carcounsel.com |HID|

There is nothing like the sound and smoothness of an inline 6 cylinder, one reason BMW has stuck to the layout for years. The I6 will live on in magnesium cased, 3.0L form in standard production cars while the upcoming M coupe and roadster will use with the iron blocked 3.2L M variant for a few more years.

But the M3, which has utilized an I6 for the past ten years, will be moving to a V8 with the redesign (the new engine is essentially the V10 from the M5 with two cylinders lopped off).

Like their adoption of turbocharging, it’s a sign of market pressure that BMW’s going to a V8 - there was simply no other way to keep up with the power and torque figures of the V8s from Audi and MB (even if the lower weight and its superior distribution kept acceleration and lap times competitive).

And yet AutoWeek recently polled its readers, and out of 551 voters, 46% responded ‘the more horsepower the better’ and 27% said ‘they had to do it’.

Apparently it’s not MB and Audi that’s the root of the problem – it’s those who believe a horsepower number means as much as sound, smoothness, agility, or heritage.

Q: Is it just me or have you noticed the new BMW 3 series’ proportions echo the MINI’s ‘bulldog stance’?

A: It’s not just you… BMW has always tried for short overhangs (the less mass is outside the wheelbase the lower the polar moment and the more responsive the car is to directional changes) but in recent years we’ve noticed they’ve been getting their handling prowess by widening the track.

Take for example the trouble they went through widening the E46 M3 vs. the standard E46, the way this 3 and 5 series are wider than the last. (The MINI’s stance – and its handling – stem from the fact that it is far shorter than average but as wide as other cars).

There is a downside to this, however… at some point the cars become too wide for comfort – the car is more difficult to thread through traffic or a narrow back road, not to mention park in spaces that seem to be getting narrower at the same time. People who have driven both wide and narrow bodied 911s comment that the narrower one looks less aggressive but can be driven more aggressively on public roads…

Every time we hear someone complain that their car understeers, we think to ourselves “they’re probably not driving it the way it was designed to be driven.”

As we said before in this piece, while some cars like a tidy, textbook technique, those with trick differentials only come alive when tossed into a corner and slid most of the way back out.

It’s a bit of a trend that’s sweeping the industry because it makes for great magazine cover shots but I question if it makes the car less enjoyable 99.9% of the time, for 99.9% of owners who don’t know as much as carcounsel |HID| readers.

Autocar’s Andrew Frankel agrees:

Try as I might, I just couldn’t get into the groove with it. I tried guiding it across the Spanish landscape as I would a Boxster S, but found myself missing apexes, turning in to corners too late, constantly having to correct my position on the road. Had a handy racetrack not presented itself, I might still believe the fault lay with the car rather than me. But on the circuit I discovered that trying to flow with the car and steering it smoothly was about as pointless as wearing sunglasses in bed. It would simply magnify all the problems found on the road, understeering stubbornly and leaving you wondering where on earth BMW went wrong. In fact, all it really needed was a different approach: a brutal approach. Instead of throttling back to stop the nose peeling away from a corner, you do the reverse and use judicious amounts of throttle to drive through the understeer, kicking the tail wide and into one of those drifting powerslides that look several times more heroic than they actually are. Treated like this, and once I’d convinced myself that the differential would allow insane slip angles without actually letting the car spin, it drove in much the same way you feel that TVRs should but all too rarely do. Informed and enthused by my discovery, I removed the Z4M from the track and applied what I had learned in diluted form to the medium of the public road. And do you know what? The Z4M transformed in my head from a borderline disaster to what it always promised to be:a seriously good-fun roadster. Even though it and the Boxster S take diametrically opposed routes to the provision of driving pleasure, this does not mean one is necessarily right and the other inevitably wrong. Indeed, if you get your thrills from the delight of feeling the back of the car move and your reassurance from the knowledge that the car has enough basic agility and suspension sophistication to allow you to round it up with ease, then the Z4M driven with the right measure of controlled savagery provides a kind of pleasure the Boxster S driver will never know. But I might get weary of its relentless animalistic nature. Fun though the Z4M can be on the right road or track, this is no substitute for the sensitivity, precision and feel imparted so freely by the Boxster S. However and wherever you drive it, you will never be as at one with the Z4M as you will in a Boxster S.

(Click here) for a previous post on the Z4 M).

Case in point: the E90 BMW 3 series.

We prefered the E46 325i to the 330i for its superior chassis balance and shorter gearing, and now with the E90 version we’ve noticed:

– The heavy 17” wheels and stiff run-flat tires of the 330i overwhelm the damping of the standard suspension, resulting in the flinty, jittery, fatiguing ride run flats are despised for. – An exhaust specific to the 330 – designed to emphasise power output over refinement – produces a chilling wail at high rpm, but also drones more than the system in the 325i, particularly when paired with the automatic. – The 330i’s longer gearing and recalibrated automatic transmission tend to make the engine lug rather than spin up to where the variable intake manifold can ingest more air (and you can access that extra 40 horsepower). The transmission also seems more easily confused in everyday driving.

