I’m just in the process of performing ‘due dilligence’ prior to ordering a new X4M. Part of that involved watching a few road test videos, amongst them Joe Achilles’s, which I can only describe as wierd.
His conclusion is that the car is too firmly damped, based on driving it down an extremely bumpy country lane in Sport+.
While it said absolutely nothing about the suspension, it spoke volumes for the striking absence of squeaks and rattles.
His second conclusion is that the car lacks torque, tested by essentially switching off the gearbox and ignoring the paddle shifters, while trying to accelerate from 1600 by booting the throttle, thereby effectively dropping the inlet tract’s flow velocity to almost zero.
Joe, if you ever read this; a car’s drive train consists of BOTH the engine and transmission, which are hopefully matched to provide the ideal COMBINATION. Miss set one and don’t be surprised if the other doesn’t perform optimally. If the car is being asked to pull too high a gear at the very bottom of its torque curve, the ONLY important question is, does it immediately downshift to a more appropriate ratio? I had a previous generation M5 that would blast through the gears in ‘comfort’ setting, only to hang on to 7th gear come what may. Any car, even the mighty M5 will underperform when asked to pull a huge gear ratio from just above idle.
The x4M has an eight speed gearbox.....the top 2 gears really representing ‘top’ and ‘overdrive’ and are clearly designed for cruising, so what does putting the car into 7th gear and switching off the gearbox prove other than that the match between revs, torque and gear ratio have been extremely poorly selected BY THE DRIVER
I watched a second video of his M4 review, which he claims lacks traction, tested by taking a car on summer tyres, driving past the snow line in the Alps, switching off the traction control and booting it out of corners. Joe, if you get a rear wheel drive M car, switch off its traction control and drive it on either slippery roads or the incorrect season’s tyres, you’ve either got to short shift or dose the throttle better. With M cars we’re getting to the point where ‘far too much is nearly enough’. These cars take some driving finesse when conditions aren’t great. M cars are not optimised for extremely bumpy roads. They are fine on less than ideal surfaces but the very nature of those conditions means that the performance envelope must be appropriately reduced, either by switching on all the stability controls or with some skilful driving.