RE: BMW M3 and M4: Review

[Fox-]

RoverP6B said:

Eh, your car is 45mph slower at 6100 than 3000 IN THE SAME GEAR?!

As I've told you, in fifth in my 520i, six-one is about 130, six-eight is 140. Same gear. I can't see how it could go faster while producing less power. The ratio of fifth gear is dead on 1:1.

What? It can still accelerate whilst producing less power, but the rate of acceleration will slow.

[E65Ross]

RoverP6B said:

I can't see how it could go faster while producing less power

You've just shown your ignorance and total lack of understanding right there.

for arguments sake let's say you need 150bhp to reach 135mph, 160bhp to reach 140mph, and 170bhp to reach 145mph.

To make things easy we'll say your engine makes 170bhp at 6000rpm and 160bhp at 6800rpm (as the power and torque begin to drop off). Again, we'll say 6000rpm is 123mph so 6800rpm is 140mph.

You're putting your foot down at 123mph at peak power, where 170bhp is enough to get you quicker than 123mph the car accelerates. Power begins to drop and at 6500rpm you're now travelling at 133mph and producing about 165bhp...but because you're still making 165bhp and that's MORE than enough to surpass 133mph the car will keep accelerating. At 6800mph you're only making 160bhp but that's enough to sustain you at 140mph.

It doesn't mean you're making MORE power at 6800rpm but you're going faster because of gearing at the engine power is still sufficient the reach that speed. If the gearing was taller so you were doing 6000rpm at 145mph, you'd find it wouldn't accelerate past that point because you need more power to go faster than 145mph, yet the engine will begin to drop off its power (thus you can't go any faster)

If you don't understand that, there's no point arguing any more. In fact, this is so far off topic it's absurd. Never have I come across anyone quite so daft on PH.....please tell me this makes some sense!

[RoverP6B]

We can agree on one thing: we've drifted a hell of a long way off topic!

However, in all my forty-four years of driving (plus a period spent mucking about in aeroplanes), I have never before heard a hypothesis which says that one can go faster with less horsepower. Oh well, I now have a headache and I'm still none the clearer on it, so I think it's best we leave it.

I still can't accept turbocharging M-cars, though! Even if they can sort the response and make 'em rev properly, you're still never going to get the old spine-tingling howl with a turbine interrupting the exhaust gasflow...

[E65Ross]

RoverP6B said:

We can agree on one thing: we've drifted a hell of a long way off topic!

However, in all my forty-four years of driving (plus a period spent mucking about in aeroplanes), I have never before heard a hypothesis which says that one can go faster with less horsepower. Oh well, I now have a headache and I'm still none the clearer on it, so I think it's best we leave it.

I still can't accept turbocharging M-cars, though! Even if they can sort the response and make 'em rev properly, you're still never going to get the old spine-tingling howl with a turbine interrupting the exhaust gasflow...

Read what I said again I haven't effectively said you need less power to go faster. I'm saying your gearing isn't optimised for top speed, and if the gearing was slightly taller you're car would go faster top speed.

We agree on another thing. The old M cars do sound better. But don't knock the engines until you try them.

[Amirhussain]

E65Ross said:

RoverP6B said:

We can agree on one thing: we've drifted a hell of a long way off topic!

However, in all my forty-four years of driving (plus a period spent mucking about in aeroplanes), I have never before heard a hypothesis which says that one can go faster with less horsepower. Oh well, I now have a headache and I'm still none the clearer on it, so I think it's best we leave it.

I still can't accept turbocharging M-cars, though! Even if they can sort the response and make 'em rev properly, you're still never going to get the old spine-tingling howl with a turbine interrupting the exhaust gasflow...

We agree on another thing. The old M cars do sound better. But don't knock the engines until you try them.

I won't disagree with you on that, I've heard a F10 M5 being driven quick, and IMO, it doesn't sound bad at all, of course not as good as the E60 V10, but not as bad as some people are making them out to be. Completely OTT IMO.

[ManOpener]

RoverP6B said:

The point is, whatever figures you may care to throw at me about what 'they' might generically do, I can tell you from 75,000 miles in my E39 what IT does.

