Quote:
Originally Posted by Want the thrill
Maybe the sway bars? I read that they are filled with electromagnetic fluid and stiffen when the sport mode is activated. I don't know and I probably never will.
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Electromagnetic fluid? Huh. You read that? And, uh, you believed it? Did you read it "
here" by any chance? Because that appears to be the only place on the web that "electromagnetic fluid" and "sway bars" occur in the same sentence (besides the one quoted above). Which is probably a good indicator that the information is not reliable.
From a physics perspective it doesn't make any sense. There are fluids that exhibit viscosity changes when a current is applied. These make sense for, say, struts or shocks where there's something moving through them that you want to slow down under some conditions. But sway bars are fundamentally static elements. Yes, they're often hollow but filling them with liquid, even a liquid with variable viscosity, would really just make them heavier and a potential sources of leaks. It wouldn't make them substantially stiffer.
No one who knows anything about the mechanics of these systems claims that the suspension changes. In fact, BMW reps who've weighed in say exactly the opposite. It's okay to disagree, but don't get mad at us for not believing. I'll say it again: I believe you feel it; I felt it too. But it's an
illusion. If you want me to believe it, you've got to provide more evidence than your (or even my!) experience. But there isn't any. All the non-experiential data point to one conclusion.