Most liked posts in thread: What's BMW to do?

I'm sorrry, but I disagree with the premise that what they should do is build BMW strippers for the track and driving enthusiasts - not that it's a bad idea, just that it will never be done. I'll bet it costs them more to do something like this than to build it fully loaded.

I think they - like most Euro mfrs have boxed themselves into a corner - and I don't really see a way out for them.

They couldn't sell enough strippers to make it worthwhile to build them - that wouldn't amount to even 1% of their sales.....

And these new cars are just too heavy to run a n/a 4 cylinder engine. If they went to their full carbon body shell, and removed a ton of "options", then it might be light enough to make this work, but that's so far in the future.....and what if the component chemicals used to make carbon fiber become insanely expensive due to demand?

The increasing cost spiral is also going to be a problem one of these days - they can't just keep increasing prices like this - at some point there will be "market resistance".....

I know I won't even consider a new Audi to replace our '04 - it's just too much money. And as much as it costs to work on them now, it's not even a good used car buy either - same with MINI. I'll keep my '09 Clubby till it's out of warranty, and then decide if I can afford to keep it from there - if it's held up I may take a chance on it; if I've the kind of problems that some of our owners are fighting - it'll have to go and I'll be looking for something else, cause I doubt I'll be able to spend the kind of money I did to buy the Clubby once I'm retired and trying to survive on my savings.

I don't know, but I think the answer is to start another line of cars - sort of starting over, much like we hoped the 1 series would be - go back to their roots. We'd all like to see light weight, nimble handling, with just the minimal options like A/C, cruise and such - but by the time you add in all the required safety equipment I'm not sure you can build it light enough to fit the bill. Then sell them under one of their past names, like Prinze or something.....

 

personally, I prefer my strippers natural. :arf:

 

as someone who just bought a new German car, I LOVED the S5, S4 and the A6 Avant 3.0T. I also LOVED the M3 Sedan with DCT (but it was too small for my needs with a 2yo in the back seat). My take? BMW is WAY overpriced in the market (justified by the $17-20k discount I could have gotten on a 650 or M6). The quality of the interior is not up to Audi's standards. I went in to buy an S5 but wasn't impressed with the drivetrain (after experiencing the M3). I didn't want to wait for the '11 refresh of the S5 Coupe that would have seen the excellent 3.0T/S-Tronic (seven speed dual clutch auto), plus, dealers weren't budging off of the S5's MSRP. I wasn't willing to pay $68k for the Cabrio to get that drivetrain now either.

The outgoing BMW 5 Series is dynamically a dud (my buddy has a 545is that I've got seat time in...bleh). The incoming 5 Series gets back to the E39's character but styling is, umm, odd. The new Euro regs for pedestrian safety is driving the front end's basic shape which hasn't translated well.

I drove two M3 sedans (manual and DCT), a manual S5 Coupe, an S5 Cabrio with S-Tronic, an S4, an A6 3.0T and walked away shaking my head. I coudn't justify any of them. I ended up going home, money in hand. Went back out with a buddy to look at an M-B C63 and wound up buying something else. The new E Class is impressive. They've lowered MSRP by $5k, nearly undercutting Audi after looking at actual street pricing. I never imagined owning an M-B, even the morning I ended up buying one. No regrets so far.

 

But isn't MB suffering from the same techno-bloat that most car manufacturers are? Their cars are much heavier (well, they started out heavy in a lot of cases) than their predecessors. Stuffy marketing to a stuffy customer base. And are they really twice or even three times as nice as a Bimmer? I sure don't see it...

The MINI is one of the few cars I still get excited about. The Aston Martin line is amazing, but for a broke graphic designer like me, they are just a pipe dream.

I wish the U.S. had something to offer, but the line up from our brands is a joke, to say the least. Big, ugly, and poorly built... And they have been for years.

I agree that BMW is wavering, but if you look at everyone else, so are they.

Has Audi made an amazing comeback? Yes. But so has MINI. So has Aston. But they are the exceptions.

And the line in there about Audi suffering from 60 Minutes? That may be true. But I had a good friend who had an Audi in the early 80's and that car, for lack of a better term, sucked. REALLY bad. It was unreliable, uncomfortable, and ugly. Hell, it could have been made by GM. :nonod:

I wish the U.S. would have let GM and Chrysler go down. They deserved to. Decades of junk should be a death sentence. Who knows where we would be? Who knows what cool manufacturer might have popped into the void and gotten us excited about cars again?

Kind of like music, it seems the best tunes are done when the person singing them is hungry.

 

Honestly, no. Different yes. Fast yes. But it still a GM product... Ain't no way no how would I buy anything from GM after the raping of the American taxpayer that took place recently.

Not into the American "Brick" look with the hard angles at all. And everything American (with the exception of the Pontiac G-5, 6) is 10% - 15% too large. They are thick, blocky, and just missing something.

From the Mustang (too large and thick and heavy) to the Chargers (That monster only has two usable seats???) to the Corvette (nice looking, but I am not old enough, bald enough or wear enough gold chains to keep up with the stigma of mid-life crisis sufferer), they are all just off.

