Why are BMW's so slow in reality ( specifically 335i ) - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

986_inquiry · 08-26-2015, 04:21 PM

Ran into a 335i xdrive sedan recently. He was a bit ahead of me 0-60, but on highway it was all me. 3rd gear was close, but once in 4th he was several car lengths behind.

So imagine my shock when I find out the 335i's 0-60 is suppose to be a 4.4 and quarter mile in 13.0!

2013 BMW 335i xDrive First Test - Motor Trend

I'm in a stock 987! 0-60 in 5.9-ish is what they claim (some say 6.2!) and quarter mile in low 14s!

This shouldn't have been a race, it should have been a slaughter! I should have been seeing nothing but tail lights the entire time.

What's the deal with BMWs? I run into a lot like this and they never live up to the numbers the magazines claim they should get.

BYprodriver · 08-26-2015, 04:26 PM

Maybe the fuel pump was failing again. AWD weight doesn't help

Crono0001 · 08-26-2015, 04:26 PM

Still street racing I see.

986_inquiry · 08-26-2015, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BYprodriver

Maybe the fuel pump was failing again. AWD weight doesn't help

I'm thinking BMW tweaks the transmission to put out good numbers for 0-60 and quarter mile but it's not designed to actually do well on the road. For example the 335i was right there in 3rd which is probably the gear it is in for the end of the quarter mile time but once in 4th it couldn't keep up at all.

Giller · 08-26-2015, 05:05 PM

Street racing is such a dumb thing to do.

leftfield6 · 08-26-2015, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giller

Street racing is such a dumb thing to do.

Yep.

BTW, you really can't be sure he was 100% into it, you know.

jacabean · 08-26-2015, 05:25 PM

he most likely was not pushing , That car will leave your base boxster in the dust in a straight line . no question about it .

Crono0001 · 08-26-2015, 05:28 PM

Simple Math:

987: 237 hp, 3130 lbs
335i: 300 hp, 3731 lbs

987 P/W = 0.075
BMW P/W = 0.080

Very similar power to weight.

The fact that the BMW is AWD and runs such fast quarter mile/0-60 times means it's probably geared for such. Boxster is also slippier, which helps you on highways.

Congrats, you beat BMW's entry level sedan. Hardly calls for the title "Why are BMW's so slow". I'm sure if you actually went to the track instead of street racing, you'd see some faster BMWs.

Please stop street racing.

Joe B · 08-26-2015, 07:03 PM

It's a family sedan, not a sports car

!

Qmulus · 08-26-2015, 07:09 PM

And sometimes people aren't racing you when you think they are...

986_inquiry · 08-26-2015, 07:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacabean

he most likely was not pushing , That car will leave your base boxster in the dust in a straight line . no question about it .

There's very few cars that can go half throttle and keep up with a boxster at highway speed. 335i isn't one of them.

Crono0001 · 08-26-2015, 10:21 PM

Don't kid yourself. My 30 year old Corolla will smoke most Boxsters. They are not straight line cars.

I've known you for a while man, and from your posts, you sound like you belong in a Mustang more than anything.

986_inquiry · 08-27-2015, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qmulus

And sometimes people are racing you when you think they are...

yes.... sometimes people are racing when you think they are racing... strangely worded but I agree

986_inquiry · 08-27-2015, 05:44 AM

seems I had this discussion before, but that was with the 986. Results were similar, 335i and 335ci can't keep up in 4th

http://986forum.com/forums/general-discussions/45737-bmw-335ci-not-bad-almost-fast-us.html

ekam · 08-27-2015, 06:04 AM

Or maybe he wasn't racing you.

BIGJake111 · 08-27-2015, 06:25 AM

Street racing alone is dumb but if you need to join a measuring contest than you are not proud enough of what you've got as it is.

You shouldn't have to brag about being faster than family sedan to feel good about driving a boxster, if you have to than you bought the wrong car.

PorscheBound · 08-27-2015, 07:08 AM

I love all the butt hurt street racing posts. Everyone has this broken idea of what a street race is. I think most older gentleman in this group have seen one too many fast and furious movies and took it to heart. There are plenty of scenarios where a street race is just as safe on the street as it is on a track if not more safe because some scenarios allow for greater areas of error unlike the track where you have a far greater chance of going into a jersey wall.

