I was wondering... Does the g37 paddle shifters (tiptronic/steptronic) downshift by itself? My BMW 528i does... Im thinking of getting a G37/G37S.DOMO

 

In manual mode, it does not downshift unless you give input or unless you slow to almost a stop.
In DS mode it selects the lowest geears on it's own - more aggresively than in regular D- to enhance performance. It will hold gears much longer as well.
In regular D it is very conservative as regards gear selection. In fact it shifts to 2nd almost immediately after you begin moving unless you are flooring it.

 

nice nice... theres ds in the bmw too. when i switch to tiptronic the gear says it's DS. is that what your talking about?

 

no he means there are 3 sets of modes....

D=automatic everyday driving
DS= automatic aggressive driving
manual=full control of up and down shifts

 

Yes same exact thing you have in your BMW. D & SD and as soon as u tap in SD mode you active MM(self shifting).

 

DS mode? Sorry... I am a newbie and I here people talking about the DS mode... how do I get into the DS mode?

 

When in D just move the stick to the left.

 

Not sure how conservative the algorithms are in the BMW, but the G37 will downshift for you if you are in too high of a gear at too low of a speed. Just like in a manual you need to downshift to avoid stalling/lugging the car, same goes for the 5AT in the G. The auto downshift will usually not go to 2 however, I've noticed if I leave it in 5 anything below 60km/h and the car will go down to 4 then into 3 and finally it will downshift automatically to 1 if you come to a near stop. It prevents the driver from damaging the car, the one exception is it will not upshift for you if you're banging against the redline...at least not in my experience on the test drive.

BMW has been using DS mode for a long time, DS has only just recently started showing upon Infiniti's, recently as in just in the 2nd gen G sedan.

 

Does DS accelarate the car to 80 mph faster than regular D mode? or almost the same?

 

No not at all. DS mode is for aggressive driving. It holds out the gear longer instead of shifting allowing for quick acceleration when needed.