I find D2 is a little better if you are accelerating slowly. I usually use it only in traffic type situations were speeds on the freeway just bounch between 10-30mph (and a full stop every so often). I usually stick with D3 for around town. Overall I think it's the perfect balance.Apparently not many of us like driving our cars in the D settings. I've only really used D3 for cruising in traffic and while talking on the phone or passengers. But I never really liked the way D3 shifted as it liked to hold onto gears and shifted quite slow. D4 and D5 held onto gears even more but shifted a little quicker. I never thought to try out D1 and D2. Well, lately I've been using the M5 to commute to work b/c my MCoupe is in the paint shop getting a custom do-over, and I discovered that D2 works a lot better for my daily driving! D2 shifts out of first earlier if you aren't hard on the gas. At roughly 3-3.5k rpms it will shift and go into 2nd and around 3k it will shift into 3rd, and so forth. Its great if you aren't trying to zip your car around. But it will hold the gears if you are more aggressive on the pedal. At least for my driving style, it works way better the the D3 setting. Although I do prefer to drive it in S4-5 if I'm trying to zip the car around town or on the fwy. But for going to and from work, D2 works pretty darn well. Gone are the jerky shifts too!
Anyone else use D2 and found that its much easier to live with?
I've found even in the D modes I can "tell" the car when to shift by lifting slightly on the throttle which helps.
On the highway I stick with D3 or will bump it up to D4 or D5. I really like D5 on the freeway as it will downshift to third (D4 and D3 will only go to 4th if you are already going 70 or so), so if I need to quickly pass someone I can just put my foot to the ground (I almost always drive in P500), and the car will go from 7th to third with RPM's jumping to 6000 and it will pull up to 100 in about 2 seconds.