F31 335d XDrive Handling
Discussion
The only car M makes with xdrive is the 2.5 tonne X5M/6M, the new M5 will again be RWD as are all M cars baring the SUV. RS cars are again nose heavy (engine is almost in the front bumper) and a bit inert to drive but effective in a straight line whilst looking the part just not great at entertaining in my view.
Putting xdrive into an M car would be awful it's all "pull me" "push me" with no opportunity to have a play.
Anyway the thread's about a diesel estate not performance cars so it's a moot point.
Putting xdrive into an M car would be awful it's all "pull me" "push me" with no opportunity to have a play.
Anyway the thread's about a diesel estate not performance cars so it's a moot point.
ratty6464 said:
Honestly though, the suspension on the 435d is pretty rubbish as standard. I've never felt the need to modify one of the other 3 BMWs i've had, but this one manages to fidget and wallow, squirm under braking and corkscrew under acceleration. I'm not expecting sports car levels of handling but they could have done a lot better. it smacks of a lack of proper development. It's ok if you cruise about, although it does bounce along bit. When pushed it falls apart.
for a £45k+ car i think it's perfectly reasonable to expect better, especially when BMW have pedigree of making some decent handling "non-M" cars - 330ci anyone?
Spot on comment, and that's where my post started. for a £45k+ car i think it's perfectly reasonable to expect better, especially when BMW have pedigree of making some decent handling "non-M" cars - 330ci anyone?
wakaday said:
If I had a dog, the standard car would have made it sick in back. I could buy a M5 E61 and start a new post ‘M5 tourer, fast car but makes dog sick in back, BMW got it wrong’.No more sterotypes please, you’ll hurt the dogs feeling. DMS not my choise.
I was going to reply to this as my dog sits quite happily in the back of my unmodified 335d Touring without vomiting everywhere but then I realised that the post makes no sense whatsoever so I won't bother.ds666 said:
I don't understand this talk about BMW getting it so wrong . It's a fast family car , not an M car .Yes , it can be improved . So what ?
Perhaps you should be asking why you got it so wrong buying the wrong car for you ?
As for people making poor purchasing decisions, at the time I bought mine dealers were struggling to get hold of 335d demonstrators and hence there was a certain amount of assuming what you were getting based on the fact you'd had BMW's before and were buying a top-range M-Sport model. I was aware X-Drives came with SE suspension even in the M-Sport models and therefore ordered adaptive suspension; with hindsight, though, I perhaps should have done even more homework which would have revealed how compromised the suspension in the pre-LCI X-Drives really was.
So for me BMW did get it wrong with the 335d as the chassis dynamics should have been much closer to S-Drive models than was actually the case; the fact after-market springs largely resolve the problems makes it worse as surely BMW could have fitted similar items from the factory as standard? In hindsight I'm sure a number of buyers felt they bought the wrong car but given the advertising and marketing around the 335d I think long-standing BMW customers were entitled to expect something different (better) from a top-range M-Sport model....
Osinjak said:
I was going to reply to this as my dog sits quite happily in the back of my unmodified 335d Touring without vomiting everywhere but then I realised that the post makes no sense whatsoever so I won't bother.
Why did you reply then?Point is not all tourer owners are dog people and bmw understand this too.
My standard 335d make my kids feel sick, but when modified with b3x is fine.
wakaday said:
Osinjak said:
I was going to reply to this as my dog sits quite happily in the back of my unmodified 335d Touring without vomiting everywhere but then I realised that the post makes no sense whatsoever so I won't bother.
Why did you reply then?Point is not all tourer owners are dog people and bmw understand this too.
My standard 335d make my kids feel sick, but when modified with b3x is fine.
wakaday said:
Why did you reply then?
Point is not all tourer owners are dog people and bmw understand this too.
My standard 335d make my kids feel sick, but when modified with b3x is fine.
Are you being serious?Point is not all tourer owners are dog people and bmw understand this too.
My standard 335d make my kids feel sick, but when modified with b3x is fine.
With standard suspension your children would be sick in the car often but with the modification not sick ever?
Or ... Is it figurative ?
Welshbeef said:
wakaday said:
Why did you reply then?
Point is not all tourer owners are dog people and bmw understand this too.
My standard 335d make my kids feel sick, but when modified with b3x is fine.
Are you being serious?Point is not all tourer owners are dog people and bmw understand this too.
My standard 335d make my kids feel sick, but when modified with b3x is fine.
With standard suspension your children would be sick in the car often but with the modification not sick ever?
Or ... Is it figurative ?
I have recently purchased a 2014 335d XDrive after 6 months driving a 2016 Focus ST.
