What is the root of this BMW design flaw in all 3,5,7 series

[jim beam]

On 03/15/2013 10:28 PM, Bimmer Owner wrote:

On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:14:01 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.

ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going
to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be
sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.

The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different
reasons than those by which others would measure.

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

However, the window regulators break on almost every BMW
older than about 5 years, while the blower motor final stage
resistor (FSR), aka the final stage unit (FSU) will fry itself
more than once on every single bimmer ever built in the late
90's and early 2000's.

The VANOS seals are made of a material that won't last the warranty
period; and the Bosch 5.7 ABS control module was placed far too close
to the engine for cost reasons, which fries almost every single one.

it's not cost dude. see above.

The DISA valve, which appears to be an amazing engineering feat,
is practically designed to loosen the pin, which, if the engine
ingests that steel pin, will wreak havoc on the valves as the
pistons pummel it to pieces (there is nothing between the DISA
valve and the intake manifold!).

The almost criminal design of the DISA is dwarfed by the clearly
deficient design of the cooling system, where almost every bimmer
older than a few years has had a catastrophic failure of, and very
many multiple failures. Thousands of bimmers every year are destroyed
by owners not realizing that a single overheating episode causes
cracks in cylinder 3 (e.g., in the M54 engine) that essentially
turn the otherwise fantastic power plant into so much rubbish.

And, there wasn't an E39 ever built (5-series, 1997 to 2003) which
did NOT have the cluster and MID pixels turn to unreadable junk within
a few years of manufacture (due to the infamous "pink tape").

Likewise, not a single E39 is immune to the horrid choice of PBT
plastic for the headlight adjusters, turning $1000 fiber optic
Halogen H7 and Xenon headlights into veritable candles within a
few years of the heat baking the plastic.

Likely not one E39 hasn't had its power steering hose leak under the
fluid reservoir, and not a single E46, E39, or E38 (3,5,6 series)
bimmer hasn't had the CCV valve fail on them (i.e., a PCV valve
which costs hundreds of dollars to replace, frequently).

For the V8, they all have valley pan gaskets leaking, and all the
bimmers I'm talking about have had their thrust arm bushings tear.

Probably not a single bimmer of the categories above hasn't had the
vapor barrier leaking (due to an extremely poor choice of design
coupled with lousy sealant); and half the bimmers have cables slip
out of the otherwise fancy seat, causing the infamous "seat twist".

I could go on (and on), (e.g., more than half will have the windshield
washer pumps leak, and a huge percentage will lose their jack pads,
while a healthy percentage will melt their center brake lamp housing,
and even the roundels will chip away at the car wash until nothing
but silver is left).

for a company that spends hundreds of millions each and every year on
research, [although that's substantially less than they spend on
advertising!] do you really think all that is simply oversight?

The funny thing is that BMW DOES know how to design a powerplant.

not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.

It appears that the Germans in Bavaria simply 'care' about some
things (just count the ashtrays, for example, and then compare
them to the unanimously ridiculous cupholders of the E39 era)
while they don't care about others.

Clearly BMW cares about handling

no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious, they'd
use wishbone.

now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others,
porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply
made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra
expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that offers
no camber control is just cheap junk.

and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation
control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use works
for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before,
it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed
into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the ultimate
meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners
have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road,
and keeps sales up.


--
fact check required

 

[Scott Dorsey]

In article <ki27tj$pde$1@dont-email.me>, jim beam <me@privacy.net> wrote:

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

Everybody does this, though. This is how cars are designed. I believe
that GM was the original innovator of the concept, at least according to
my old statics professor who had been a GM engineer in the fifties. He
was very enthusiastic about the whole concept of designing for specific
failures.

That said, I have 480,000 miles on the transmission in my old 2002, and
I had a Chrysler Laser that went through five transmissions before I gave
up on the thing.

for a company that spends hundreds of millions each and every year on
research, [although that's substantially less than they spend on
advertising!] do you really think all that is simply oversight?

I think some of the failures, like VANOS seals and the DISA failures, are
the result of trying to push the technology too hard too fast.

And some of them, like the perpetually underdesigned cooling systems,
are the result of German engineers not understanding that the weather
around the world is not the same as it is in Bavaria.

But some of them are the result of typical German Engineering Disease,
where engineers will never use one part to do a job when they can use
five.

Still, when I drive the 2002, it makes me smile. I'm willing to put up
with a remarkable amount of crap for that. Not everyone is, but that's
why they make so many different kinds of cars.

not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.

That is the philosophy of the entire auto industry and singling out one
manufacturer for it is disingenuous.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

 

[jim beam]

On 03/16/2013 10:03 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:

In article <ki27tj$pde$1@dont-email.me>, jim beam <me@privacy.net> wrote:

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

Everybody does this, though. This is how cars are designed. I believe
that GM was the original innovator of the concept, at least according to
my old statics professor who had been a GM engineer in the fifties. He
was very enthusiastic about the whole concept of designing for specific
failures.

correct. i'm referring to the technique which bmw use - as i said, the
"traditional" approach was having stuff wear out, which customers hate.
sudden failure is the way to keep them all hooked, and particularly
with bmw, "you must be a hard driver - it's the price you pay for
driving a 'sports' car" excuses that go with it.

That said, I have 480,000 miles on the transmission in my old 2002,

also correct - they tried to get into this stuff in the late 70's,
didn't get very far, and didn't get it figured out [with outside help]
until the early 80's. there are plenty of old bmw's on the road, but
there's a honking great gap between them and anything older than ~10.

and
I had a Chrysler Laser that went through five transmissions before I gave
up on the thing.

'nuff said!

for a company that spends hundreds of millions each and every year on
research, [although that's substantially less than they spend on
advertising!] do you really think all that is simply oversight?

I think some of the failures, like VANOS seals and the DISA failures, are
the result of trying to push the technology too hard too fast.

it could just be incompetence, but seals are well known, the materials
are well known, so there's no real reason for it to be oversight.
especially if you read some of the german technical literature - they
have multiple phd's crawling over every slightest detail.

And some of them, like the perpetually underdesigned cooling systems,
are the result of German engineers not understanding that the weather
around the world is not the same as it is in Bavaria.

germans travel the globe dude. they know /exactly/ what they're doing.
and no cooling system fails on their target market owner - the one who
wants a new "ultimate driving machine" every three years.