Nothing jumps out at you as a sexy, sleek, well handling car. They try to cram everything (family car, sports car, board meeting gray wallpaper) into one vehicle, and we end up with a car that has nothing special about it. I was hoping Ford would nail the Mustang, but it was HUGE. And what the heck??? Do they all hire the same designer for the front ends???

Just ridiculous. :mad2:

 

Been reading and seeing some very good reviews on the new 5.0 Mustang, keeping the size and weight down, good steering feel and handeling.... oh and did I mention 4.4 seconds 0 to 60. They even say the shifting is very good. This is not the GT 500, just the Mustang GT. Kinda fugly though, ain't it.

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But will it turn? I am thinking not (course, Mustangs are notorious spinners).

Ford really had a chance to bring American automobiles back to a global competitive presence. They just made a pig instead. Anything can go fast in a straight line.

How about a true American sports car? The Vette is sleek and fast, but again, it is a GM product and has such a stigma attached to it that nobody under 55 wants to buy one. And if I am going to spend that kind of jack on a two seater, who the hell wants a Vette??? I would go with a Porsche, an Aston Martin or something truly exotic and sexy that won't be worthless after I drive it off the lot.

 

Has anyone seen numbers on how well Audi's are on resale?

 

They say the Tang's suspension is much better than it used to be and turns very well, they're doing very well in Grand Am too....

If you were going out tommorrow for a killer track car, it would have to be high on the list for the money.

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Cept for the fact it is bigger than the cars they use for NASCAR family car racing... Maybe I am getting old and just like my sports cars small, nimble and fast as snot. :rolleyes5:

 

True that, that's the way I like them too but just saying......

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How is the JCW slower than the S?:confused5:

 

I think the new Mustangs are still too heavy @ 3500-3600lb, but their competition, the Camaro and Challenger, weigh 39xx and 41xx, respectively.

That said, the Mustang has been making significant handling strides over the last several years. The 2005's were a big improvement over the Fox platform years ('79-'04), the '10s improved upon those, and the 2011's improved on that and added ~100hp to both the V6 and GT.

Supposedly, a couple '11 GT mules were testing the same day as an M3 at Gingerman about a year ago, and the GTs were very comparable. Given how the GT and M3 are nearly identical in most typical Magazine performance metrics (HP, 0-60, 1/4-mile, braking, skidpad, etc), it'll be interesting to see how they stack up at something like the C&D "Lightning Lap".

Back to BMW, though, I agree that the "stripper" cars aren't going to be volume sellers for BMW and that they aren't going to directly result in a lot of sales. I think, however, that allowing people get into a performance-oriented car at a lower price-point (and weight) by making things like sunroofs optional helps to bring enthusiasts into the fold. Honestly, if a sunroof, auto A/C, Leather seats, etc, were standard in the MINI, I wouldn't own one right now. That's simply stuff that I not only didn't *need*, I didn't WANT it, both for cost and weight/complexity/durability reasons. I realize it may not be the perfect analogy, but I would probably be driving a GTI/GLI/TDI if I had to spend a couple thousand additional dollars to get into a MINI. Similarly, I think the 135 is just a few thousand away from being talked about along with WRXs, STis, Evos, Mustangs, etc... the kind of cars that are, in my experience, the "next car" of many young enthusiasts. I think the cars that these 16-24 guys are thinking about often set the tone for their next purchase and potentially purchases down the road.

From this MINI experience, I plan to always own one... but if it was a $24k Cooper rather than $21k, I probably never would have bought one. I wouldn't be planning to own more in the future, going to MINI vs. Porsche, going to MTTS, promoting the brand amongst my friends/family, etc.

Based on the ~$36k 135 I considered but couldn't justify for the money, I don't think BMW is way off, but I think they need to cut out some fat (literally and figuratively) to get back to being the "Ultimate Driving Machine".

 

That's in MPH. MCS is slowest, JCW is fastest.

 

The BMW M3, Audi S5 and the M-B E550 Coupe are all within a few lbs of each other (+/- 3800lbs). The power specs on each V8 show the different characters however. The M3 and S5 have small displacement mills with low torque numbers. The E550 has a big V8 and torque reflects thats. It's only a few HP down from the M3 whereas the S5 is further back (though maintains more tq than the M3).

M3 (4.0L V8) | 414hp/295tq | 12.6sec 1/4 mile
E550C (5.5L V8) | 382hp/394/tq |12.9sec 1/4 mile
S5 Coupe (4.2L V8) | 354hp/325tq | 13.2sec 1/4 mile​

Its not just tech bloat but safety bloat. The E350 Coupe w/V6 weighs only 50lbs less for example...

The AMG models are hardly 'stuffy'. They're actually quite hard-edged and outperform their counterparts from BMW and Audi.

why does it have to be twice as nice (or more)? I paid far less than an M3 would have cost me and gave up only a few tenths to 60mph (and a LOT of handling). The car I bought is no slouch with proper tires on but not much on the market compares with the current M3 in handling. I've driven pretty damned hard and not approached the limits on the street with summer rubber mounted.