"phenotyp" (phenotyp)
06/04/2018 at 16:10 • Filed to: BMW, cardesign, review
5
13|
"phenotyp" (phenotyp)
06/04/2018 at 16:10 • Filed to: BMW, cardesign, review | 5
| 13 |
Is the taillights.
I’ve had this 430 XDrive since Thursday, and will hopefully give it back on... Thursday?
There’s literally nothing about this car that makes me say, yeah, I’d buy that! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it except the bluetooth connection that fires up every music/podcast/whatever app on my phone, can’t decide which I was actually listening to, and then just stops playing anything.
Or that the steering is disconnected from reality.
But it does have these silly little arms that push the seatbelt forward, so you can grab it.
(not my pic)
My daughter thinks they’re the funniest thing she’s ever seen in a car, but we can grant that her experience is limited. She’s five. But she’s not wrong.
Salient details: 2018 BMW 430i XDrive. It’s a new BMW coupe. Like, it actually has two doors. It has an engine that burns (a lot) of gas. Who knows what displacement anymore, because numbers are meaningless. It has some sort of gearbox. It doesn’t drive super nice.
And the piece de resistance...
I mean.
What is this.
It’s just a piece of plastic stuck on a piece of metal.
Signifying nothing.
This car is so dumb.
Textured Soy Protein
> phenotyp
06/04/2018 at 16:21 |
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My older, thoroughly modified, 335i xDrive coupe has similar seat belt butlers (yes that’s their official name) and bluetooth glitches. It also has a comically slow steering gear ratio for a performance car. But it *does* have hydraulic steering assist, lots of steering feel, and a transmission I must operate myself, through DC traffic, where my 16 mile drive home can take 90 minutes. It probably wastes more gas too.
BMW has yet to figure out how to combine all wheel drive, electric power steering assist, and actually steering feel. Maybe they’ll get it on the next generation.
Spanfeller is a twat
> Textured Soy Protein
06/04/2018 at 16:26 |
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It must be the AWD, the steering on the E90 my family owns feels adequately tight.
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phenotyp
> Textured Soy Protein
06/04/2018 at 16:32 |
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I actually, really did like both of my E60s. I would have enjoyed tuning the shit out of the ‘09 535. It was one of the very best-driving cars I’ve ever driven. The electrohydraulic steering was as close to perfect as it gets. Everything about it was SO GOOD.
But this thing— man, after 10 months in the i3, I just can’t go back to a stupid car. And this is like the embodiment of stupid car.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Spanfeller is a twat
06/04/2018 at 16:33 |
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E90 has hydraulic steering assist. F30, F20 etc have electric assist which at least on the awd ones has a bit of video game feel. You turn the wheel, the car does what you want, but you can’t tell by feel what’s happening with the front tires.
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Textured Soy Protein
> phenotyp
06/04/2018 at 16:37 |
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I’ve been commuting in real traffic instead of my piddly little small town Wisconsin commute for all of a month and it already has be thinking about more rational transportation. My office has electric car charging spots but my house only has a 1 car garage that I share with my wife. We each get the garage for a week at a time. So I could do a plug-in but not full electric. And damn if my car isn’t just *fun*. I actually kind of take a weird bit of pleasure from picking my way through traffic.
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Spanfeller is a twat
> Textured Soy Protein
06/04/2018 at 16:37 |
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I was talking about your car, though... noted!
AWD tends to do that, to be honest. My stinger has no steering feel whatsoever, but I do enjoy the lightness of the rack.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Spanfeller is a twat
06/04/2018 at 16:42 |
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Oh, got it. Yeah BMW gave the xDrive cars in the E90 generation, and maybe older ones, a really slow steering gear. The feel is still there, especially since I have sticky tires and assorted suspension mods. It just takes a lot of turning the wheel since the ratio is slower.
The newer ones may have a quicker ratio, or variable ratio, or some combination of that, so you don’t have to crank the wheel as much, but there’s no feel.
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phenotyp
> Textured Soy Protein
06/04/2018 at 16:49 |
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The difference in driving pleasure in Austin between the 535 and the i3 has been the difference between hating and not hating driving.
We put in a 220 line in the garage and I bought a $120 plug (the i3 came with a 120 charger, but it takes forever to charge), and I reprogrammed the i3 to be able to switch on the generator when the battery’s below 75% charge), so range isn’t really an issue for it.
The i3 is just... effortless. And so quick in everyday driving, just goes wherever you want it, whenever you want it. The difference is huge.
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Textured Soy Protein
> phenotyp
06/04/2018 at 16:57 |
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I rent my house, but if I got a PHEV, I probably wouldn’t worry about any additional effort towards charging it at home. The electric spots at work are in a primo location in the garage and free. The 8+ hours a day it would be parked would probably be plenty to keep it charged up. Charging on 120V for the weekends would be fine.
I’m not going to be getting a new car anytime soon though. We have just under a year left on the lease on my wife’s car so she’s next up for something new.
Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan'
> phenotyp
06/04/2018 at 19:16 |
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The piece de resistance is unforgivable. There’s so much fake vents on every new car now it’s ridiculous. Like 90% of the fascia is useless black trim. It’s just beyond belief for me at this point, it makes me so mad that I have to look away and think about something else.
It cannot be justified by claiming it’s just for style and that it’s okay because cars had useless chrome pieces in the 50s. ‘Then why were those okay hurr durrr?!’
Those were okay because they were just used for style, but also presented as such. No trickery, lies and deceits. Those silly fins and chrome bezels and stripes were put on those cars JUST for looks, and it was obvious and honest. It was kitsch, yes. Beautiful, but bad design. The opposite of Bauhaus. Pure consumerism and planned fashion obsolescence. But not deceitful. It evoked images of a space ship, but without pretending to be a real one.
Making a whole fascia of a car look like it has aggressive intakes, but then using 2% of that is a lie. And companies use those fascias as their image, a visual element by which consumers recognize them. Their whole brand relies on something fake. It’s shameful and I’m upset that we as a society allowed that to happen.
/sorry for the rant. I agree with you is what I’m saying.
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phenotyp
> Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan'
06/04/2018 at 23:41 |
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I cannot agree enough.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Otto-the-Croatian-'Whoops my Volvo is a sedan'
06/05/2018 at 10:10 |
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See also: “carbon fiber” vinyl overlay
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> phenotyp
06/05/2018 at 10:10 |
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Bimmerang