But some of them are the result of typical German Engineering Disease,
where engineers will never use one part to do a job when they can use
five.

part of that is keeping it complicated thus helping to ensure that only
/their/ shops work on their vehicles. why else would you have a 7mm
allen socket on a brake caliper pin when 6 or 8mm would do and is widely
available??? and bmw pioneered the "check engine light" concept and
tried to lock it down so that only /their/ dealers could service their
cars. fortunately, independent repair shops lobbied and congress
stepped in on that one. [initially at least. we now have all the
proprietary "tier two" codes which can be locked, but that's a war of
who lobbies the most.]

the other part is that their design teams tend to work in isolation.
each single component can be well designed, but having them all work
together wasn't part of the original spec.

Still, when I drive the 2002, it makes me smile. I'm willing to put up
with a remarkable amount of crap for that. Not everyone is, but that's
why they make so many different kinds of cars.

sure - it's the last of the era where they had the "good" part of the
engineering figured out, and before the mba's took over.

not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.

That is the philosophy of the entire auto industry and singling out one
manufacturer for it is disingenuous.
--scott

i'm singling them out because their efforts at life limitation and
lock-out are well over and above that of any other. "sealed for life"
transmissions? ygbsm.


--
fact check required

 

[Daniel Prince]

Nate Nagel <njnagel@roosters.net> wrote:

an easy fix is if/when something like that
fails, to splice in some fine-strand wire which will likely outlive the
car. A good source for a DIYer is old Fluke leads; don't throw them out
if you bend a probe!

I would like to acquire some fine-strand wire but I do not have any
old Fluke leads. Do you know where I can buy some? Thank you in
advance for any help.
--
When a cat sits in a human's lap both the human and the cat are usually
happy. The human is happy because he thinks the cat is sitting on him/her
because it loves her/him. The cat is happy because it thinks that by sitting
on the human it is dominant over the human.

 

[jim beam]

On 03/16/2013 07:43 PM, Daniel Prince wrote:

Nate Nagel <njnagel@roosters.net> wrote:

an easy fix is if/when something like that
fails, to splice in some fine-strand wire which will likely outlive the
car. A good source for a DIYer is old Fluke leads; don't throw them out
if you bend a probe!

I would like to acquire some fine-strand wire but I do not have any
old Fluke leads. Do you know where I can buy some? Thank you in
advance for any help.

he can only afford to destroy old fluke leads because he didn't buy
them, his employer did. normal mortals buy high-flex silicone wire from
electronics stores or online. plenty of people sell short lengths on ebay.


--
fact check required

 

On Mar 14, 6:18 am, "trad...@optonline.net" <trad...@optonline.net>
wrote:

On Mar 13, 10:26 pm, Paul Drahn <pdr...@webformixair.com> wrote:

And maybe you've found the root cause of the problem.
Instead of using decent wire suited to the application,
the Europeans chose to use some green hippie wire,
that not only costs more, but fails.....

As long as it doesn't fail during the warranty period they don't care.

Is this poor grade wire mandated by regulations?

G˛

 

[Charlie+]

On Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:52:43 -0700, jim beam <me@privacy.net> wrote as
underneath my scribble :

Interesting post Jim - do you have any approx. info on milage brackets
on failures for transmission and other major cost BMW components? C+

ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going
to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be
sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.



The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different
reasons than those by which others would measure.

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.



However, the window regulators break on almost every BMW
older than about 5 years, while the blower motor final stage
resistor (FSR), aka the final stage unit (FSU) will fry itself
more than once on every single bimmer ever built in the late
90's and early 2000's.

The VANOS seals are made of a material that won't last the warranty
period; and the Bosch 5.7 ABS control module was placed far too close
to the engine for cost reasons, which fries almost every single one.

it's not cost dude. see above.



The DISA valve, which appears to be an amazing engineering feat,
is practically designed to loosen the pin, which, if the engine
ingests that steel pin, will wreak havoc on the valves as the
pistons pummel it to pieces (there is nothing between the DISA
valve and the intake manifold!).

The almost criminal design of the DISA is dwarfed by the clearly
deficient design of the cooling system, where almost every bimmer
older than a few years has had a catastrophic failure of, and very
many multiple failures. Thousands of bimmers every year are destroyed
by owners not realizing that a single overheating episode causes
cracks in cylinder 3 (e.g., in the M54 engine) that essentially
turn the otherwise fantastic power plant into so much rubbish.

And, there wasn't an E39 ever built (5-series, 1997 to 2003) which
did NOT have the cluster and MID pixels turn to unreadable junk within
a few years of manufacture (due to the infamous "pink tape").

Likewise, not a single E39 is immune to the horrid choice of PBT
plastic for the headlight adjusters, turning $1000 fiber optic
Halogen H7 and Xenon headlights into veritable candles within a
few years of the heat baking the plastic.

Likely not one E39 hasn't had its power steering hose leak under the
fluid reservoir, and not a single E46, E39, or E38 (3,5,6 series)
bimmer hasn't had the CCV valve fail on them (i.e., a PCV valve
which costs hundreds of dollars to replace, frequently).

For the V8, they all have valley pan gaskets leaking, and all the
bimmers I'm talking about have had their thrust arm bushings tear.

Probably not a single bimmer of the categories above hasn't had the
vapor barrier leaking (due to an extremely poor choice of design
coupled with lousy sealant); and half the bimmers have cables slip
out of the otherwise fancy seat, causing the infamous "seat twist".

I could go on (and on), (e.g., more than half will have the windshield
washer pumps leak, and a huge percentage will lose their jack pads,
while a healthy percentage will melt their center brake lamp housing,
and even the roundels will chip away at the car wash until nothing
but silver is left).

for a company that spends hundreds of millions each and every year on
research, [although that's substantially less than they spend on
advertising!] do you really think all that is simply oversight?



The funny thing is that BMW DOES know how to design a powerplant.

not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.



It appears that the Germans in Bavaria simply 'care' about some
things (just count the ashtrays, for example, and then compare
them to the unanimously ridiculous cupholders of the E39 era)
while they don't care about others.

Clearly BMW cares about handling

no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious, they'd
use wishbone.

now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others,
porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply
made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra
expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that offers
no camber control is just cheap junk.


and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation
control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use works
for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before,
it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed
into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the ultimate
meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners
have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road,
and keeps sales up.

