When did you get rid of the M5 Taran? Now your sporting a 540 sport pack! What are you getting next week? See you soon..

 

Man, M motors aren't the only ones susceptible to this. I can't remember how many "campaigns" I went through with bimmers twenty years ago for carbon buildup. Religious use of the bimmer gas additive, until I found out RedLine was just as good, kept them running well enough. They always said it was US gas, which I didn't have much problem believing. In hindsight a couple of "burning the gunk out" tickets might have been more worthwhile.

 

Bimmers engineering tries to not make compromises in drivability vs performance in the output of the motor. The double VANOS is an example of that. Inevitably, it is a difficult tradeoff to make. Obviously cost and complexity suffer. Please note that complexity does not necessarily mean less reliable. It just means there are more bits that have to not only function but function within tight specs for the engine to have its performance potential realized. The comment about carbon buildup applies to any high performance engine and/or poor gasoline. Fuel injection and double VANOS try to make an engine that is happy at low part throttle but inevitably the timing and heat range of the spark plugs are tuned more for the high end than the low end. And hence the engines tend to carbon foul if you don't regularly get them up to temperature and really let them burn at WOT. Pretty difficult to do in the US.

Gas mileage? We don't care about no stinking gas mileage. Seriously, one of the British car mags tested the new M3 and I believe that over their testing period they averaged 13mpg. And that is with imperial gallons. Even their editor made a comment in his column about the potential step backward in this regard. There are some other performance tricks such as reducing vehicle weight (think Lotus Elise) and gearing to keep low end performance and try to get better highway mileage but inevitably the physics takes over. These are basically heat cycle engines and making 400 or 500 hp is going to take a given amount of fuel to release the heat to make that level of hp, and with todays fuel injections, variable timing, and electronic mixture control, there aren't many places to achieve a breakthrough.

 

sure they do, but we are jumpin on every Toyota/Lexus issue here, why we should be forgiving BMW? Right now 335i has many different "common" problems, and check what drivers of IS350 report as common problem (1st year models too) - definetly not overheating, fuel pumps, trannies, ecu's, etc, etc.

It seems it is fine to jump on Lexus if there is an issue, but reality is that it has A LOT less issues than other premium brands, and there is no need to cover that up.

 

A little off-topic, maybe, but let's see how long you feel that way after crude gets to $100 a barrel (it's headed that way now) and pump prices catch up.

 

Wait - you are confusing the thread with the Lexus Crashes in Reliability rankings thread. Which I have to say, Ron had an incredible response to..... it is below for everyone's enjoyment..

 

Uh, I think he was joking - I know for a fact it is Ron's mind as he looks at new cars.....especially considering he lives in a state with some of the highest gas prices....

 

Thanks for the kind words guys but I was really trying to address the mindset of M, AMG, Audi S and RS, et al. When you are jamming 400, 500, or 600 hp into a car, it is extremely difficult to be too concerned about mileage. In all honesty, my opinion is that the buyer of a bimmer M, AMG, or Audi RS isn't very concerned about mileage. That isn't to say that BMW in particular isn't trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat with some impressive engine tech that churns out big hp but is still very efficient but there are some difficult rules to break and, as I said, it just takes the gas to make the hp. Inevitably it seems like everyone throws some very low OD gear in the tranny to let the vehicle drop down to low revs at US highway speed but that isn't a great way to keep the carbon out.

Gas prices in Cali high? Really, back to putting $50 fillups in the GS. It is fascinating to watch the Germans in particular where the big hp gas engines and high tech diesels are both available. I know this thread is about the M motors but I wonder if the technology in the M motors is more advanced than bimmers diesel technology? MBZ, Audi, and bimmer have made some extremely impressive advances here. I believe I respect that easily as much as what they do with the big hp gas engines. Sorry for getting off topic.