BMW Negative camber

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Well, you would never end up with the engine behind the rear axle, or mac struts, if you were designing the "ultimate driving machine" on a blank sheet of paper...
I'm sure they pick their compromises very carefully though! And I would love to take even a strut impaired BMW or Porsche for a rip on the track.


I agree with you that that double controls arms and mid-engine is the better set up with less performance compromises. Any chassis book and most chassis designer would agree. That is the set up of choice on most race and super cars. One nice thing about control arms is they will give you more negative camber gain so you can get by with less static camber, which important in sport suspension with high roll stiffness.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Well, you would never end up with the engine behind the rear axle, or mac struts, if you were designing the "ultimate driving machine" on a blank sheet of paper...
I'm sure they pick their compromises very carefully though! And I would love to take even a strut impaired BMW or Porsche for a rip on the track.


I agree with you that that double controls arms and mid-engine is the better set up with less performance compromises. Any chassis book and most chassis designer would agree. That is the set up of choice on most race and super cars. One nice thing about control arms is they will give you more negative camber gain so you can get by with less static camber, which important in sport suspension with high roll stiffness.


I get a chuckle out of this because my Expedition and Town Car both have double control arms, whilst the Mustang and BMW have just LCA's and struts.

Manufacturers do interesting things.

 

[mechanicx]

Well that's another thing control arms can be stronger than a strut lol. Struts have a lot of side loading. Expeditions do ride very well I think for an SUV and the Town car rides comfortably. Being frame on body vehicles is a big factor in not using struts too. European cars have a long history of unit body cars and struts. It's kind of funny that the strut was designed by a GM engineer, who went to Ford, who popularized it in Europe if I remember the history right lol.

Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earle_S._MacPherson. Those Euros sure liked their Chevrolet inspired suspension design

.

 

[MCompact]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Well that's another thing control arms can be stronger than a strut lol. Struts have a lot of side loading. Expeditions do ride very well I think for an SUV and the Town car rides comfortably. Being frame on body vehicles is a big factor in not using struts too. European cars have a long history of unit body cars and struts. It's kind of funny that the strut was designed by a GM engineer, who went to Ford, who popularized it in Europe if I remember the history right lol.

Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earle_S._MacPherson. Those Euros sure liked their Chevrolet inspired suspension design

.


That does it- all three of my Bimmers are about to be sold off.
Town Car Nirvana here I come!!!

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: MCompact
Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Well that's another thing control arms can be stronger than a strut lol. Struts have a lot of side loading. Expeditions do ride very well I think for an SUV and the Town car rides comfortably. Being frame on body vehicles is a big factor in not using struts too. European cars have a long history of unit body cars and struts. It's kind of funny that the strut was designed by a GM engineer, who went to Ford, who popularized it in Europe if I remember the history right lol.

Here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earle_S._MacPherson. Those Euros sure liked their Chevrolet inspired suspension design

.


That does it- all three of my Bimmers are about to be sold off.
Town Car Nirvana here I come!!!


LOL I know, struts and BMWs ride and handle good. I'm partly joking with Overk1ll but I do prefer control arms even if the difference is really neglible in reality.

 

[d00df00d]

I wouldn't say the difference is negligible. It can be quite large.

What I would say is that performance depends on a lot more than one or two architectural details. It's possible for a vehicle to perform poorly in the final analysis even though it has some features that are "high-end," and it's also possible for a vehicle to perform quite well even though it has some "low-end" features. As always, you have to look at the whole package.

 

[CBR.worm]

You have to take the package as a whole. You can have a vehicle with a lot of great parts that doesn't work very well, or a well sorted vehicle with what seems to be a strange mix of components that works great.

Our current and past BMW's have what visually looks like crazy rear camber, yet the tires wear fairly evenly.

I noticed that the 2012 528i is rated for either 33 or 35mpg highway, which is pretty good for a car that size and that can do 0-60 in 6.0 seconds and handle well too. So you can have your camber and eat it too.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: CBR.worm
I noticed that the 2012 528i is rated for either 33 or 35mpg highway,

Yeah, but say bye bye to the nice inline 6-cylinder. The base $47K 5-series version now gets you a 2-liter 4-cylinder turbo.

 

[CapriRacer]

When I was racing stock based cars, I couldn't dial as much negative camber as the car wanted. It is truly amazing how much better a car handles with lots of negative camber. That outside tire getting planted where it wants to makes a load of difference.

 

[CBR.worm]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: CBR.worm
I noticed that the 2012 528i is rated for either 33 or 35mpg highway,

Yeah, but say bye bye to the nice inline 6-cylinder. The base $47K 5-series version now gets you a 2-liter 4-cylinder turbo.


I know, that would push me towards an '11 instead of '12. Maybe by now they have worked out the bugs in the turbo 6 - I love the way that motor runs. We avoided the 535i last time due to durability concerns (my brother had the 335i and went through multiple fuel system issues in the first year). Our '08 528i has not required anything other than oil changes and tires so far.

We looked at the new 528 and decided that we like the outside styling better than ours, but the interior and the overall driving dynamic did not feel as good as our 'old' one. Certainly not worth spending money on for us. Definitely not with a 4 cyl, even if it does have a turbo and 8 speed.

Even more definitely not as a first year model turbo 4. Why replace what is essentially a bulletproof drivetrain to go from 32mpg to 34?

 

[cchase]

Just make sure to have a stack of spare fuel pumps in the trunk.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: CBR.worm
We looked at the new 528 and decided that we like the outside styling better than ours, but the interior and the overall driving dynamic did not feel as good as our 'old' one. Certainly not worth spending money on for us. Definitely not with a 4 cyl, even if it does have a turbo and 8 speed.

I hear ya. I was considering a used 550i manual as a potential replacement for my 530i, but to be honest, I drive so little these days, it makes no sense to buy a car that will sit in the garage most of the time anyway. Also, no dipstick on the 550i either.