 

[Nate Nagel]

On 03/15/2013 03:46 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:

In sci.electronics.repair Arthur <arthur@nowhere.com> wrote:
Almost every BMW E39 (5-series) and E38 (7-series) and E46 (3-series)
has shorts that develop in the trunk wiring loom - all in the same spot!

Here is a picture of the uniformity of the shorts:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=286651&stc=1&d=1311702112

Here is another picture from another vehicle:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=287281&stc=1&d=1312154763

And another:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=261502&d=1294537117

And another:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=295239&stc=1&d=1317334573

And another:
http://bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=307223&d=1325771723

And another:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=200762&stc=1&d=1252530849

I could go on (and on); but we can't figure out WHAT the BMW design flaw is.
http://bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=397245

Q: Can you tell from these pictures what the BMW design flaw is?

A: german engineering.

the fact is, germans aren't good with automotive wiring. german designed
vehicles have the shittiest electrical systems ever created.

You've never had an old British car, have you?

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

 

[Nate Nagel]

On 03/16/2013 01:28 AM, Bimmer Owner wrote:

On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:14:01 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.

The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

However, the window regulators break on almost every BMW
older than about 5 years, while the blower motor final stage
resistor (FSR), aka the final stage unit (FSU) will fry itself
more than once on every single bimmer ever built in the late
90's and early 2000's.

The VANOS seals are made of a material that won't last the warranty
period; and the Bosch 5.7 ABS control module was placed far too close
to the engine for cost reasons, which fries almost every single one.

The DISA valve, which appears to be an amazing engineering feat,
is practically designed to loosen the pin, which, if the engine
ingests that steel pin, will wreak havoc on the valves as the
pistons pummel it to pieces (there is nothing between the DISA
valve and the intake manifold!).

The almost criminal design of the DISA is dwarfed by the clearly
deficient design of the cooling system, where almost every bimmer
older than a few years has had a catastrophic failure of, and very
many multiple failures. Thousands of bimmers every year are destroyed
by owners not realizing that a single overheating episode causes
cracks in cylinder 3 (e.g., in the M54 engine) that essentially
turn the otherwise fantastic power plant into so much rubbish.

And, there wasn't an E39 ever built (5-series, 1997 to 2003) which
did NOT have the cluster and MID pixels turn to unreadable junk within
a few years of manufacture (due to the infamous "pink tape").

Likewise, not a single E39 is immune to the horrid choice of PBT
plastic for the headlight adjusters, turning $1000 fiber optic
Halogen H7 and Xenon headlights into veritable candles within a
few years of the heat baking the plastic.

Likely not one E39 hasn't had its power steering hose leak under the
fluid reservoir, and not a single E46, E39, or E38 (3,5,6 series)
bimmer hasn't had the CCV valve fail on them (i.e., a PCV valve
which costs hundreds of dollars to replace, frequently).

For the V8, they all have valley pan gaskets leaking, and all the
bimmers I'm talking about have had their thrust arm bushings tear.

Probably not a single bimmer of the categories above hasn't had the
vapor barrier leaking (due to an extremely poor choice of design
coupled with lousy sealant); and half the bimmers have cables slip
out of the otherwise fancy seat, causing the infamous "seat twist".

I could go on (and on), (e.g., more than half will have the windshield
washer pumps leak, and a huge percentage will lose their jack pads,
while a healthy percentage will melt their center brake lamp housing,
and even the roundels will chip away at the car wash until nothing
but silver is left).

The funny thing is that BMW DOES know how to design a powerplant.

It appears that the Germans in Bavaria simply 'care' about some
things (just count the ashtrays, for example, and then compare
them to the unanimously ridiculous cupholders of the E39 era)
while they don't care about others.

Clearly BMW cares about handling and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

You're probably expecting me to argue with you, but I'm not going to. I
admit to being one of those people to whom the three most important
things about a car are power, handling, and braking - so I like BMWs.
(although the stock brake pads suck unless you like refinishing your
wheels every couple years.) Other people don't care quite so much and
consider "adequate" handling to be acceptable; for them, a BMW is just
too much of a PITA to run so they buy something else. (although current
ride hasn't cost me anything but maintenance and an oil filter housing
gasket - knock on wood.)

And if you want to talk about shite window regulators - I actually had
an A4 chassis GTI for a while. Yes, the one with the plastic doodad
that was guaranteed to break. I was understanding when I read that
their supplier had deviated from the spec, but was angry when the
dealership said that VWoA wouldn't let them fix both windows when I
brought it in for the first one... bastards... but I digress...

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

 

[Nate Nagel]

On 03/16/2013 12:52 PM, jim beam wrote:

On 03/15/2013 10:28 PM, Bimmer Owner wrote:
On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:14:01 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.


ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going
to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be
sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.



The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different
reasons than those by which others would measure.

300 HP from a 3.0 liter six - and likely as much tuning potential as the
vaunted Toyota Supra - is pretty phenomenal in my book.

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

I would never advise anyone to buy a German car with an automatic
transmission. (and you know that BMW don't actually make the
transmissions correct? at least in the E9x 3-series I think the 325
autos are made by GM and the 330/335 autos are ZF-built.) Some things
never change, the E28 5-series would destroy its automatic if you let it
engage a driving gear, then shifted back to neutral, then revved the
engine. (also a ZF box IIRC.) There's an easy solution to that problem
though; learn to drive a 3-pedal car, or if you want a luxury car that
your mom will enjoy driving, buy something other than a BMW. (although
actually my own mom would still probably enjoy driving a BMW, as both
her GTI and Miata are stickshifts.)

And as for "planned obsolescence" - you don't think that Ford, GM, and
Chrysler don't deliberately revise overengineered parts?

<snippo>

Clearly BMW cares about handling

no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious, they'd
use wishbone.

Technically, you are correct, but in practice - it works phenomenally
well. (and actually the rear suspension is a multi-link with shocks,
not a strut type suspension.)

now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others,
porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply
made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra
expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that offers
no camber control is just cheap junk.

Again, it may be cheap, but it works.

Would you call a '67 Corvette with a 427/4-speed "junk" because it is
not technologically advanced? I guarantee you it's still fast by modern
standards, and fun to drive - and that, at the end of the day, is what
matters, not whether a particular component is the most expensive,
theoretically elegant part possible or not.

and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation
control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use works
for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before,
it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed
into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the ultimate
meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners
have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road,
and keeps sales up.

