never bled brakes its easy.