Right, and your engine is physically different from the thousands of other that produce peak power around 6,000 RPM how, exactly, to result in it producing peak power about 15% later? Or is it somehow magic?

[-Z-]

RoverP6B said:

-Z- said:

Why the hell are you comparing CTS-V sales to an M5? It's a natural M3 competitor based on price. It's $30000 dollars cheaper than an M5, you'd have to be utterly thick to be surprised at the fact it sells more. They might compete in your head but in real life people buy what they can afford. The M5 is 50% more expensive, why don't you compare it's sales to an Aston Martin Rapide? About as relevant apparently.

Perhaps because it has 140bhp more than the last M3, the same as the F10 M5 (I think the F10 has 552bhp and the CTS-V 556, who cares about 4bhp), and it's the same sort of size as a 5-series?

Ares said:

"Americans buy cheap American car rather than expensive German car, shocker". Tit.

As if the CTS-V only sells in America...

That makes no sense at all, you are comparing the sales of something 50% more expensive. Are you honestly saying you can't see why that is wrong?

Might as well add the Rolls Royce Wraith into the mix as well then right? similar power and size? Holy st it's sells less, well the Wraith must be crap then.

[E65Ross]

-Z- said:

RoverP6B said:

-Z- said:

Why the hell are you comparing CTS-V sales to an M5? It's a natural M3 competitor based on price. It's $30000 dollars cheaper than an M5, you'd have to be utterly thick to be surprised at the fact it sells more. They might compete in your head but in real life people buy what they can afford. The M5 is 50% more expensive, why don't you compare it's sales to an Aston Martin Rapide? About as relevant apparently.

Perhaps because it has 140bhp more than the last M3, the same as the F10 M5 (I think the F10 has 552bhp and the CTS-V 556, who cares about 4bhp), and it's the same sort of size as a 5-series?

Ares said:

"Americans buy cheap American car rather than expensive German car, shocker". Tit.

As if the CTS-V only sells in America...

That makes no sense at all, you are comparing the sales of something 50% more expensive. Are you honestly saying you can't see why that is wrong?

Might as well add the Rolls Royce Wraith into the mix as well then right? similar power and size? Holy st it's sells less, well the Wraith must be crap then.

Don't be so daft. The Wraith is only a 2 door, you must compare it to a Ghost or a Phantom which are, I think, less powerful (well, the Phantom certainly is).... That makes them over-priced and crap!

[Wills2]

I'm glad to see the forum clown is still gibbering on and is now starting to catch himself out.

I wonder what the motivation is to come on to a website and lie, talk nonsense and argue the toss using made up "facts" and "experiences" to try and prove your point?

[aeropilot]

RoverP6B said:

I still can't accept turbocharging M-cars, though!

Only because you're incapable of removing your head from you're own arse.....

If you were to bother looking into BMW Motorsport's beginings you'll actually find that turbocharged engines was were BMW ///M started and from the late 1960's until the mid-1980's they were at the forefront of turbo engines.
Sure they've since made some wonderful n/a engines, but to dismiss turbo M-cars based on stupidity is astonishing.....especially when you have'nt even owned or even driven most of them.

But then astonishing sums up just about all your posts in this thread......

[vsonix]

I liked it when he got all annoyed about someone's language then said he wouldn't tolerate it from his sons. E30 slides everywhere in the wet at 40mph LOL. Perhaps sir should consider wearing something lighter than steel-toed work boots to drive?

[Palmball]

Good Lord...another 4 pages of Rover vs the world. Rover, I'm sure you're a perfectly decent, even intelligent chap so WTF are you doing?? You must have an incredible amount of spare time on your hands to carry on with this argument!

Look, I think it's fair to say you're from (or stuck in) a different era to many others (although not all) on PH. You have little interest in most modern cars for reasons you've made very clear and in particular you've been very clear you have no interest in buying a new BMW.

