Hey guys. Sam from Automobile here. I was on the GotlandRing launch with Bryan, and I have to agree with him on pretty much everything he's said. Most journalists are decent drivers, some of them really suck, and the 1-series really does handle quite decently, though it understeers a great deal more than the E90 coupe does. (More on that later.) That said, here are a few more thoughts:
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The E90/2 3 Series was built using an extended/modified version of the original 1 Series hatch chassis, the E87. There are many similarities between the E82 and E92 as the E92 is a modified E87.
Actually, even though its E-number is numerically lower (historically, BMW cars sporting E/chassis/experimental/design/project-numbers have been designed chronologically in accordance with that numbering, though it's not a hard and fast rule), the 1-series was designed alongside the E90 and its variants, and not before them. The two cars were always intended to share parts, and neither one came before the other. If there's any bias in the development—designing a platform to be common between two cars inherently has its drawbacks, especially when one is four or five inches longer than the other and has a different weight/track/customer orientation—it's towards the 3-series, as that car is far more important to BMW from both a sales and a philosophical standpoint. (I drove to the track with Tom Purves, BMW NA's CEO, and spent a couple of hours talking to him, so you can consider this straight from the horse's mouth. Incidentally, the dude is quite cool, and a car freak of the highest order. He truly wants the company to produce good cars.)
Essentially, the E90 isn't a "modified" E87; given the scale involved (and in spite of the fact that the 1er came to market first), if one car came from the other, it'd be the E87 that originated from the E90. (That fantastic turbo six and those complex/expensive front and rear subframe assemblies, along with most of the interior hardware/software, wouldn't have ever seen the light of day if they were designed for a base-market car. They're just too expensive to put on a small hatch, even a BMW-badged small hatch, unless there's some shared economy of scale.) We have the 3-series to thank for the 1-series, and the 335i to thank for the 135i.
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From some of the videos I have seen from the Gotland ring event, I cannot fully agree with that statement. I saw missed shifts, people completely missing the apex of a turn(not good for the understeer situation in most cases), and other things that characterize more novice drivers, IMO.
Sadly, most journalists are just that: journalists. Most of them are fairly safe drivers, if not necessarily fast ones. Bryan's right: there are exceptions. Gillies is an intelligent, competent, and downright blazingly fast vintage racer with a knack for dissecting vehicle dynamics. Bryan is a talented driver. And Shaun Bailey from Road & Track is (along with being one of the few people to get the 135i stupid—and artfully—sideways repeatedly at Gotland) a decent 'shoe himself, and a pretty successful Spec Miata club racer. There are others, but they're the exception rather than the rule—fact is, most people in this business are writers, and while they're good at reviewing a car's fundamental qualities (you drive everything on the market, eventually you get a decent idea of what's good and what's not), track driving is not their forte. It doesn't make them bad at what they do; some people are better writers than others, and some people are better engineers than others. It's life. In the end, as far as reviewing cars goes, most people come to the same consensus on any given vehicle, regardless of whether they're Schumacher or not.
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If you wanted to track a 135i where would you start in the process of reducing understeer; tires, sway-bar, front camber?
Essentially, Bryan's right. Like all BMWs, the 1-series is a little underbraked (pedal feel changes as the brakes get hot, and travel increases/varies from corner to corner as the active fade compensation nonsense adjusts itself), a little too softly sprung, and burdened with sway bars front and rear that are a little on the small side. (It also needs a limited-slip, but that's beside the point, as the current lack of rear roll stiffness/tiny rear bar ensures that the inside wheel never gets hugely unloaded unless you drive like an idiot.) It would benefit greatly simply from more bar and equal-sized tires front and rear. (215s up front and 245s in the rear? Jesus.) And, like all BMWs, more negative camber up front would reduce camber change and roll understeer.
That said, the biggest issue the sport-packed 135i (this is the only car BMW provided for our drive) has, however, is that tiny rear bar. The rear end simply doesn't do enough work, and inexperienced drivers then ask the front to do too much, compounding the problem. (Most people responded to the understeer by simply mashing the throttle and trying to make the car turn regardless—and while that initially SORT of works, it also does little but overheat the front rubber and exacerbate things.) Couple that with a track that most people had never been to before—a place where people trusted the apex- and track-out cones too much, cones that were placed driver-understeer-inducing-early for safety—and you have a recipe for a bunch of reviewers screaming about untamable front-end push.
Here's the interesting bit, though: I mentioned the rear roll stiffness to the chassis engineer BMW had brought for the occasion, and he shrugged a little, and then admitted something: They did it on purpose. As you'd expect, the E90's suspension geometry was tuned for a car only slightly heavier but much longer in wheelbase. The engineer admitted that a larger rear bar and stiffer rear shocks helped the limit understeer—bringing the car's balance back in line with that of the gets-sideways-even-on-its-open-diff 335i—but it also trashed ride quality, as the 1-series's shorter wheelbase produced more pitch and toss with more rear stiffness. In the notoriously ride-sensitive US market (we complained about the E46 M3, for chrissakes, and that car is fantastically comfortable), BMW was sales-paranoid and took the safer of two options. In retrospect, you or I or the average enthusiast dork (I use that term lovingly) may not agree with their choice, but it certainly makes sense from their point of view. Especially given their bungling of the 318ti (they believe the market failed them, not the other way around) and the subsequent in-house paranoia surrounding premium-level small cars.
THAT said—and I promise, I'm about to shut up—the 1-series's understeer isn't disgusting, it isn't unfixable, and it isn't going to kill the car. Nor should it keep you from buying one, especially when it's a change of bars and springs (and a limited-slip) away from being a drift-happy burnout machine. (Remember, tune the opposite end of the car.) Yes, the lack of front-end grip hurts the car on the track. And yes, on the street, in hugely tight and cambered corners (with traction off), the 135i is probably going to hike its skirt and spin the hell out of the inside rear wheel. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still a hell of a decent road car, and a damn good basis for a stupidly fast track car if you build it right.
As for my own credentials, I'll admit, I'm somewhat outside the norm. I've road raced a '68 2002 (ITB) with the SCCA for the past four years, I share a Spec Miata with a friend of mine for endurance races and longer sprints, and I've also been a BMWCCA and PCA instructor for several chapters since 2003. I worked in a series of restoration and race prep shops for several years after leaving college and before I got the job with Automobile. Cars that I have built or helped tune have won races and championships, and I've even been lucky enough to be in the right place/right time/right car situation more than a few times and win more than a few races myself. Does any of this mean I don't make mistakes? No. And to be honest, when it comes down to absolute limit dynamics and their dissection—bump steer, the fine mechanics of shock valving or diff clutch tuning, and the like—there are a great many people in the industry better than I am (Gillies is one. Bailey is another.) To say nothing of the countless amateur, semi-pro, and pro racers or mechanics who can blow me into the weeds eight days a week. Like Bryan, I'll never claim to be the fastest on any given day at any given track, but I'm confident enough to say that I'm competent, and qualified enough to evaluate a car.
Just food for thought. And remember, not all journalists are a**holes. Just the guys from MWerks.
-Sam
'88 M3
'88 325iX
'68 2002, ITB
'69 2000
p.s. Yes, I'm a BMW freak. No, I'm not biased—the company builds a lot of crap cars, has built a lot of crap cars, and will continue to build a lot of crap cars. It's just that the 1-series isn't one of them
