cawimmer430
Piston Pioneer
Today was the funeral of my Aunt Leine who basically died a week ago from the effects of a second stroke. The whole extended family and distant relatives showed up for the funeral at Moosburg. I didn't take any pictures because it's not an occassion you want to photograph. Anyway, after the funeral, we all ate at a local restaurant and I sat next to a guy who works for BMW: Engine Development department!!! I immediately bombarded him with tons of questions and later asked him for some tips of how to get into BMW.
Anyway, here are some questions I asked him and his response. He's the guy next to me. His wife and kids are on my left. The woman on the far left of the picture is a distant relative of mine, Krista. Don't ask how we're related, it's too confusing for me to understand. Family lines confuse me.
My first question was if he'd been involved in the development of the new M5 V10. Nope, that was done by the boys and girls at BMW M.
Then I asked him about the BMW 335i. I wanted to know if the BMW 335i was the answer to the Lexus IS350, as the Lexus "fanboys" (fanboys, not fans) like to claim. He said no since BMW had been working on this engine for four (4) years now. He also said that although BMW's philosophy was all about naturally aspirated engines, they wanted to produce something that would leave the competition behind and hence used the more efficient method of forced induction, especially after witnessing the success of turbos on some Audi and Mercedes' cars. The BMW engine department resorted to using them for the 335i to put a "mega blow" to the competition. He also said that he'd driven it and it is brutally fast. BMW also expects to sell a lot of these in Europe, despite the high fuel prices. And that's the reason, he claims, that BMW is also offering a diesel alternative to the 335i: the 335d.
Then he began lecturing me about why BMW's X-Drive is the best in the business and why Audi and Mercedes's Quattro and 4Matic aren't even close. Here I thought he was a bit BMW biased, especially since a FWD car in his own words was "Scheissdreck" (POS, basically). He gave Audi credit for being the first producer to bring about mass-produced cars with AWD. However, he said this was due to Audi's need for a reliable power delivery system on their more powerful cars. As most Audi's are FWD (even today), it was natural to go with the Quattro (AWD) setup. At least, that's the version he gave me. Whether this is correct or not, I don't know, but he sure knew his stuff about BMW engines and how the company works.
I also asked him if BMW sampled cars from the competition. He said, yep, they do this all the time. I specifically asked about the 3-Series competitors and this is what he said about the cars when he drove the 4 / 6-cylinder versions of these. Note that this applies to Europe, hence the lack of Acura and Infiniti.
The Audi and Mercedes are the most serious competitors to the BMW 3-Series. Both handle sporty and a Quattro equipped Audi is better in the wet than a RWD BMW. He said the Audi engines generally weren't as smooth as the BMW versions. The Mercedes engines were a little better. He was impressed with the 1.8-l supercharged MB 4-cyliner (What have I been saying all along!? Huh!?
) The C-Class is the most comfortable, he said, while still managing to drive sporty. Engine response could be a little better though. The Lexus IS250 is no threat dynamically, he said. The engine is smooth but the response is slow, the fuel consumption is unacceptable and the car feels sluggish. Handling isn't that good either and the suspension is too hard. If this car was meant to tackle the 3-Series, he said, they'd better work harder. The Jaguar X-Type is a pure cruiser with average engines, no threat to the 3-Series. He also called the Mercedes A-Class, B-Class and non-Quattro Audi A3's a "Witz (joke) because they were FWD. I think that's what I didn't like about this guy, he doesn't like FWD and makes a big deal out of it. There's also a bunch of other cars he had to evaluate like the Saab 9-3 etc. but I didn't ask about them.
I know he's in the engine development department, but part of his job according to him is to test some of the competitor engines for smoothness, power delivery etc. There's your answer why he and his guys would be testing foreign cars.
He also mentioned other parts of BMW like their employee benefit programs etc. So that's basically it.
EDIT: Forgot to post this. Spotted a few days ago: BMW 335i Coupe. Looks pretty hot.
Anyway, here are some questions I asked him and his response. He's the guy next to me. His wife and kids are on my left. The woman on the far left of the picture is a distant relative of mine, Krista. Don't ask how we're related, it's too confusing for me to understand. Family lines confuse me.
My first question was if he'd been involved in the development of the new M5 V10. Nope, that was done by the boys and girls at BMW M.
Then I asked him about the BMW 335i. I wanted to know if the BMW 335i was the answer to the Lexus IS350, as the Lexus "fanboys" (fanboys, not fans) like to claim. He said no since BMW had been working on this engine for four (4) years now. He also said that although BMW's philosophy was all about naturally aspirated engines, they wanted to produce something that would leave the competition behind and hence used the more efficient method of forced induction, especially after witnessing the success of turbos on some Audi and Mercedes' cars. The BMW engine department resorted to using them for the 335i to put a "mega blow" to the competition. He also said that he'd driven it and it is brutally fast. BMW also expects to sell a lot of these in Europe, despite the high fuel prices. And that's the reason, he claims, that BMW is also offering a diesel alternative to the 335i: the 335d.
Then he began lecturing me about why BMW's X-Drive is the best in the business and why Audi and Mercedes's Quattro and 4Matic aren't even close. Here I thought he was a bit BMW biased, especially since a FWD car in his own words was "Scheissdreck" (POS, basically). He gave Audi credit for being the first producer to bring about mass-produced cars with AWD. However, he said this was due to Audi's need for a reliable power delivery system on their more powerful cars. As most Audi's are FWD (even today), it was natural to go with the Quattro (AWD) setup. At least, that's the version he gave me. Whether this is correct or not, I don't know, but he sure knew his stuff about BMW engines and how the company works.
I also asked him if BMW sampled cars from the competition. He said, yep, they do this all the time. I specifically asked about the 3-Series competitors and this is what he said about the cars when he drove the 4 / 6-cylinder versions of these. Note that this applies to Europe, hence the lack of Acura and Infiniti.
The Audi and Mercedes are the most serious competitors to the BMW 3-Series. Both handle sporty and a Quattro equipped Audi is better in the wet than a RWD BMW. He said the Audi engines generally weren't as smooth as the BMW versions. The Mercedes engines were a little better. He was impressed with the 1.8-l supercharged MB 4-cyliner (What have I been saying all along!? Huh!?
) The C-Class is the most comfortable, he said, while still managing to drive sporty. Engine response could be a little better though. The Lexus IS250 is no threat dynamically, he said. The engine is smooth but the response is slow, the fuel consumption is unacceptable and the car feels sluggish. Handling isn't that good either and the suspension is too hard. If this car was meant to tackle the 3-Series, he said, they'd better work harder. The Jaguar X-Type is a pure cruiser with average engines, no threat to the 3-Series. He also called the Mercedes A-Class, B-Class and non-Quattro Audi A3's a "Witz (joke) because they were FWD. I think that's what I didn't like about this guy, he doesn't like FWD and makes a big deal out of it. There's also a bunch of other cars he had to evaluate like the Saab 9-3 etc. but I didn't ask about them.I know he's in the engine development department, but part of his job according to him is to test some of the competitor engines for smoothness, power delivery etc. There's your answer why he and his guys would be testing foreign cars.
He also mentioned other parts of BMW like their employee benefit programs etc. So that's basically it.
EDIT: Forgot to post this. Spotted a few days ago: BMW 335i Coupe. Looks pretty hot.