The 325i (now with a 3.0L engine) was not available for sampling at the E90 introduction, but now that BMW has added a (red) 325i to their press fleet, journalists are finally getting to drive one. One that’s more observant than most – David Hauter – recently published write-ups in Roundel and european car. In the ec review he observes:

In either form, the N52 engine loves to rev, but with less power, the 325i allows more opportunities to wind it out and hear the intoxicating exhaust note… The 325i loses nothing to the more powerful 330i in terms of handling. We drove both cars with their optional Sport Packages… and found the 325i to be more involving overall. The 132 pund lighter 325i is more tossable, and its steering feels lighter and more responsive, which could be the result of the 330i’s bigger wheels and tires…. Though they increase grip, the 330i’s low profle run-flat tires are noticably harsher than the 325i’s; they also tramline more on the highway. The 330i gets larger brakes, which while increasing fade resistance, also increase unsprung weight…. If you’re more more concerned with driving dynamics… you should take a close look at the 325i before automatically going for the 330i.

Most people we’ve met with 330s didn’t bother to drive the 325i first; we only hope that if you’re reading this you didn’t make the same mistake…

UPDATE:

The 325i has shorter gearing than…the 330i… This 325i blows away the last-generation car and is also quicker than the previous 330i model. source: Car and Driver

UPDATE 2:

While it would seem that the 330i blows away the 325i, it simply is not true. With an opportunity to push vehicles to their (and our) limits at Beaver Run Raceway near Pittsburgh, PA., I jumped into what I thought was a 6-speed 330 and was astonished to discover it was a 325i. Yes it had less torque and slightly different gear response in comparison, but if you choose a 325 you will not be disappointed in power, braking, or handling. – The Auto Channel

Click here to watch ‘em duke it out around a race circuit.

(Note the how grounded and composed the flat, mid-mounted engine makes the Boxster . What you can’t see – and what the commenators fail to mention – is the Porsche’s ineffably superior steering).

related posts: [1,2]

I wish it had fewer badges. I wish there were fewer spoiler add-ons, too, and I wish the four exhausts were better hidden. The whole point of an M5 is that no one knows about the power. But this one shouts a bit too loudly… Mind you, this pales into insignificance alongside my gripes with all the electronic brouhaha. I mean, why could they not just sell the damn thing already set-up, for all of time… Why make it all so bloody complicated? ...What this car needs, badly, is a dose of Stalinism. A bit of dictatorship. It needs to be less of a village fête with something for everyone and more of a fait accompli. A car that does only one thing, very well, for those in the know.

source: Top Gear

UPDATE: You can see a video version here. (Thanks, Google!)

As covered in a post in our archives, BMW - like Honda – has taken a ‘if you can’t beat ‘em in power, join ‘em in turbocharging’ philosophy. (Luckily today’s engine managment allows higher compression ratios for less lag).

BMW will unveil its first turbocharged, direct-injection gasoline engine. The engine is based on BMW’s 265-hp, 3.0-liter inline-six. However, with gasoline direct injection and two turbochargers each feeding three cylinders, the engine produces 306 hp; torque is boosted 30 percent over the inline-six. BMW said performance is comparable to that of the automaker’s 4.0-liter V-8, yet the engine emits lower exhaust emissions and produces a 10 percent increase in fuel economy over the V-8. – Automotive News

The 3 series will be the first car to get this engine here in the U.S. – expect it to be badged the 335i and 335Ci. (330Ti and 330iT would have made more sense but when you think about it a turbo does effectively increase displacement. Besides – the Ti label had already been used for 3 series hatches and the iT moniker by dealers to denote wagon versions).

Even on the beautifully surfaced Andalusian roads where I drove it, the ride quality was firm, almost to the point of discomfort…There’s something not quite right with the steering, either. The adoption of hydraulic power assistance has restored some real meat to the feel of helm, which is welcome after the peculiarly artificial feel of the standard Z4 - but if you’re expecting Porsche levels of communication, you’re going to be disappointed. Having that heavy engine over the front wheels has not just added to the Z4’s weight, it also appears to have injected a small but significant degree of numbness to the wheel…

but

the fact that the Boxster S is a demonstrably more capable car than the Z4M does not entirely undermine the BMW’s appeal. On the contrary: the Z4M may not be as technically accomplished as the Boxster, but this does not mean that, in the right environment, it is not capable of being a whole lot more fun… for those who like their driving pleasures rough and ready, rather than silky smooth, the Z4M has a mighty appeal. Most important of all, to me at least, it is a proper, unreconstructed M-car. In an era when BMW is using the M badge to ever less noble ends, that is hugely reassuring.

source: 4Car’s Andrew Frankel

(Sadly the M version is saddled with a cast-iron engine while the non-M version is marred by its run-flat tires and electric steering).

We’ve already salivated at the thought of a hard-topped version of the Z4 sans the electric steering and run-flat tires that cripple that car.

Now evo has reprinted official photos of the M coupe...

If you haven’t taken your car in to get serviced yet, be sure to take both keys with you; they are required to be present for most services…