When will BMW import 4WD 3/5 series?

[TW]Fox;18036970 said:
Look at Audi. Most people buy the Quattro variant only when its the only choice.

There are more FWD A6's than Quattro ones..
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Id guess your correct but it could be other factors, like the cheaper models all being Fwd, and those sell proportionally more than the more expensive models which are predominantly 4wd. Hard to pick apart the buyers choice by sales alone I think.
 
mikeh501 said:
Also think your wrong on the 4wd front, it makes a huge huge difference summer tyres or not. It's made a difference between being snowed in or getting to work on numerous occasions the last 2 years for me.
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No, not wrong. Don't get me wrong, 4WD on summer tyres better than a similar RWD car on summer tyres in snow. Under braking though, not much at all if anything. But what I'm saying is RWD + winter tyres is better than 4WD on summer tyres by quite a margin and is better balanced (when considering the much improved braking abilities winter tyres will give). However, fit winter tyres to the 4WD car then of course things are reversed again.

have to also remember 4wd gives traction improvements, I think going round a bend off the throttle a 4wd car will lose traction easily also with the wrong tyres on and same for braking.

I think (and this is just my opinion),a 4wd car with big wheels and sporty rubber could be more dangerous than a RWD car. At least the rwd car will get stuck, the 4wd car driver with no snow driving experience will believe because their car is 4WD it will be unstopable. So they use the 4wd traction to get moving....... just before they hit the brakes and slide right into the rear of someone or spin off into the kitty litter :). Personally I would not buy a 4wd car just for winter believing witner tyres are not needed. However if I wanted the ultimate grip then sure, I'd get a 4WD car but still fit winter tyres.

And yep, I'm using winter tyres on a RWD 340BHP BMW. Had my first outing Saturday in the snow and was very impressed.
 
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[TW]Fox;18036858 said:
I think Wicksta was saying that even in Germany they are far from common and the majority are RWD.
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They're not common anywhere apart from perhaps the Alpine region.
 
A friend asked BMW UK about this recently....

I appreciate your comments regarding the sale of BMW vehicles in the US, however, I can confirm that BMW consider the entirety of the United States as a single market. Therefore, we must offer vehicles which cover the wide range of environmental conditions experienced, from states such as Florida to the sub-arctic surroundings of Alaska

I appreciate also that you are not concerned with the difference in consumption of fuel. However, we feel that the performance of an all-wheel-drive vehicle is sluggish and heavy, detracting from the overall driving experience of the vehicle and failing to meet our UK customers' expectations of a BMW
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I would say that most of the BMW's here in London are not the X series. There aren't *that* many for sale either. I'd quite like a 330xi or 530xi.
 
I don't think they're sporty like Audi's Quattro models are made out to be.
It's purely a functional thing, like VW's synchro, if that's still going. Or Merc's 4-Matic.

The ride height is higher, if that means anything :p
 
I'd be very interested in a 4WD BMW. At the moment in the current conditions, my BMW and all the driver aids (auto) let it I suspect deliver quite a bit less than the driving experience BMW are talking about.
 
The_Abyss said:
I'd be very interested in a 4WD BMW. At the moment in the current conditions, my BMW and all the driver aids (auto) let it I suspect deliver quite a bit less than the driving experience BMW are talking about.
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Compromising your driving experience for 90% of the time to improve it for 10% of the time doesn't seem like a great plan to me.
 
[TW]Fox;18037468 said:
Compromising your driving experience for 90% of the time to improve it for 10% of the time doesn't seem like a great plan to me.
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The man speaketh the truth.

Whilst in Norway, my Cupra 4 was epic.
Commuting around town and on the motorway back in Belgium, the negatives heavily outweighed the positives. Until it snowed :o
 
[TW]Fox;18037468 said:
Compromising your driving experience for 90% of the time to improve it for 10% of the time doesn't seem like a great plan to me.
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It is about choice. I do about 4 or 5,000 miles a year. At least 3/4 of these are in poor weather, i.e. when I really don't want to get on my bike.

So it seems like a great plan for me. And, let's be honest, 90% of the time I drive in decent conditions, I'm not pushing it to get greatly over any 'compromise'.
 
[TW]Fox;18036821 said:
Because projected demand in the UK was absolutely zero
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We had this discussion with the dealer when buying the E60 2 years ago. My Dad was moreless "Yeah I know BMW UK don't list it, but name your price for an AWD E61 in RHD and I'll sign" :p. Dealer did actually say that they do get a fair few requests for them, and they'll order you in a LHD one if you really want :). I know one of the other company directors had a similar conversation with the dealers a few years before... but then just got an X5.

I'd be interested to see Audi's statistics on how many A4s/A6s are ordered with Quattro (I'll ignore A3s as they're Haldex :p).
 
The compromise isn't just from a driving dynamics point of view. What about the fact it saps the performance of the car, it chews through additional fuel and it wears it's tyres quicker?
 
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