Hmm, I see more older Bimmers on the road than I do GM, Ford, etc. (I
still see a surprisingly large number of E36 3-series and occasionally
even older ones - I actually saw a 2002 on Thursday - probably the only
manufacturers that I see *more* 80's era cars still running around would
be Honda, Toyota, and/or VW and one would ASSume that that's because
they sold more of them.

nate


--
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http://members.cox.net/njnagel

 

[Nate Nagel]

On 03/16/2013 01:03 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Still, when I drive the 2002, it makes me smile. I'm willing to put up
with a remarkable amount of crap for that. Not everyone is, but that's
why they make so many different kinds of cars.

Yes. This is the point that JB doesn't seem to get, nor does he seem
capable of understanding *why* it makes you smile.

not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.

That is the philosophy of the entire auto industry and singling out one
manufacturer for it is disingenuous.

Quite true, and my impression is that German cars are actually better
than either US or Japanese cars in this respect (as in, if maintained
they will actually last *longer.*) I don't know if that is true of the
ones being currently made, but it certainly was 20 years ago.

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
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[jim beam]

On 03/17/2013 05:05 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:

On 03/16/2013 01:03 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:

Still, when I drive the 2002, it makes me smile. I'm willing to put up
with a remarkable amount of crap for that. Not everyone is, but that's
why they make so many different kinds of cars.

Yes. This is the point that JB doesn't seem to get, nor does he seem
capable of understanding *why* it makes you smile.

not from where i sit they don't. single row timing chain, poor
materials, both are manifestation of their overall design philosophy -
they don't sell you a car, they're selling you a period of usage with a
whole bunch of marking brainwash attached.

That is the philosophy of the entire auto industry and singling out one
manufacturer for it is disingenuous.

Quite true, and my impression is that German cars are actually better
than either US or Japanese cars in this respect (as in, if maintained
they will actually last *longer.

yeah, after i've replaced every single component three times over,
including all the stuff that should never break or wear out, the car
works just great!


*) I don't know if that is true of the

ones being currently made, but it certainly was 20 years ago.

there are plenty of 30+ year old bmw's out there. and plenty of 0-10
yo's. but almost nothing in between. that is by design. see above.


--
fact check required

 

[jim beam]

On 03/17/2013 02:45 AM, Charlie+ wrote:

On Sat, 16 Mar 2013 09:52:43 -0700, jim beam <me@privacy.net> wrote as
underneath my scribble :

please don't top post, just snip.

Interesting post Jim - do you have any approx. info on milage brackets
on failures for transmission and other major cost BMW components? C+

this was back in the 80's and my prof was saying target was 100-120k
miles. that's not to say it's current target, but i know several bmw
owners who have had sudden failures at the low end of that range.

his job wasn't to just fix it for a certain mileage though, it was to
solve the math on design life so a given target could be achieved. [it
was a function of the cog tooth root tip radius.] with that solution,
any mileage could be chosen. modern atomic-scale finite element
analysis and cnc cutting tools have probably refined his model
considerably since then.


--
fact check required

 

[jim beam]

On 03/17/2013 05:03 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:

On 03/16/2013 12:52 PM, jim beam wrote:
On 03/15/2013 10:28 PM, Bimmer Owner wrote:
On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:14:01 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.


ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going
to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be
sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.



The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different
reasons than those by which others would measure.

300 HP from a 3.0 liter six - and likely as much tuning potential as the
vaunted Toyota Supra - is pretty phenomenal in my book.

that's only 100hp/liter. honda routinely had production vehicles at
120. non-turbo.

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

I would never advise anyone to buy a German car with an automatic
transmission. (and you know that BMW don't actually make the
transmissions correct?

uh, you know that bmw /spec/ their transmission to their contractor,
correct???

at least in the E9x 3-series I think the 325
autos are made by GM and the 330/335 autos are ZF-built.) Some things
never change, the E28 5-series would destroy its automatic if you let it
engage a driving gear, then shifted back to neutral, then revved the
engine. (also a ZF box IIRC.) There's an easy solution to that problem
though; learn to drive a 3-pedal car, or if you want a luxury car that
your mom will enjoy driving, buy something other than a BMW. (although
actually my own mom would still probably enjoy driving a BMW, as both
her GTI and Miata are stickshifts.)

And as for "planned obsolescence" - you don't think that Ford, GM, and
Chrysler don't deliberately revise overengineered parts?

nate nate nate, when will you ever learn to read? i specifically stated
that bmw's /method/ was pioneering but you didn't read that.

everybody else has been having their crap /wear out/ since the 50's and
customers hate it. bmw's "genius" was sudden failure that took the
customer unawares, /and/ presented them with a huge bill that makes the
majority give up on the vehicle and buy a new one.

snippo

Clearly BMW cares about handling

no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious, they'd
use wishbone.

Technically, you are correct, but in practice - it works phenomenally
well. (and actually the rear suspension is a multi-link with shocks,
not a strut type suspension.)

we'll come to fronts in a moment, but did you not read what i said about
rears??? [rhetorical]

now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others,
porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply
made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra
expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that offers
no camber control is just cheap junk.

Again, it may be cheap, but it works.

yeah, a wheel barrow works. particularly when you have tires 30% wider
than a comparable vehicle that has camber control.

macpherson is garbage. by definition. go out to any parking lot and
look at the inside tire of any macpherson vehicle parked with steering
angled. look at the camber. look at the percentage of tire left on the
pavement. /that/ is a fundamental problem that can't be solved.

macpherson is adequate for the straight-ahead and delightfully cheap for
manufacturers. and that's where the story ends.

Would you call a '67 Corvette with a 427/4-speed "junk" because it is
not technologically advanced? I guarantee you it's still fast by modern
standards, and fun to drive - and that, at the end of the day, is what
matters, not whether a particular component is the most expensive,
theoretically elegant part possible or not.

driveling excuses.

and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation
control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use works
for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before,
it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed
into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the ultimate
meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners
have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road,
and keeps sales up.