The Focus was fine driving hard, but thats onlt 10% of the time, the rest of the time it was too hard, irritatingly so, I didn't want to feel every stone I ran over! My little girl was sick in it twice and its the only car she has ever got car sick in. It had to go and it was a choice between an A4 3.0 TDI Quattro or the BMW.
The 335d is a revelation, so smooth, comfortable and refined. Mine has adaptive suspension and 19" wheels but I normally drive it in comfort or eco anyway.
I think all the owners slating the car are expecting too much of a 1750kg car with 4wd, it's never going to feel fun. Yes, I agree it is a bit soft at times but that's the way I like it. It's probably the best car I have ever had.....................the last BMW I owned was a new 1995 M3 and it was one of the worst cars I have ever owned, it put me off BMW's until now!
The Focus was fine driving hard, but thats onlt 10% of the time, the rest of the time it was too hard, irritatingly so, I didn't want to feel every stone I ran over! My little girl was sick in it twice and its the only car she has ever got car sick in. It had to go and it was a choice between an A4 3.0 TDI Quattro or the BMW.
The 335d is a revelation, so smooth, comfortable and refined. Mine has adaptive suspension and 19" wheels but I normally drive it in comfort or eco anyway.
I think all the owners slating the car are expecting too much of a 1750kg car with 4wd, it's never going to feel fun. Yes, I agree it is a bit soft at times but that's the way I like it. It's probably the best car I have ever had.....................the last BMW I owned was a new 1995 M3 and it was one of the worst cars I have ever owned, it put me off BMW's until now!
mike150 said:
I think all the owners slating the car are expecting too much of a 1750kg car with 4wd, it's never going to feel fun. Yes, I agree it is a bit soft at times but that's the way I like it.
But the point is that the handling of the 335d can be improved significantly by adding things like ACS springs without any serious adverse affect on the ride; therefore, by sending the standard cars out with the set-up they have BMW have frustrated a number of customers quite unnecessarily in my view. I don't like a bone crushing ride any more than you but equally I don't like floaty handling and poor body control and that's what you get with the standard X-Drive set-up. Surely with all the thousands of miles of testing BMW do they could have fitted something akin to the ACS springs as standard and kept a higher proportion of X-Drive customers happy? JNW1 said:
Surely the only point wakaday is trying to make is that the standard suspension set-up is a bit soft and that could lead to people feeling a bit car sick? Knowing how my car feels with adaptive in Comfort I can well imagine that the rear seat in a standard car without adaptive wouldn't be a pleasant place to be if the driver was trying to go quickly across a twisty, undulating, road.....
Hell's teeth, if you were driving a 335d at ten tenths on a fast undulating bendy road I wouldn't have any kids or a dog in it anyway. Last time I went out for a properly spirited hoon - on my own - I ran out of road very quickly. Yep, it bounced around a bit even though I have Adaptive suspension but I drive like that about 0.5% of the time. I get that some don't like the standard set up, I hated the binary behaviour of my old A3 3.2, but I've just driven 3000 miles around around Yerp and not once did my wife say she had to get out of the car because it was too 'wallowy' and nor did the dog cover the boot in vomit. Equally I didn't smash it around everywhere like a demented F1 driver on speed. I know what wakaday is trying to say, he's just not saying it very well.My LCI 335d Touring now has Michelin PSS tyres and ACS springs and I did not spec the adaptive suspension option. I think it handles pretty well; the ACS springs made a good difference as did the tyres - in different ways. I've taken it down some B roads I know well that I have used for testing all sorts of cars including proper M cars and Porsches and I genuinely don't think there is a lot to complain about. The main issue is that there is a big, heavy diesel engine up front and you notice that when really pushing on but its performance and economy make up for it considering what the car is there to do.
I do agree that out of the box there are some issues but the majority of owners are not going to notice these. We are a small cohort of driving enthusiasts and if it takes some aftermarket modification to improve the car then I will accept that. An Alpina D3 would have been my preference for this application but the OH wanted a 4wd car for the winter. As an all rounder, the 335d is an excellent car IMO.
I do agree that out of the box there are some issues but the majority of owners are not going to notice these. We are a small cohort of driving enthusiasts and if it takes some aftermarket modification to improve the car then I will accept that. An Alpina D3 would have been my preference for this application but the OH wanted a 4wd car for the winter. As an all rounder, the 335d is an excellent car IMO.
The OPs findings on ride through uneven corners is one-off the reasons I've bought an M140i with adaptive suspension over an M2 which isn't available with adaptive. I've had many BMWs and love them, but over the years the ability to press on enjoyably on B roads has been compromised. The last really compliant BMW I had was an e36 328i M sport touring some years ago. I also have a Z4M which although better than the 3.0i that preceded it, isn't fun on B roads.