Fact is, BMW are unlikely to ever build a car that you'll want to buy ever again so they've lost you. However, when they were building your e39 I was still in school so I'm one, amongst many incremental customers that they've won since. I for one really rate their latest products, and not because I own one - I've owned ridiculous amounts of other cars/brands to be in the position where I have an INFORMED opinion (rather than one derived from here-say), and I made my choice on the merits of the product for my needs and desires in comparison to other cars.

I find it funny that you talk up the e39 so much, a deride the F series M's. I owned an e39 M5 last summer, which I bought whilst in-between cars for a bit of a giggle to see what all the fuss was about. A very nice example it was - indeed, it was a good car and I can see how it would've easily been a class leader in its day. However, people who look back so favourably on the e39 M5 fail to note that, in comparison to the devils work that is modern cars, the recirculating ball steering was slow-witted, the brakes were made out of butter, the gearbox long and notchy and the v8 surprisingly muted. I also own a new M6 and can assure you that the newer car is so much better in every way (bar none), including even things like fun factor and how it sounds! Honestly, the e39 is like an old ship in comparison.

And as for iDrive, you really must be stuck in a different era to find that difficult - it's a great system (as is
Mercs Comand and, to a lesser extent, Audi's MMI) which, with a screen virtually in your line of sight it makes the selections easier and safer when on the move. New cars have so many features (some more useful than others) that it would be impossible to have a button for every one and still retain an easy it use (safe!!) dashboard. Of course your response will be how ridiculous it is to have so many unnecessary features in new cars, which adds to my view that you really are unwilling to move your mindset into the present day.

As you were......

[Ares]

RoverP6B said:

Ares said:

Absolutely Shocking?? , not poor, not just shocking, but absolutely shocking. Really? In what way?

I had one, 530d, for 3 years & 48,000miles. It's brilliant and deservedly regarded as the market leader.

But I'm sure you have great insight. Or at least have spoken to someone who once read about it.

520d, had it for a month as an insurance courtesy car after a school-teacher yabbering on her phone slammed into the back of my E46. I've listed the problems with it elsewhere, so here's a copy-paste:

- Bone-shatteringly hard ride, felt like there actually was no suspension at all. I haven't been that uncomfortable since I got a ride in an old 1950s Morgan.

MSport or did you find the Comfort button? My 6-series on 20", my F10 on 19" and my E90 on 18" all road firm, but superbly. Perhaps you are just getting old?

RoverP6B said:

- Dreadful electric steering. Imprecise, completely and utterly devoid of any feel or self-centering action. Made it very difficult to place the car on the road with any confidence.

You know what, I'll give you that. It took me more than a week to get used to it. To say its dreadful and that it is completely and utterly devoid of feel is horsest, but it does take a bit of getting used to. If you couldn't 'place the car' with any confidence, then suggest you have a driving confidence issue and stop driving until you get some.

RoverP6B said:

- Bloody awful engine - below about 2000rpm, nothing happened, and it had turbo lag (or boost threshold, I still don't get the difference) as bad as the Saab 900 I tested 20 years ago - all done by about 4000rpm, above which it just sounded increasingly strained without actually making the car go any faster. Extremely noisy and clattery too.

Bullst - or you had a dog. The 20d is a gem. 4-pot diesels are noisy though. fk all to do with the F10. The 20d however is unusually refined for a 4-pot. It is also fk all like a 900 (or 9000) for lag.

RoverP6B said:

- Dim-witted 8-speed autobox. Hunted around all the time like nobody's business, slurred every change, most of the time I had no idea what gear I was in, and even in the sequential manual mode (which was hard to activate as most of the time the electronic gear selector refused to be pushed sideways) it still automatically upchanged earlier than I wanted and downchanged when I wanted to hold a gear. Each change caused the engine to come off-boost (which was then followed by the aforementioned lag). The result was infuriatingly jerky progress - it was impossible to drive smoothly.

Agan bullst. I've had this gearbox on 2 cars. In the F10 was great. In the 640d it is nothing short of amazing. Hence why it is the gearbox of choice for most premium manufacturers. Changes are very quick and there is no slurring. Could shift the selector? You are either stupid or tried when the car wasn't in drive.