Hmm, I see more older Bimmers on the road than I do GM, Ford, etc. (I
still see a surprisingly large number of E36 3-series and occasionally
even older ones - I actually saw a 2002 on Thursday - probably the only
manufacturers that I see *more* 80's era cars still running around would
be Honda, Toyota, and/or VW and one would ASSume that that's because
they sold more of them.

again, you can't read. you see OLD bmw's and you see modern bmw's, but
you see nothing in between. the old stuff was that brief period when
they had the engineering right but bmw's financials were in the crapper.
then in came the mba's, so their engineering focus changed. the
results are right there on the road in front of you every single day.


--
fact check required

 

[Nate Nagel]

On 03/17/2013 11:25 AM, jim beam wrote:

On 03/17/2013 05:03 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 03/16/2013 12:52 PM, jim beam wrote:
On 03/15/2013 10:28 PM, Bimmer Owner wrote:
On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:14:01 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.


ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going
to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be
sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.



The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different
reasons than those by which others would measure.

300 HP from a 3.0 liter six - and likely as much tuning potential as the
vaunted Toyota Supra - is pretty phenomenal in my book.

that's only 100hp/liter. honda routinely had production vehicles at
120. non-turbo.

That's also stock. A simple flash tune (e.g. Cobb) or piggyback (BMS
JuiceBox) can get you to 350-375 easily; more with a larger intercooler
and freer-flowing cats/downpipes. Tony Vargas just dynoed a car on 91
octane pump gas with "full bolt ons" (generally, that means intake,
exhaust, and intercooler and possibly a larger oil cooler as well) and a
set of larger turbos but no internal engine work at 575 wheel HP. That
sure sounds "phenomenal" to me, and reminiscent of what was being done
with Supras 10 years ago or so - and keep in mind that tuners have only
had since 2007 to work on the N54 engine. I suspect that there's more
to be had (and in fact there are people getting more power out of them
using methanol injection.)

I'm sure that BMW knows that there is more potential in that engine but
they likely don't want the x35is a) competing with the M-cars or b)
making so much power that they start to have internal engine part
warranty claims at an unacceptable rate. (because, let's be honest, the
types of people that buy 500+ HP cars tend to want to use that power on
a regular basis.)

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

I would never advise anyone to buy a German car with an automatic
transmission. (and you know that BMW don't actually make the
transmissions correct?

uh, you know that bmw /spec/ their transmission to their contractor,
correct???

Of course, but my point is, that just like headlamps, German mfgrs. seem
to punish Americans by making their automatics as shitty as possible.
Stick with stickshift or DSG and you'll be fine. I'm in no way excusing
the German slushboxes, but their shittiness has not been a secret for
the last 30+ years.

at least in the E9x 3-series I think the 325
autos are made by GM and the 330/335 autos are ZF-built.) Some things
never change, the E28 5-series would destroy its automatic if you let it
engage a driving gear, then shifted back to neutral, then revved the
engine. (also a ZF box IIRC.) There's an easy solution to that problem
though; learn to drive a 3-pedal car, or if you want a luxury car that
your mom will enjoy driving, buy something other than a BMW. (although
actually my own mom would still probably enjoy driving a BMW, as both
her GTI and Miata are stickshifts.)

And as for "planned obsolescence" - you don't think that Ford, GM, and
Chrysler don't deliberately revise overengineered parts?

nate nate nate, when will you ever learn to read? i specifically stated
that bmw's /method/ was pioneering but you didn't read that.

everybody else has been having their crap /wear out/ since the 50's and
customers hate it. bmw's "genius" was sudden failure that took the
customer unawares, /and/ presented them with a huge bill that makes the
majority give up on the vehicle and buy a new one.

You just perfectly described why I drive German cars and *not* Hondas.

snippo

Clearly BMW cares about handling

no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious, they'd
use wishbone.

Technically, you are correct, but in practice - it works phenomenally
well. (and actually the rear suspension is a multi-link with shocks,
not a strut type suspension.)

we'll come to fronts in a moment, but did you not read what i said about
rears??? [rhetorical]



now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others,
porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply
made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra
expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that offers
no camber control is just cheap junk.

Again, it may be cheap, but it works.

yeah, a wheel barrow works. particularly when you have tires 30% wider
than a comparable vehicle that has camber control.

Actually BMW tire sizes are pretty narrow comparatively, 225s on the
front of a vehicle that curbs around 3400? And that's the M-sport
package. BMW's tire choices are a good example of one of the instances
where they have made questionable choices however; the Bridgestone
run-flats do appear to have been made from actual rocks, without
actually providing superior tread life.

Another thing you're not considering is that a strut-type front
suspension allows room for things like big v-engines in the front of the
car (remember, the current M3 uses a 4.7 liter overhead cam V-8,) and is
simpler and may very well weigh less than a comparable SLA design.
these are all things that must be considered when you're looking at a
car designed for performance first.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not slagging Honda for using a SLA suspension -
far from it - but there are several ways to peel a feline. Honda chose
one way and makes some very nice handling cars (albeit FWD.) BMW and
Porsche chose another and also make some very nice handling cars (but
you can criticize Porsche for sticking with hanging the big heavy bits
out behind the rear axle, but I suspect that that is in large part due
to the Porsche faithful not accepting anything else - look at the
relative failure of the 928 for example - just like we probably won't
see a Harley-Davidson with anything other than a v-twin in our lifetimes.)

macpherson is garbage. by definition. go out to any parking lot and
look at the inside tire of any macpherson vehicle parked with steering
angled. look at the camber. look at the percentage of tire left on the
pavement. /that/ is a fundamental problem that can't be solved.

macpherson is adequate for the straight-ahead and delightfully cheap for
manufacturers. and that's where the story ends.

Hmm. Doesn't seem to hurt any of the top competitors in DTM, BTCC, etc.
etc. etc. How far are the wheels generally turned in high-G cornering
maneuvers, anyway? And if you'd ever owned a Bimmer you would know that
any tire wear problems generally experienced are NOT in the front but in
the rear, which has an "acceptable" suspension design according to you
but since BMW's alignment specs have aggressive camber for better
handling the rears tend to wear the snot out of the insides of the tires
when the car is driven non-aggressively.

