Safe sex with rubber?

"505 - morphine not found" (morphine500)
11/02/2015 at 08:13 • Filed to: BMW 320d, Touring

I had a 320d Touring for the last ten days. Yes, that’s a diesel wagon, not manual though, but at least the leather was brown. It’s a great car of course, but it’s not something I would buy, at least not in this particular specification. The culprit? The 255 wide rubber on the rear wheels.

It looks great on paper. The new, 2016 MY 320d got upgraded to 190HP and 400Nm of torque (the latter from 1750 revolutions), and with the 8speed ZF auto it’s doing 100km/h (62mph) 7.4 seconds after standstill. That could, no, should be even faster, but for its girth: with 90% fuel and a 68kg driver on board it weighs 1605kg (3539lbs). At least my press loaner was RWD as god intended, so I was positively looking forward to flogging it in the Croatian mountains, where our family roadtrip took us. Incidentally, of course. But that wasn’t to be.

You see I never really got on the diesel bandwagon, even though, being European, I have great choice of oil burners in all ages, sizes and price brackets. But I just don’t like how their useful range is all of 2500 revolutions, which is a hindrance, when you try to navigate tight serpentine roads - my favorite type. And even though the 320d is a brisk engine in all normal situations, it still isn’t very good on these. Highway overtaking isn’t a problem, nor is motorway cruising, and it’s of course excellent in the city too, but when the road gets narrow and hectic, it’s just not right. In short: not sporty enough, if you ask me. But that’s not the problem here.

The problem is that the optional 18” wheels come with 255 wide tires in the back and 225 in the front - as opposed to the 205 items all-around BMW specifies as base tires for this model. What’s more, it had sticky Bridgestone summers on. So you know what didn’t happen, when i switched everything off, and stamped on the gas pedal? Wheelspin that’s what. The rubber didn’t as much as squeak, the rear wheels took 400 Newtonmeters in their stride, and the car propelled forward with aplomb. So this particular “ultimate driving machine” turned out to be an understeering barge, all because over-zealous tire choice: looked sporty, drove anything but. Though it has to be said, that because of the endless grip, I could simply add a bit of go, and then the rear helped turn it in, but it didn’t raise my pulse once.

Safe? Yes. Fun? Not so much. There’s a sexy joke in here somewhere, but I let you people write it.

DISCUSSION (10)

LongbowMkII > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 08:23

Sometimes when the rubber is a bit too thick you don’t get the right feel when driving. Takes a bit of fun out of it and can even leave you feeling deflated and disappointed.

I’ll be here all week, tip your servers.

Ash78, voting early and often > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 08:27

I’ll never forget how about 10-12 years ago, everything seemed to go from 16”-17” wheels and 205-215mm rubber to 18”-20” and 225mm+. I think most of it was done in the name of style, since with the right tires, most of these mainstream cars were never hurting for traction.

However, the SAME model offered with both 205 and 255 options is pretty surprising, especially coming from such an engineering-focused company (at least in their marketing). That’s a substantial difference in driving dynamics, efficiency, etc.

505 - morphine not found > Ash78, voting early and often
11/02/2015 at 08:34

I think their point is that as a premium brand they let the customer, err, customize their car however they see fit. Base wheels are 16” with 205 tires, and the normal upgrade is 17” with the same width. However, they also offer, I’m not joking, 20 wheel options 16, 17 and 18” and some are wider than the standard. This particular 18” option was even uneven front and back, like this was some M3, or at least 340i Incidentally the M3 also gets 18” as standard, though the rears are 295....

Ash78, voting early and often > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 08:48

Makes sense...I just think it speaks volumes to putting profitability (err, customization) ahead of actually having a properly set-up car. Allowing such breadth of selection with the same drivetrain and chassis seems a little odd to me.

The Ultimate Posing Machine, indeed :D

TheRealBicycleBuck > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 09:04

A friend of mine bought a “lower” model BMW 7-series sedan (I don’t know for sure, I’m not a BMW guy) because it didn’t have staggered tires. His reasoning was simple - he could rotate the tires to distribute the wear.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 09:38

I’m going to break with the group here. Wider tires with better traction are always better until they create excessive drag. Wheel spin is for teenagers that are looking for another ticket to add to their pile.

My car has 235s all around. I only have 366N-m, but it’s pretty easy to break them free if you aren’t careful. I wish my car was designed for wider so I could reduce wheel spin risk even more. I’m very surprised you couldn’t chirp them, unless they have some kind of really difficult or impossible to disable traction control...

Also, BMW’s motto has long been a bit of a joke. Aside from their cars that are specifically set up to be sporty, everything they make these days is barely a step up from a Toyota in driving dynamics at 2-4x the price.

GUYMANDUDE > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 10:11

The staggered setup and alignment settings understeer for safety reasons. You could probably fit 255 tires in front, on wider wheels of course, and reduce the rear toe angle and reduce front toe angle and voila, balanced setup/ throttle steer midcorner. Add font camber and stuffer front bar for even more fun.

505 - morphine not found > Eric @ opposite-lock.com
11/02/2015 at 10:24

You do have a point re: normal BMWs, although it has to be said their interior quality is still a level above Toyota, and at least the RWD products still have a wee bit more going for them. But yes, today even the 3 series cars are luxobarges, not taut sporty sedans as they used to be.

As per not even chirping the tires, i was just as surprised i couldn’t, seems Bridgestone really knew what they were doing. However, I do think it’s not sporty, when you cannot even force your way to a vehicles grip limit. Spirited driving, for me at least, entails searching for this limit, but if it’s only attainable at wholly unsafe / killing speeds, because the car has too much grip for its own good, then it’s not sporty anymore. As in: suicide isn’t a sport.

I am firmly in the “slow car fast” camp, meaning I would rather have a car that has low limits, but I can have fun playing with those, as a much faster, but in the meantime much less playful vehicle. This 320d falls firmly in the latter category, and even though that would be ace if it had four rings, or a star on the nose, with the roundel up front I feel short-changed.

505 - morphine not found > GUYMANDUDE
11/02/2015 at 10:26

yeah but that was my whole point: I would wager the car is much more balanced with 205 tires all around, why ruin it with the staggered setup in the first place?

GUYMANDUDE > 505 - morphine not found
11/02/2015 at 20:21

I totally agree. But the safety nanies do not. It was intended to have a square setup. In a perfect world it would.