# What makes a BMW so different?



## Fifty_Cent (Sep 17, 2003)

BahnBaum said:


> You must be kidding.
> 
> Can you tell me what it looks like when drivers of much more expensive cars look at your car with envy? Because I've never ever noticed that. In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever seen people who drive less expensive cars do that to one of my BMWs.
> 
> Alex


Well, there are people that cannot really tell any difference from a Caddilac to a BMW if you ask me. (Or a Ferrari to that matter)

Thing is, people over here drive mostly 318is and 116is. I guess its the 17' wheels, the chrome linings, the twin tailpipe and the lowered ride that does the trick. Well, in the US, where cars are half the price than here, and the average salary is most probably double than here, you see that you guys have the advantage of buying nicer cars. I mean, I imported my car used from Singapore and it still costed me 40.000US$ two years ago.


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## bmw325 (Dec 19, 2001)

I agree with Pinecone. What makes BMWs "special" is that they do a very good job in all areas; they're not the best in any 1 category, but they're very good or pretty good in all categories. That, and the steering feel (and possibly ride quality) is what makes BMWs "special".


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## jrp (Nov 11, 2004)

robg said:


> I agree with Pinecone. What makes BMWs "special" is that they do a very good job in all areas; they're not the best in any 1 category, but they're very good or pretty good in all categories. That, and the steering feel (and possibly ride quality) is what makes BMWs "special".


Absolutely. They're the all-around champions...and many of us here understand that. The fact that they're often not the best in one specific category makes them easy marks for criticism from the uninitiated or those who don't get it, i.e., Lexus is more reliable, Infiniti is less expensive, Corvettes accelerate better, Porsches handle better, Ferraris are sexier, Hyundais drink less gas, etc.

And BMW's also have a playful soul:

Lexus/MB says "Forget it. There's no way I'm doing that." 
Infiniti says "Are you sure? Ok, I"ll give it a shot."
BMW says "Is that all you got? Bring it on!"


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## SmoothCruise (Jul 23, 2005)

FenPhen said:


> Nissan isn't on any of the IEotY lists. It makes Ward's list every year, but using the same two engine designs (VQ35DE and VQ30DE). BMW makes Ward's list with 9 different engines.


After your original post, I emailed the International Engine of the Year organization and asked them about their criteria and the lack of Ferrari on the list. The head editor replied back telling me that the award is given to a panel of judges that each use "their own" criteria for judging which he didn't know what weighting they gave for the basic criteria, and past that what other things influenced their scores. Then they take a vote So in other words, *quoting this organization means nothing* if you don't know what all the criteria is, and what weightings they used.

He did also pointed out to me the lack of Ferrari and Porsche on this list and the "real world bias" that judges exhibit. *Implying that there is a cost of goods and volume of sales factor that comes into play.* Now, that's not such a bad thing, real world could also mean reliability, and it's probably here where BMW beats out Ferrari.

So I maintain, that the whole "best engine" thing is a matter of taste, and not only that, that the IEotY has a "best for the money" factor in their engines. This tells me that BMW isn't the *clear* winner. And like I said before, *there are bad engines, good engines, and engines past that have trade offs targeting different applications.*


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## SmoothCruise (Jul 23, 2005)

FenPhen said:


> M5/M6 S85 engine:
> 445 hp / 383 ft-lbs @ 6100
> 500 hp / 339 ft-lbs @ 7750
> 
> ...


Your numbers look funny. Is 5250 rpms for the F430 engine at max torque? And if so, why does HP have the same value at this RPM?

Now, I don't have the two charts in front of me, so I'll take your word for it, kind of.

BUT, I don't see how they differ all that much from your numbers. The drop of torque from max-torque to max-hp rpm is roughly is 45 ft-lbs for the Ferrari engine, and 43 ft-lbs for the BMW. The Ferrari engine drops faster by 2 pounds, that's not much difference.

Here's the slopes (Dtorque/Drpm) for both motors:

Ferrari F430: -0.014
BMW M5/M6: -0.03

By the Bimmerfest criteria of a 'BMW engines are worth their weight in gold because they have the flattest-torque curves', your numbers show that the Ferrari engine is much better. And remember, Ferrari motor has less to work with. So you are right, the curves aren't that similar, in fact the Ferrari curve is alot better.


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## Fast Bob (Jun 4, 2004)

SmoothCruise said:


> Your numbers look funny. Is 5250 rpms for the F430 engine at max torque? And if so, why does HP have the same value at this RPM?
> 
> Now, I don't have the two charts in front of me, so I'll take your word for it, kind of.