DocSteve said:
My LCI 335d Touring now has Michelin PSS tyres and ACS springs and I did not spec the adaptive suspension option. I think it handles pretty well; the ACS springs made a good difference as did the tyres - in different ways. I've taken it down some B roads I know well that I have used for testing all sorts of cars including proper M cars and Porsches and I genuinely don't think there is a lot to complain about. The main issue is that there is a big, heavy diesel engine up front and you notice that when really pushing on but its performance and economy make up for it considering what the car is there to do.
I do agree that out of the box there are some issues but the majority of owners are not going to notice these. We are a small cohort of driving enthusiasts and if it takes some aftermarket modification to improve the car then I will accept that. An Alpina D3 would have been my preference for this application but the OH wanted a 4wd car for the winter. As an all rounder, the 335d is an excellent car IMO.
What is the weight difference between the 335d and the 340i. I do agree that out of the box there are some issues but the majority of owners are not going to notice these. We are a small cohort of driving enthusiasts and if it takes some aftermarket modification to improve the car then I will accept that. An Alpina D3 would have been my preference for this application but the OH wanted a 4wd car for the winter. As an all rounder, the 335d is an excellent car IMO.
IIRC the old E90 version it was about 20kg total difference this is probably reduced further now. Be interesting to see what it is as we could then say a big heavy petrol engine up front or a bit heavy petrol engine the same weight as as diesel up front.
Osinjak said:
JNW1 said:
Surely the only point wakaday is trying to make is that the standard suspension set-up is a bit soft and that could lead to people feeling a bit car sick? Knowing how my car feels with adaptive in Comfort I can well imagine that the rear seat in a standard car without adaptive wouldn't be a pleasant place to be if the driver was trying to go quickly across a twisty, undulating, road.....
Hell's teeth, if you were driving a 335d at ten tenths on a fast undulating bendy road I wouldn't have any kids or a dog in it anyway. Last time I went out for a properly spirited hoon - on my own - I ran out of road very quickly. Yep, it bounced around a bit even though I have Adaptive suspension but I drive like that about 0.5% of the time. I get that some don't like the standard set up, I hated the binary behaviour of my old A3 3.2, but I've just driven 3000 miles around around Yerp and not once did my wife say she had to get out of the car because it was too 'wallowy' and nor did the dog cover the boot in vomit. Equally I didn't smash it around everywhere like a demented F1 driver on speed. I know what wakaday is trying to say, he's just not saying it very well.JNW1 said:
Not talking about a ten-tenths hoon, a brisk six or seven tenths on the wrong type of road is enough to expose the soft suspension on a standard (non-adaptive) pre-LCI X-Drive; with adaptive in Sport you can go up a notch without it being a problem but it's still too soft for fast road work if that road is twisty and undulating. I can see it being fine for a 3k mile tour around Europe but that wasn't the sort of driving I was getting at....
You should have bought the 330d PPK instead. Saved having to unofficially modify a brand new car devaluing it. DocSteve said:
My LCI 335d Touring now has Michelin PSS tyres and ACS springs and I did not spec the adaptive suspension option. I think it handles pretty well; the ACS springs made a good difference as did the tyres - in different ways. I've taken it down some B roads I know well that I have used for testing all sorts of cars including proper M cars and Porsches and I genuinely don't think there is a lot to complain about. The main issue is that there is a big, heavy diesel engine up front and you notice that when really pushing on but its performance and economy make up for it considering what the car is there to do.
I do agree that out of the box there are some issues but the majority of owners are not going to notice these. We are a small cohort of driving enthusiasts and if it takes some aftermarket modification to improve the car then I will accept that. An Alpina D3 would have been my preference for this application but the OH wanted a 4wd car for the winter. As an all rounder, the 335d is an excellent car IMO.
Agree with much of that but a) your car is an LCI model (and they apparently have better suspension than pre-LCI cars) and b) that notwithstanding you still saw a need to fit ACS springs (which presumably means you were still not entirely happy with the standard set-up?). I stand by my comment that the chassis in a pre-LCI X-Drive without adaptive falls short of what you'd expect from an M-Sport BMW and I still find it annoying that they couldn't have fitted something akin to the ACS springs at the factory; wouldn't have cost BMW much more (if anything), apparently no disbenefit to the ride quality and much better handling - with a small army of engineers working on these things you'd have thought it shouldn't be that difficult to get it right first time rather than leaving customers to seek after-market modifications on a £40k car?!I do agree that out of the box there are some issues but the majority of owners are not going to notice these. We are a small cohort of driving enthusiasts and if it takes some aftermarket modification to improve the car then I will accept that. An Alpina D3 would have been my preference for this application but the OH wanted a 4wd car for the winter. As an all rounder, the 335d is an excellent car IMO.
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