Finally, if you hate struts so much, why are you constantly slagging the
Germans, who nobody can deny build beautiful handling cars (and I have
never driven a car that had as nice steering feel as my old E28 chassis
535i, I suppose that that is unacceptable though because it used a
recirc ball steering box which is "outdated" compared to modern R&P?)
and yet I haven't yet seen you criticize Ford for the execrable
Twin-I-Beam front end which was unmitigated garbage and arguably
inferior to a simple straight axle, and was used pretty much unchanged
save for a swap from kingpins to ball joints (a step backward, IMHO)
through the mid-late 90's!

Would you call a '67 Corvette with a 427/4-speed "junk" because it is
not technologically advanced? I guarantee you it's still fast by modern
standards, and fun to drive - and that, at the end of the day, is what
matters, not whether a particular component is the most expensive,
theoretically elegant part possible or not.

driveling excuses.

It's not an excuse, customers don't care about such things generally.
What they do care about is handling and ride. If it is provided by
means of transverse leaf springs and using the driveshafts as suspension
links, nobody gives a crap so long as it works well.

I suppose given the choice between, say, a BMW E30 M3 and a SLA Honda
Civic, in similar condition, you would pick the Civic because it has a
more sophisticated suspension design, EVEN THOUGH THE BIMMER IS BETTER
IN EVERY RESPECT when it comes to what matters to the driver?

Did you miss the bit where the BMW 3-series has made C&D's 10 best list
for over 20 consecutive years now? And also the bit where the new
Accord made this year's list as well, *despite* having the struts that
you hate so much?

and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation
control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use works
for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before,
it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed
into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the ultimate
meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners
have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road,
and keeps sales up.

Hmm, I see more older Bimmers on the road than I do GM, Ford, etc. (I
still see a surprisingly large number of E36 3-series and occasionally
even older ones - I actually saw a 2002 on Thursday - probably the only
manufacturers that I see *more* 80's era cars still running around would
be Honda, Toyota, and/or VW and one would ASSume that that's because
they sold more of them.

again, you can't read. you see OLD bmw's and you see modern bmw's, but
you see nothing in between. the old stuff was that brief period when
they had the engineering right but bmw's financials were in the crapper.
then in came the mba's, so their engineering focus changed. the
results are right there on the road in front of you every single day.

Where I live Bimmers seem to be one of the most popular cars (along with
Toyota Camrys and various SUVs,) and I see a whole range of them on the
road. The very early 3-series cars seem to have mostly disappeared, as
well as most of the cars that predate the 3/5/6/7/8xx naming convention,
but then again, I did see another 2002 coupe while out and about this
morning. If you're looking for any particular design of 3-series
however, save for the E30, you're likely to spot one within 10 minutes
or so simply by driving around and looking. I probably see more E46 and
E36 than I do E9x or F30s.

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

 

[jim beam]

On 03/17/2013 09:00 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:

On 03/17/2013 11:25 AM, jim beam wrote:
On 03/17/2013 05:03 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 03/16/2013 12:52 PM, jim beam wrote:
On 03/15/2013 10:28 PM, Bimmer Owner wrote:
On Thu, 14 Mar 2013 20:14:01 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

perhaps they did have a flaw in the routing/materials of
one wiring harness, but show me a comparable vehicle at the same
price
point that handles better. To accuse BMW across the board of poor
engineering is laughable.


ok, you're not going to like a lot of what i have to say, so i'm going
to preface this by reminding you that i recognize that you may be
sincere in what you believe - so don't take all this personally.



The bimmer handles well, and the power train is phenomenal.

bmw's power trains are indeed "phenomenal", but for entirely different
reasons than those by which others would measure.

300 HP from a 3.0 liter six - and likely as much tuning potential as the
vaunted Toyota Supra - is pretty phenomenal in my book.

that's only 100hp/liter. honda routinely had production vehicles at
120. non-turbo.

That's also stock.

dude, the 120 is stock. your 100 is stock. last i checked, 120 > 100.
your math may be different, but that's not my problem.

A simple flash tune (e.g. Cobb) or piggyback (BMS
JuiceBox) can get you to 350-375 easily;

that's still only 125.

more with a larger intercooler

intercooler means turbo. if you're only getting 125 turbo, you're not
very good at tuning a vehicle.

and freer-flowing cats/downpipes. Tony Vargas just dynoed a car on 91
octane pump gas with "full bolt ons" (generally, that means intake,
exhaust, and intercooler and possibly a larger oil cooler as well) and a
set of larger turbos but no internal engine work at 575 wheel HP.

so freakin' what? there are turbo integras with more output than that.
and that's only a 1.8l 4-banger.

That
sure sounds "phenomenal" to me, and reminiscent of what was being done
with Supras 10 years ago or so - and keep in mind that tuners have only
had since 2007 to work on the N54 engine. I suspect that there's more
to be had (and in fact there are people getting more power out of them
using methanol injection.)

you're clearly in self-justification mode and incapable of receiving any
incoming information.

I'm sure that BMW knows that there is more potential in that engine but
they likely don't want the x35is a) competing with the M-cars or b)
making so much power that they start to have internal engine part
warranty claims at an unacceptable rate. (because, let's be honest, the
types of people that buy 500+ HP cars tend to want to use that power on
a regular basis.)

??? why don't /you/ get one? you bought a bmw because you want a
"powerful" car, right?

bmw are pioneers in transmission life limitation. gm and frod used to
do this by simply using cheapo clutch packs in their automatics, and
cheapo steel in their sticks so they'd wear out or spall respectively.
bmw didn't like these failure modes, so, not content with "sealed for
life", they decided to design fatigue /into/ their cogs so they'd
fatigue and break. [the beauty of fatigue is that you don't get "whiny
transmission" or slippage symptoms that develop over time - one second
it works, the next, it's a catastrophic failure.] i know this because
one of my old profs was their outside consultant, and it was
interesting
to us as students because the metallurgical problem was how to ensure
that individual ratios would fail when each one operates somewhere
within the three [very different mechanism] fatigue "regimes". it's a
"phenomenal" technical achievement and one that bmw paid a lot of money
to solve. all the majors are now reputed to have followed their
lead to
some extent. the real kicker is that it costs bmw ~20% more in
materials and q.c. to ensure this life limitation, but the mba's did
their math and it pays because it causes big ticket repairs to vehicles
that are depreciated thus ensuring that the vehicle gets junked.

I would never advise anyone to buy a German car with an automatic
transmission. (and you know that BMW don't actually make the
transmissions correct?

uh, you know that bmw /spec/ their transmission to their contractor,
correct???