Torque & HP cross paths at 5250 RPM in *all* engines (at least, ones that are capable of this RPM range)

Regards,
Bob


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## SmoothCruise (Jul 23, 2005)

Fast Bob said:


> Torque & HP cross paths at 5250 RPM in *all* engines (at least, ones that are capable of this RPM range)
> 
> Regards,
> Bob


I know. I'm just wondering why he used the rpms given. I'd just assume the first numbers are at max torque. I just thought it funny that max torque also happens @5250 for the ferrari. I don't usually see that, and that's what I found to be suspect. Perhaps it happens more often than I think.


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## FenPhen (Jan 13, 2004)

SmoothCruise said:


> Your numbers look funny. Is 5250 rpms for the F430 engine at max torque? And if so, why does HP have the same value at this RPM?


That's the quoted max torque number for the F430, and 1 hp = 1 ft-lbs @ 5252 rpm.



> By the Bimmerfest criteria of a 'BMW engines are worth their weight in gold because they have the flattest-torque curves', your numbers show that the Ferrari engine is much better. And remember, Ferrari motor has less to work with. So you are right, the curves aren't that similar, in fact the Ferrari curve is alot better.


Let's backtrack for a second. You were comparing your 6's 4.4-L V-8 to the F430's 4.3-L V-8 as evidence that Ferrari makes better engines because of output/displacement efficiency. I posted the numbers for the 645Ci and 650Ci to show that the Ferrari engine and the BMW engines have different goals. The BMW engines are designed for autobahn cruising and everyday driving. They have flatter torque curves so you can push the go pedal within a wide (and low) rpm range and get solid response, and the engines feature Valvetronic so that tells you fuel efficiency is also a goal.

So then you bring in the M5/M6 S85 engine because it's more a racing engine like the Ferrari engine. The F430's power band is wider, but the BMW S85 produces a lot more output within the range of the F430's band, hence my saying the power band is not similar. Now that we're talking about racing engines, we don't care about torque flatness.

I'm not a racer, but my understanding is that for track cars, you figure out what speeds and acceleration ranges you need on a track, then you figure out the gear ratios (working rpm ranges), and then you push the torque peak up into that range and maximize output. You use gearing to stay in the power band instead of making the band wider.

Notice that the M5 has a 7-speed SMG transmission. Using Greg Heumann's E39 M5 spreadsheet, I put in the E60 M5's numbers and used this torque curve. What you end up seeing is that the E60's gearing is set up so you shift at the 8000-rpm redline, and the gear ratios put you back in the neighborhood of 5250-6000 rpm for the next gear, just before the torque peak. So even though the S85's band isn't flat, the gears are set up so you are always using all of that goodness pretty much all the time.

```
engine RPM				4,500	5,000	5,500	6,000	6,500	7,000	7,500	8,000
estimated torque (ft-lbs)		345	347	353	380	383	366	349	324
speed (mph)	1st gear	14.444	25	28	30	33	36	39	41	44
		2nd gear	9.593	37	42	46	50	54	58	62	67
		3rd gear	6.552	55	61	67	73	79	85	91	98
		4th gear	5.032	71	79	87	95	103	111	119	127
		5th gear	4.199	86	95	105	114	124	133	143	152
		6th gear	3.620	99	110	121	132	143	154	166	177
									
									
									
Thrust at rear wheels in 1st (lbs)	3,785	3,807	3,873	4,169	4,202	4,016	3,829	3,555
Thrust at rear wheels in 2nd (lbs)	2,514	2,529	2,572	2,769	2,791	2,667	2,543	2,361
Thrust at rear wheels in 3rd (lbs)	1,717	1,727	1,757	1,891	1,906	1,822	1,737	1,613
Thrust at rear wheels in 4th (lbs)	1,319	1,326	1,349	1,453	1,464	1,399	1,334	1,238
Thrust at rear wheels in 5th (lbs)	1,101	1,107	1,126	1,212	1,222	1,168	1,113	1,034
Thrust at rear wheels in 6th (lbs)	949	954	971	1,045	1,053	1,006	960	891

Torque estimated from metric-hp chart, thrust calculated with 15% driveline loss, 7th gear not included
```
I couldn't find gear ratios for the F430, so don't really know what's going on there. :dunno: Here's a guess:


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## FenPhen (Jan 13, 2004)

SmoothCruise said:


> So I maintain, that the whole "best engine" thing is a matter of taste, and not only that, that the IEotY has a "best for the money" factor in their engines. This tells me that BMW isn't the *clear* winner. And like I said before, *there are bad engines, good engines, and engines past that have trade offs targeting different applications.*


Different engines have different goals, and the wide categories of awards BMW has won show that they are adept at making all kinds of engines and the automotive press recognizes those accomplishments through awards.

The IEotY award recognized the S85 engine. The IEotY award recognized the Ferrari 5.5-L V-12. Ward's recognized the Boxster's flat-6 and included Porsche's flat-6 in their best-of-the-20th-Century list. How does BMW showing up in the winner's spot more often than others prove bias?

