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      01-25-2013, 06:09 AM   #345
clarence
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Drives: F30 328i M-Sport
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Quote:
Originally Posted by f11tw View Post
Thank you, clarence. I think I got your point. Let me ask you two question then:
1. Do you assume that there is such selection process as you described above, or you know for a fact that such selection process exists in BMW's manufacturing process?
2. You mentioned that they apply the software to differentiate the "otherwise identical engines". Do you see a possibility that without the binning process the same purpose can still be achieved?
1.) Yes cos they cannot just select engines randomly, there must be a valid & logical method used to select the engines. As each engine produced will not produce exactly the same power as the next one (i.e. some variances will exist, however low the %), it is only logical for them to detune those not so good ones as a U0 (rather than detune the best ones & give 28i customers not so good ones).

2.) Using software to differentiate power output & binning are 2 different matters. Binning is the selection of engines to be "differentiated" & software installation only comes after this selection. Of course they can just use software to detune the engines if they don't bin them, but the binning process itself is used for selection rather than the actual detuning operation. If they detune the engines randomly then it will introduce problems. Plus BMW runs every engine produced on the bench for QC purpose, so they already have all the relevant data needed for binning. So no, that's the only method I can see them using in selecting which engine is to be detuned or not.
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