Quote:
Originally Posted by Montoya
Yes I did say in my opinion. Thank-you for stating yours. That's is what I love about our cars, we get so passionate about them!
But in my defense let me lay out my thinking less emotionally:
My opinion is that the soul of BMW has been to build sport sedans or at the most GT cars in the true Grand Touring sense. Cars that you can rack up 100's of miles a day in at high speed, in all conditions, on all roads, in relative comfort (comfort meaning control and physical comfort).
Now, again in my opinion, the E46 tried too hard to be a hard edged sports car rather than a true sports sedan in the BMW tradition. Here the logic behind that argument:
Suspension: When I owned it in Chicago I felt the suspension was too harsh for the roads there. It was almost grit your teeth harsh going over the frost heaves. Now, granted the car was new and it mellowed overtime and was less of an issue out west. But, despite the harsh suspension, the handling, while great, is not comparable to the E92 with EDC- which is much smoother with better handling.
Acoustics: I also loved the inline six, yet why was there a rasp? This is again just to make the car acoustically 'rougher' or the driving experience more raw. Nobody can tell me the rasp was not intentional. BMW spends 1000's of hours working on the acoustics for all their cars.
Hood Bulge: Total marketing, like they wanted to put a V8 in it eventually. The bulge was even called a 'power dome'. Totally unnecessary.
Engine Redline: Now I know from my own seat of the pants after 5 years of driving it, the stock E46 M3 did not produce more power above 7800 RPM or so. Yet we had a redline at 8200 RPM. Why? The M roadster and coupe both had the same engine with a much lower redline. Mike Miller from Bimmer Magazine and Roundel has stated his opinion the redline is total marketing. I agree. Let's not even start talking about the two bottom end recalls done on mine.
Refinement: For what it is worth all my M3's have been pretty stripped down. My present car has no I-Drive, and my E36 and E46 had manual seats with no sunroof. So, I like comfort but not at the expense of weight. Unfortunately my present M3 has a sunroof, but I bought it used. So no, I don't value comfort over performance. I value refinement with performance. This is my final argument: The E46 M3 designers deliberately chose to make the car less refined to give it a more sporting appeal.
So those are my arguments. Could BMW have made a smoother more refined, 'raspless' M3 that was just as fast as the E46 M3, without the hood bulge and just as much power with a lower redline? Of course. And, to my argument, that would be more of what BMW is about from the 2002 tii to the present E92 M3.
And who cares about grandma? I don't let her near my car!!
(EDIT: Of course I don't mean make lower revving engines! High revving engines are also a BMW tradition- just set the redline based on Engineering, not Marketing).
|
I know this is bumping an old thread, but m3forum is down and I'm bored.
Some points:
1) hood bulge is necessary to physically fit the engine... which honestly is a much more legit reason to have a hood bulge than an air box... and ours doesn't dominate the view out the windshield. "Power dome" does not mean V8 in any way. Having the bulge does not imply a V8 in any way.
2) The side gills are functional as well, at least the drivers side is-- it's an ECU cooling vent. Passenger side one is there for symmetry.
3) Peak power in the S54 is 7900 rpm, redline is 8000 rpm. That said, if you don't know why you'd want to be able to drive past peak power, you should probably hit the track. Often your mid corner, and hitting redline or shifting will throw the car off balance. Being able to stay in gear is a huge advantage, even if, in a straight line, it would mean slower acceleration than a higher gear.
4) The suspension on all e46 M3s was made softer for 04-06. I don't know what year you had, but I would suspect an earlier one.
As for background on me, I've had 4 M3s now-- 2 e36s, 2 e46s (both bought new). I had a downpayment on the e90, but didn't go through with it. Currently I have a e46 m3 daily and a 2415 lb, 385 hp (NA S50B32) e36 M3 track car. That thing is a pretty "pure" M3, imo