RoverP6B said:

- Infuriating electronic handbrake (I want a ratchet lever!). When this was engaged, the slightest touch on the throttle caused an ear-splittingly loud alarm to sound - this would happen if I even so much as THOUGHT about the throttle while sat at traffic lights. Riding the throttle with the car in neutral to counteract the lag so one could make a quick getaway from the junction was simply not possible. No handbrake turns in the snow either!

You are old and want an old fashions ratchet handbrake. Nothing to do with the F10 being 'shocking'. The Electric brake is brilliant. If you feel you 'must' use handbrake at traffic light (god knows why in an auto, but still), use the Auto Handbrake function, it too works brilliantly. Only a very bad driver will surely ever use the throttle when the handbrake is engaged in an automatic car??? The 'earsplitting loud alarm' is a gentle 'bong', the same as if you forget your seatbelt, or try and shift the gear selector without your foot on the brake. It is to safeguard fkwits like you from doing something dangerous, and just a little bit politer that a voice saying 'don't be a tt'.

RoverP6B said:

- Shocking visibility. I've had a better field of vision sat in a WW2 pillbox. There should be a law against rising brltlines.

Are you a midget? I'm 5'8 and had great vision in the f10, granted slightly less in the 640d. Perhaps you are such a 'capable race-styrle driver' you had you seat slammed to the floor, maximising a low centre of gravity.

RoverP6B said:

- Really shoddy interior constructed of the cheapest materials - the seats trimmed with the same sort of cheap plastic pseudo-leather that you get on a £20 office chair from "name your office supplies chain". Lots of squeaks and rattles.

Bullst, not even worth commenting on. The Interior is class leading - christ, even Mercedes are trying to copy BMW.

RoverP6B said:

- Extremely poor packaging. Despite the F11 being several inches wider and a foot longer than the E39, it offers no more leg-room and the boot is noticeably smaller (specifically, the boot floor is much higher and narrower). For instance, my E39 has shifted furniture, appliances and my touring bike. I tried various of these in the F11 and found that either they would not fit at all (my bike, some furniture) or that the seats in the F11 had to be folded to carry the load longitudinally, reducing the car to a 2-seat van, where the E39 had still been a 5-seater with the same load carried transversely in the boot (tumble dryer).

I've had a touring for 24 hours, once. I didn't need to shift anything other than my road bike - it swallowed it without removing a wheel. If you need more than that from a prestige car, get a Volvo/Merc/van. Again, doesn't make the car shocking because you couldn't fit a tumble dryer in it

RoverP6B said:

- ****ING I-DRIVE! The number of times I felt like putting a hammer through that glass screen... all I want is a simple radio/CD player! I don't want satnav (if I really needed it, there are any number of phone apps out there which I could use), I don't want everything to be buried in myriad sub-menus... I seem to recall the traction and stability control were buried deep in a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-menu and that attempting to deactivate them resulted in an error message.

I get it, you are old, you don't like gadgets. The iDrive is brilliant. It does need intelligence although my 5yr old has it mastered. If you can't use iDrive, don't drive and use a smartphone with apps as sat nav, that will be beyond you.
The Traction Control and Stability Control are NOT within iDrive, they are on an old fashioned button, as per every BMW I have driven in the last 15 years. But 'your memory' has clearly faded along with you ability to drive it would seem.
...either that or you are a troll
....or the most probable outcome, haven't actually driven one at all. If you had it for a month, and didn't see a fking great button right by your left hand to do something you were trying to find, then you must have had your eyes closed.....which explains every comment you made on this site.

RoverP6B said:

I will say two things - and only two - in its favour. One was that it had by far the most effective windscreen washer jets I have ever encountered - I'd like those on my E39! The other was that the fuel economy really was quite impressive for such a big, heavy car. However, I'd save my thirty grand and spend a tiny chunk of it on buying a nice E39, bringing it up to standard, and paying bigger fuel bills. It'd be worth it just to avoid that stty engine and handling greasy oily diesel pumps at petrol stations.

[Ares]

E65Ross said:

RoverP6B said:

E65Ross said:

Yes, it will be producing less power

Wrong. More.

RoverP6B said:

it definitely makes markedly more power at six-eight than six-one.