Of course, but my point is, that just like headlamps, German mfgrs. seem
to punish Americans by making their automatics as shitty as possible.

that wasn't your point before.

Stick with stickshift or DSG and you'll be fine.

um, actually, dsg has been highly problematic. and modern bmw sticks
aren't exactly champion either.

I'm in no way excusing
the German slushboxes, but their shittiness has not been a secret for
the last 30+ years.

it's not a "slushbox", it's an "automatic transmission".

at least in the E9x 3-series I think the 325
autos are made by GM and the 330/335 autos are ZF-built.) Some things
never change, the E28 5-series would destroy its automatic if you let it
engage a driving gear, then shifted back to neutral, then revved the
engine. (also a ZF box IIRC.) There's an easy solution to that problem
though; learn to drive a 3-pedal car, or if you want a luxury car that
your mom will enjoy driving, buy something other than a BMW. (although
actually my own mom would still probably enjoy driving a BMW, as both
her GTI and Miata are stickshifts.)

And as for "planned obsolescence" - you don't think that Ford, GM, and
Chrysler don't deliberately revise overengineered parts?

nate nate nate, when will you ever learn to read? i specifically stated
that bmw's /method/ was pioneering but you didn't read that.

everybody else has been having their crap /wear out/ since the 50's and
customers hate it. bmw's "genius" was sudden failure that took the
customer unawares, /and/ presented them with a huge bill that makes the
majority give up on the vehicle and buy a new one.


You just perfectly described why I drive German cars and *not* Hondas.

because you like cars where you're obligated to take big ticket
expenditure up the ass??? wow, you're even more retardeder than i thought.

snippo

Clearly BMW cares about handling

no they don't - they use macpherson strut. if they were serious,
they'd
use wishbone.

Technically, you are correct, but in practice - it works phenomenally
well. (and actually the rear suspension is a multi-link with shocks,
not a strut type suspension.)

we'll come to fronts in a moment, but did you not read what i said about
rears??? [rhetorical]



now, bmw are at least smart enough to have realized before most others,
porsche included, that rear suspension is crucial to making a cheaply
made car handle better, so they do at least concede to a little extra
expenditure on that, but by definition, any front suspension that
offers
no camber control is just cheap junk.

Again, it may be cheap, but it works.

yeah, a wheel barrow works. particularly when you have tires 30% wider
than a comparable vehicle that has camber control.

Actually BMW tire sizes are pretty narrow comparatively, 225s on the
front of a vehicle that curbs around 3400?

weight is not a factor in tire size. bmw use big tires because it's the
cheap way to compensate for otherwise having less rubber on the road
with cheapo macpherson strut.

And that's the M-sport
package. BMW's tire choices are a good example of one of the instances
where they have made questionable choices however; the Bridgestone
run-flats do appear to have been made from actual rocks, without
actually providing superior tread life.

wow, two red herrings in one paragraph - you surpass your usual standards!

Another thing you're not considering is that a strut-type front
suspension allows room for things like big v-engines in the front of the
car (remember, the current M3 uses a 4.7 liter overhead cam V-8,) and is
simpler and may very well weigh less than a comparable SLA design. these
are all things that must be considered when you're looking at a car
designed for performance first.

i'm sorry, didn't the original pony cars have have v8's and wishbones?
doesn't the corvette have a v8 and wishbones? oh, wait, you were
talking out of your ass - no problem.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not slagging Honda for using a SLA suspension -
far from it - but there are several ways to peel a feline. Honda chose
one way and makes some very nice handling cars (albeit FWD.) BMW and
Porsche chose another and also make some very nice handling cars (but
you can criticize Porsche for sticking with hanging the big heavy bits
out behind the rear axle, but I suspect that that is in large part due
to the Porsche faithful not accepting anything else - look at the
relative failure of the 928 for example - just like we probably won't
see a Harley-Davidson with anything other than a v-twin in our lifetimes.)

all you're saying is that you'll wriggle and squirm for any excuse to
justify you poor choice.

macpherson is garbage. by definition. go out to any parking lot and
look at the inside tire of any macpherson vehicle parked with steering
angled. look at the camber. look at the percentage of tire left on the
pavement. /that/ is a fundamental problem that can't be solved.

macpherson is adequate for the straight-ahead and delightfully cheap for
manufacturers. and that's where the story ends.

Hmm. Doesn't seem to hurt any of the top competitors in DTM, BTCC, etc.
etc. etc. How far are the wheels generally turned in high-G cornering
maneuvers, anyway? And if you'd ever owned a Bimmer you would know that
any tire wear problems generally experienced are NOT in the front but in
the rear, which has an "acceptable" suspension design according to you
but since BMW's alignment specs have aggressive camber for better
handling the rears tend to wear the snot out of the insides of the tires
when the car is driven non-aggressively.

you're simply incapable of paying any attention. i don't know how many
times i've said it before, but apparently i need to say it again - rear
suspension is important because it's subject to higher lateral force
given the shorter radius for the same angular velocity as the front.
/that/ is why rears wear. oh, and they're driving wheels of course -
can't forget that!

Finally, if you hate struts so much, why are you constantly slagging the
Germans, who nobody can deny build beautiful handling cars (and I have
never driven a car that had as nice steering feel as my old E28 chassis
535i,

then you've never driven a nice car if that's your pinnacle!

I suppose that that is unacceptable though because it used a
recirc ball steering box which is "outdated" compared to modern R&P?)
and yet I haven't yet seen you criticize Ford for the execrable
Twin-I-Beam front end which was unmitigated garbage and arguably
inferior to a simple straight axle, and was used pretty much unchanged
save for a swap from kingpins to ball joints (a step backward, IMHO)
through the mid-late 90's!

you're putting false words in my mouth, then bullshitting about what
i've never said. that's retarded.

Would you call a '67 Corvette with a 427/4-speed "junk" because it is
not technologically advanced? I guarantee you it's still fast by modern
standards, and fun to drive - and that, at the end of the day, is what
matters, not whether a particular component is the most expensive,
theoretically elegant part possible or not.

driveling excuses.

It's not an excuse, customers don't care about such things generally.

generally??? could you be any more worthlessly vague??? rolled in with
your driveling excuses of course...

What they do care about is handling and ride.

no they don't or they'd all be driving miatas, old civics, wishbone
audi's, etc.

