Quote:
Originally Posted by MashinBenzin
@DaveA and Wills2 on the runflat tyres.
Completely agree. BMW and the tyre manufacturers have gradually improved things, but they are a hampering factor that other manufacturers do not have, especially when combined with large wheels.
My E90 on 17s handled well but rode badly. My F36 on 19s I was initially impressed by the ride improvement, but came to realise that this was at the relative expense of handling.
I didn't swap to non-RFTs, but I feel that even then you are still subject to a compromise as you are driving on suspension that is tuned to cope with stiff sidewalls.
In that context, not surprising that small wheeled BMWs and anything from other manufacturers can show a handling or ride advantage.
I shouldn't keep typing this on a car forum, but after three weeks of using it almost daily it's abundantly clear that my wife's Auris has way better front end feeling around 0-30mph than my 440i did. That's quite a shame.
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As part of what I do for a living (when not posting on here, of course) I spend a lot of time in rental cars and whilst the BMW always felt a nice environment to get back into (after some of the rentals, in particular), I often felt that many of the rentals I had actually had the feel of being better connected to the road than the BMW... The Infinity Q50, in particular, is interesting because it also uses RFT's yet never felt as bobbly as the BMW (except the one with the tyre pressures so high I could have taken off if it was helium in the tyres).. and the state of some of the roads in the USA makes ours look lovely...
It's not that I think the BMW was any less connected, just that it never fed back the feel of being connected... and the jitteriness over some road surfaces was quite unsettling as a driver...
My feeling was that a £50k saloon/sedan should be better sorted from the factory...
The Golf has traditional low profile tyres with a space-saver spare... Not sure why BMW cannot do that, looking at the space it takes to do so...