Not saying this was the scenario but what's the harm in putting 2 performance cars to the test if your on an open stretch of road with no one else around? Only people getting hurt would be those involved. Just like at a track.

And for the argument of people saying these are not straight line cars....I understand their performance is greater in the turns but a 13 second quarter mile is very respectable so running the car in a straight line, the car holds its own against cars that were built for the straight line.

Street racing can be very stupid in most scenarios. With that said there are plenty of scenarios that any critical thinking person could look at and say "no one on the road, flat road, wide road, weather conditions good, only harm done is those involved."

Flame suit has been put on. Godspeed.

Perfectlap · 08-27-2015, 07:10 AM

You're whole premise is off. You titled your question "why are 335i's slow"?
This would infer that a car is "fast" based on a single metric, straight line acceleration.
A proper sports car is fast or slow based on many metrics which are typically decided by a single lap of a race track with a good mix of fast corners, technical corners, elevation changes, etc.

As far as street racing, this is not something excellent Porsche drivers are known for.
More like the pimply faced spikey haired 19 year old in his Civic or the gold chain wearing mullet hair cut guy in his mullet car. I've been challenged by both and it always makes think back to when I was a dummy too.

Perfectlap · 08-27-2015, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PorscheBound

I love all the butt hurt street racing posts. Everyone has this broken idea of what a street race is. I think most older gentleman in this group have seen one too many fast and furious movies and took it to heart. There are plenty of scenarios where a street race is just as safe on the street as it is on a track if not more safe ...

Under no circumstance is street racing on a PUBLIC road "safe". First of all, 9 times in 10 you don't know the skill set of the driver in the other car. Neither do you know the condition of his machinery as being safe to race at high speed. When you leave so many IMPORTANT variables up to chance you are simply showing a lack of grey matter. I used to work in the criminal courts many ages ago. Two guys came in from jail for street racing. One guy had some German luxury car the other an American sports car. They decided to race and ended up hitting a bystander in another car who was killed. Mr. luxury car got a big time criminal defense lawyer and "only" did a couple of years in jail for manslaughter. The guy in the other car apparently couldn't afford a $50K legal defense (your insurance does not cover this) and was convicted of "Death by Auto" and was sentenced to 10 years in a maximum security prison. He's now a convicted felon with some seriously compromised life options. Not to mention he destroyed the family of the victim. Either of those two jokers could be any guy racing on the street.

Top_Ramen · 08-27-2015, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PorscheBound

I love all the butt hurt street racing posts. Everyone has this broken idea of what a street race is. I think most older gentleman in this group have seen one too many fast and furious movies and took it to heart. There are plenty of scenarios where a street race is just as safe on the street as it is on a track if not more safe because some scenarios allow for greater areas of error unlike the track where you have a far greater chance of going into a jersey wall.

Not saying this was the scenario but what's the harm in putting 2 performance cars to the test if your on an open stretch of road with no one else around? Only people getting hurt would be those involved. Just like at a track.

As someone that was a previous "street racer" I 100% agree with this. "Street racing" in my eyes is dead now due to misconceptions and the new "racers" that think blasting on the highway is racing.

When I was younger, me and my buddies used to head out racing almost EVERY weekend. But was it dangerous?? **************** yeah, but we took as many precautions as we could, like setting up the race at a different location or even online so we wouldn't have an exodus of cars following us and maybe endangering if 1 of the cars racing got sideways. We also would go somewhere secluded wide enough in case of error, long enough to have stopping room, and definitely not on the highway blasting too 180mph+ speeds that you see these days all over the internet.

....I loved every second of it. Getting a call for a potential race, loading up the trailer, arguing for countless hours about stipulations, and just the rush of testing your car and yourself trying to stick rubber to unprepped pavement. Call me wreckless, ignorant, whatever etc. It's an American past time in my opinion but so frowned upon now because of media and people not knowing what they're doing

...Sorry for the long rant, but back on topic, I don't think the 335 was on it