If it is provided by
means of transverse leaf springs and using the driveshafts as suspension
links, nobody gives a crap so long as it works well.

"works well"??? if i'm used to driving a leaf-sprung solid axle truck,
am i qualified to say that a bmw drives well? how about if i drive an
elise?

I suppose given the choice between, say, a BMW E30 M3 and a SLA Honda
Civic, in similar condition, you would pick the Civic because it has a
more sophisticated suspension design, EVEN THOUGH THE BIMMER IS BETTER
IN EVERY RESPECT when it comes to what matters to the driver?

am i not a driver? what matters to me, and all the other touring car
class champs that drive these civic's, crx's and miata's for that
matter, is that the freakin' thing works better than the macpherson
garbage out there.

Did you miss the bit where the BMW 3-series has made C&D's 10 best list
for over 20 consecutive years now?

car and driver???? ygtbfsm.

And also the bit where the new
Accord made this year's list as well, *despite* having the struts that
you hate so much?

qed!!!

and efficiency of the power train;
yet, just as clearly, overall product quality is NOT even on their
radar screens.

it most definitely is. bmw are the pioneers of modern life limitation
control. nobody has spent more on ensuring that whatever they use
works
for a closely defined period, and not a moment longer. as said before,
it costs more to do this, but it pays. customers buying new are snowed
into believing this "ultimate driving machine" advertising [the
ultimate
meaningless tagline!] so they don't care. and second [or later] owners
have no recourse. it gets older bmw's [and their parts] off the road,
and keeps sales up.

Hmm, I see more older Bimmers on the road than I do GM, Ford, etc. (I
still see a surprisingly large number of E36 3-series and occasionally
even older ones - I actually saw a 2002 on Thursday - probably the only
manufacturers that I see *more* 80's era cars still running around would
be Honda, Toyota, and/or VW and one would ASSume that that's because
they sold more of them.

again, you can't read. you see OLD bmw's and you see modern bmw's, but
you see nothing in between. the old stuff was that brief period when
they had the engineering right but bmw's financials were in the crapper.
then in came the mba's, so their engineering focus changed. the
results are right there on the road in front of you every single day.

Where I live Bimmers seem to be one of the most popular cars (along with
Toyota Camrys and various SUVs,) and I see a whole range of them on the
road. The very early 3-series cars seem to have mostly disappeared, as
well as most of the cars that predate the 3/5/6/7/8xx naming convention,
but then again, I did see another 2002 coupe while out and about this
morning. If you're looking for any particular design of 3-series
however, save for the E30, you're likely to spot one within 10 minutes
or so simply by driving around and looking. I probably see more E46 and
E36 than I do E9x or F30s.

are you for real? did you not read what i said? or do you simply not
understand it? [rhetorical] you're a total waste of electrons.


--
fact check required

 

[Bimmer Owner]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2013 07:49:51 -0400, Nate Nagel wrote:

You're probably expecting me to argue with you, but I'm not

This isn't an 'argument'; it's merely a discussion.
Everything you said and everything I said was true.

three most important things ... are power, handling, and braking

The E39 that I own handles those three with aplomb!

(although the stock brake pads suck unless you like refinishing
your wheels every couple years.)

The stock front pads are Jurid, with the rears being Textar,
both with an FF friction & fade coefficient. They work well
enough, although Akebono GG friction ratings are often used
as replacement.

I use the Axxis/PBR FF pads, which dust the same color as the
wheels, so you don't see the unsightly darker-colored dust
of the stock Jurid pads.

current ride hasn't cost me anything but maintenance and an
oil filter housing gasket

The OFH often leaks on the BMW M54 engine; but luckily it's an
inexpensive part, albeit a bit of a pain to DIY.

Overall, I think we're in agreement, so there's really no need
for any argument. One thing about bimmer owners, they KNOW their
cars!

 

[Scott Dorsey]

<stratus46@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Mar 14, 6:18=A0am, "trad...@optonline.net" <trad...@optonline.net
wrote:
On Mar 13, 10:26=A0pm, Paul Drahn <pdr...@webformixair.com> wrote:

And maybe you've found the root cause of the problem.
Instead of using decent wire suited to the application,
the Europeans chose to use some green hippie wire,
that not only costs more, but fails.....

As long as it doesn't fail during the warranty period they don't care.

Is this poor grade wire mandated by regulations?

I have seen a lot of cars over the years, and I have never, ever seen one
that used anything approaching quality wire.

And that begins with the '72 Datsun I had, where all of the insulation turned
to goo and every foot of wire in the body had to be pulled out and replaced.

Just take a look at what goes into airplanes vs. what goes into cars and
you'll be staggered.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

 

[Ralph Mowery]

"Scott Dorsey" <kludge@panix.com> wrote in message
news:ki78te$bnr$1@panix2.panix.com...

Just take a look at what goes into airplanes vs. what goes into cars and
you'll be staggered.

The price per foot will probalby do the same.

 

[jim beam]

On 03/18/2013 07:38 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:

stratus46@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Mar 14, 6:18=A0am, "trad...@optonline.net" <trad...@optonline.net
wrote:
On Mar 13, 10:26=A0pm, Paul Drahn <pdr...@webformixair.com> wrote:

And maybe you've found the root cause of the problem.
Instead of using decent wire suited to the application,
the Europeans chose to use some green hippie wire,
that not only costs more, but fails.....

As long as it doesn't fail during the warranty period they don't care.

Is this poor grade wire mandated by regulations?

I have seen a lot of cars over the years, and I have never, ever seen one
that used anything approaching quality wire.

you're spoiled if you work on aero-spec stuff.

car quality goes in cycles - for some manufacturers anyway. in the late
80's, hondas used a higher grade under the hood - fine wire high count
high temp high flex [though not silicone], and it's remarkably reliable.
in the mid 90's they changed to lower flex, smaller cross-section,
lower count, much more akin to the wire used in the rest of the vehicle
- it still just about hangs in there, though i doubt it's million mile
material. i'm pretty sure copper prices had a big influence on this.

And that begins with the '72 Datsun I had, where all of the insulation turned
to goo and every foot of wire in the body had to be pulled out and replaced.

Just take a look at what goes into airplanes vs. what goes into cars and
you'll be staggered.
--scott

planes cost a /lot/ more!


--
fact check required