Not according to this graph



Where peak torque begins to drop off from 5k rpm which means despite an increase in rpm past 6100, power actually falls off because torque drops off quicker than the rpm rises. So, unless you're car is markedly different from an official torque curve from the factory then to show it it produces more power at 6800rpm than at 6100rpm I'd like to see a torque curve. I've given you evidence to show it won't produce more power at 6800rpm compared to 6100rpm, where is your evidence? Guess what, my car makes peak power at 6100rpm too but if I sit at 6100rpm and put my foot down....it still accelerates, doesn't mean it's able to make more power above 6100rpm though.

RoverP6B said:

You can probably give it the lot in second and third gear - first will be traction-limited, fourth will take you right into license loss/prison sentence territory. You know as well as I do how every road where you could get serious speed up here in the South-East now has fixed or mobile cameras - it's just impossible to get any decent speed up nowadays. Which is why I'd far rather have a somewhat slower car which I can rev out all the time.

so, you say you can give it the lot in 2nd and 3rd yet can't rev it as much as your engine....sounding as though you can give yours "the lot" in more gears (ie at least into 4th gear) so what does your 4th gear go up to? I bet you it's more than 3rd in the M6, in which case you kind of are going against your point here, aren't you?

I'm sensing that Mr Rover has confused engine speed/wheel speed/gearing and peak power.

If the cars runs at 70mph at peak power in a set gear, 71mph must need more power.....etc. Easy mistake to make. I guess.

[Guvernator]

RoverP6B said:

I still can't accept turbocharging M-cars, though! Even if they can sort the response and make 'em rev properly, you're still never going to get the old spine-tingling howl with a turbine interrupting the exhaust gasflow...

No sorry I'm going to have to disagree with this. Go and drive a GT-R of R32, 33 or R34 vintage with the amazing RB26 TWIN turbo engine in it, listen to it fly past 8000rpm and tell me it doesn't sound absolutely fantastic. Spine-tingling is exactly the word I would use. Turbo engines can be made to rev and sound great, it's just that nearly all modern turbo engines just aren't tuned\built with that as a priority anymore.

[Ares]

Guvernator said:

RoverP6B said:

I still can't accept turbocharging M-cars, though! Even if they can sort the response and make 'em rev properly, you're still never going to get the old spine-tingling howl with a turbine interrupting the exhaust gasflow...

No sorry I'm going to have to disagree with this. Go and drive a GT-R of R32, 33 or R34 vintage with the amazing RB26 TWIN turbo engine in it, listen to it fly past 8000rpm and tell me it doesn't sound absolutely fantastic. Spine-tingling is exactly the word I would use. Turbo engines can be made to rev and sound great, it's just that nearly all modern turbo engines just aren't tuned\built with that as a priority anymore.

Tell me this doesn't sound great..... http://youtu.be/ZDuxWGHA-Z4

[Dave Hedgehog]

Ares said:

Tell me this doesn't sound great..... http://youtu.be/ZDuxWGHA-Z4

except of course its fake CGI and most of the time when you hear the car for real in the vid its very aurally weak, apart from a couple of times when its been enhanced

[Ares]

Dave Hedgehog said:

Ares said:

Tell me this doesn't sound great..... http://youtu.be/ZDuxWGHA-Z4

except of course its fake CGI and most of the time when you hear the car for real in the vid its very aurally weak, apart from a couple of times when its been enhanced

Not sure how enhanced. The M5 that trundles past me on the school run each morning sounds remarkably similar.

as does this....? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amSdTksDFaQ

Edited by Ares on Tuesday 20th May 10:09

[rogerhudson]

Ares said:

Not sure how enhanced. The M5 that trundles past me on the school run each morning sounds remarkably similar.

as does this....? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amSdTksDFaQ

Edited by Ares on Tuesday 20th May 10:09

Speaker enhanced induction sound, WTF!.
Take the existing NVH (noise,vibration,harshness) engineers out and shoot them, then employs someone from the RR side of the firm.

[Palmball]

Chris Harris's M3 video is now out for anyone that's interested on Drive+ (subscription needed). It's a very positive review.