Are you implying that the IEotY judges are biased? I count 56 judges representing 26 countries, and everyone has 10+ years of automotive press experience, if not 20 to 40 years. We can also look at each category and how different engines placed. Turns out the F430 finishes behind the S85 engine by a very healthy margin in Best Performance Engine and Above 4-Liter. Porsche appears several times in those and other categories too. The Web site also explains how engines are scored.

I agree with you about trade-offs. So what are we left with for "best engine" awards? Subjectivity. How do you quantify that? You do what the IEotY panel does: experts vote, taking into account all kinds of criteria. If anything, this should show that BMW really is the best engine manufacturer if it can place and win in so many categories on subjective voting.


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## SmoothCruise (Jul 23, 2005)

FenPhen said:


> The Web site also explains how engines are scored.
> 
> Yes I read that. Read my other post please. We don't know what weightings they used, and the editor himself admits there's other factors that come into play.
> 
> ...


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## FenPhen (Jan 13, 2004)

SmoothCruise said:


> Bias, because they see the BMW do badge so it automatically is on another scale? No, ofcourse not. But after receiving a reply from the head editor the judges factor in "real world bias", yes, they are cost and reliability biased, which is what I'm trying to say. BMWs make the best performaing engines "for the money."


What are you trying to say? Ferrari makes the best engines because their engines perform the best for the displacement? And you're arguing performance based on just peak torque and peak power?



> Press experience? I don't really put much weight on someone with press experience. Have you ever read a book written by a journalist in an area you are an expert in? If so, I think you know what I'm talking about. The analogy is thinking the AP press knows what the best college football team is. To be fair, I'm sure there's a healthy number of judges who are actual engineers and design motors in the past.


They've at least been around and experienced many more cars and engines than you and I ever have. By your analogy, nobody is qualified to write about anything for anyone else but themselves. :dunno:



> Right, trade-offs, is what it's all about. I'm glad we agree. Subjectivity is not science, so you cannot logically or rationally "prove" anything from a vote, even among press-experts.


Science only gets you so far, in terms of practicality. Subjectivity doesn't make something fact, but if you can repeat a subjective result, you can show a group's preference for something with high probability. In this case, BMW builds the most engines that satisfy what most automotive journalists value in an engine, year after year.

How much you value their collective opinion is your own preference, and the same can be said for food critics, movie critics, movie ratings, owner satisfaction surveys, team rankings, employee performance, etc. But put all those opinions together, and you should get more useful information than just one guy's observation/opinion. (I once wrote a stats report that showed a high correlation between Rotten Tomatoes critics ratings and IMDb user ratings, which suggests that critics as a whole are useful predictors for group opinion.)


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## Rowag (Nov 12, 2004)

BahnBaum said:


> You must be kidding.
> 
> Can you tell me what it looks like when drivers of much more expensive cars look at your car with envy? Because I've never ever noticed that. In fact, I'm not sure that I've ever seen people who drive less expensive cars do that to one of my BMWs.
> 
> Alex


 A year ago my wife (a preschool teacher at the time) and I were sharing a 325ci. Her boss was a bit envious. So she went and dropped $45k on an SUV... I don't remember exactly what kind now (Toyota Sequoia maybe?), but it was big, leather, blah, blah.

We got the 330ci ZHP later, and she was like "this one's even NICER!"

Then we bought our Boxster, which my wife drove. This time "YOU GOT A FREAKIN' PORSCHE??!??!!!" We told her we picked it up for about $20k and I think that made her even more mad. :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


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## EdCT (Mar 14, 2002)

robg said:


> I agree with Pinecone. What makes BMWs "special" is that they do a very good job in all areas; they're not the best in any 1 category, but they're very good or pretty good in all categories. That, and the steering feel (and possibly ride quality) is what makes BMWs "special".


That's right.

Remember, BMW's use some fairly pedestrian technology, for example, the front suspension is a Macpherson strut setup same as used on millions of lesser (and downright cheap) cars world-wide. The rear suspension on the E46, at least, is steel stamped parts and not nearly as exotic as, say, an Accord's five link design.

Yet the thing can handle in a way no Accord can, it's all about balance and how the parts are made to work together.

BMW's are mass market cars built to a price - they're not exotic machinery by any stretch of the imagination, but they're done well - in certain areas such as brakes, steering and engines they're wonderfully done _for the money_.

However, in some areas, namely electronics and long-term reliability, (and probably because the former so affects the latter) BMW's give me pause for concern.

Ed


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## 320eye (Nov 28, 2005)

*One Word That Sum's It All Up ?????*

TIGHT

Cheers:thumbup:


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## Motown328 (Jun 4, 2003)

Now just the automobile, but the service and dealership experience for me as well, even though I know some people have terrible dealerships or service areas. The whole, total, all-around BMW experience is what keeps me coming back....in addition to the bad azz cars...hahaha...


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