Jason C
05-19-2005, 03:35 AM
The STEPII class was doing a demo on alignments, so I got to see some newer BMW's up close.
E46 M3 Convertible: Nothing that I haven't seen before, really. The leather was this nice shade that looked like a very rich red-brown. It had the post-MMY update adaptive LED brake lights (that illuminate more when you really stomp on the pedal). Oh, one more thing - the exhaust rasp was... what you'd expect from a Honda with a hole in the resonator. :nono:
E60 530i: Am I just becoming use to it? It was a very dark green. I tried to find some strong dislike of the styling, but I couldn't. Granted, the headlight cluster was a bit crass, but other than that it's quite conservative. I suppose I'd feel a lot different if it were white.
The underside (where you can't see the styling) is much more interesting. They have almost all of it shrouded up, covered, aerodynamically optimized, blah blah blah. It's something I'd expect from a Ferrari Enzo, but not from a 50k sedan. They've got a nifty lateral link in the rear suspension that's positioned in front of the driveshaft (birds-eye perspective). It's held in place on one end by a horizontal bolt that runs fore-aft, with a nut on each end. Loosen the front nut, and the rear nut is an eccetric cam. Turn that to set rear toe - the entire link moves in towards the vehicle centerline and out. An easy way to do alignments. This car also had the active anti-roll bar option, which just looks like a regular anti-roll bar but with a conspicuously large black cylinder at the center. Lots of fancy-looking aluminum bits on the rear suspension.
The part that they didn't cover up was the narrow center, with driveshaft and exhaust piping. Most of that was plastered with the silver dimple-finish foil that's apparently in vogue with the German car makes (saw a Cayenne Turbo with identical shielding). Also, one part of the exhaust had some sort of metal and rubber bushing/mount look-a-like that BMW supposedly put in only for balance reasons. It looked almost identical to an engine/transmission mount, if you could picture one of these things attached to the exhaust pipe on one end and then just hanging in mid-air on the rubber end. :scratch:
E46 M3 Convertible: Nothing that I haven't seen before, really. The leather was this nice shade that looked like a very rich red-brown. It had the post-MMY update adaptive LED brake lights (that illuminate more when you really stomp on the pedal). Oh, one more thing - the exhaust rasp was... what you'd expect from a Honda with a hole in the resonator. :nono:
E60 530i: Am I just becoming use to it? It was a very dark green. I tried to find some strong dislike of the styling, but I couldn't. Granted, the headlight cluster was a bit crass, but other than that it's quite conservative. I suppose I'd feel a lot different if it were white.
The underside (where you can't see the styling) is much more interesting. They have almost all of it shrouded up, covered, aerodynamically optimized, blah blah blah. It's something I'd expect from a Ferrari Enzo, but not from a 50k sedan. They've got a nifty lateral link in the rear suspension that's positioned in front of the driveshaft (birds-eye perspective). It's held in place on one end by a horizontal bolt that runs fore-aft, with a nut on each end. Loosen the front nut, and the rear nut is an eccetric cam. Turn that to set rear toe - the entire link moves in towards the vehicle centerline and out. An easy way to do alignments. This car also had the active anti-roll bar option, which just looks like a regular anti-roll bar but with a conspicuously large black cylinder at the center. Lots of fancy-looking aluminum bits on the rear suspension.
The part that they didn't cover up was the narrow center, with driveshaft and exhaust piping. Most of that was plastered with the silver dimple-finish foil that's apparently in vogue with the German car makes (saw a Cayenne Turbo with identical shielding). Also, one part of the exhaust had some sort of metal and rubber bushing/mount look-a-like that BMW supposedly put in only for balance reasons. It looked almost identical to an engine/transmission mount, if you could picture one of these things attached to the exhaust pipe on one end and then just hanging in mid-air on the rubber end. :scratch: