BMW e36 & e46 ..
- Thread starter Rupunzell
- Start date
Black-Tooth
Tony Natoli
Tom... see PM! nt
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Black-Tooth
Tony Natoli
Close, but no cigar... Wanna try again?
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Sandgroper
True Classic
Bernice
I have been curious about automobile manufacture in China since the French ( PSA ) have building cars there. I have always had Pugs' in my life so I showed an interest in the changing economics of who builds what where. I had been unimpressed by the PRC efforts for a long time but a recent loan of a Peugeot 508 challenged my assumptions- I was actually shocked. It was a damned good car. If you have had VW or a GM product then you may have seen the initials SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) - massive. It may be State owned but that doesn't ensure it gets it's own way. Their foray into Korea with SsangYong was a disaster when their controlling share was reduced to ~ 10%. But a disaster for who is of debate if you follow the story of SAIC, did they unduly benefit from exposure to Mercedes technology that Ssangyong controlled during that time. That is a discussion that would ally with what you have said.
The PRC joint ventures with foreign car makers such as Volkswagen, General Motors, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Kia, Nissan, Peugeot, and Renault bring with them a Quality Assurance program that delivers fairly good results with no backdoor subcontracting that I am aware of. China's automobile industry had Soviet origins mainly so it may come as a shock to some that since 2009 annual production of automobiles in China exceeds that of the entire European Union or that of the United States and Japan combined. I don't disagree with your sentiments and I won't get bogged down in the suspect politics of China as politics will only end in tears. Suffice to say they are guilty of blatant copies of the Matiz, Merc CLK, Fiat Panda, Smart For Two etc etc and the 51% ownership by the state of joint ventures to build/sell cars locally are a way of getting their hands on technology from overseas. BYD is the one of the worst photocopy machines with many of the BYD F3 body panels being interchangeable with the Toyota Corolla E120 platform. I don't know how Japan feels but from 2011 the BYD F3 was being assembled in Russia until it went under last year, a blatant copy of the Corolla IMHO.
Fiats first foray in China (Changsha city, Hunan province) was in 2009, agreement with the Chinese firm Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group (GAC) to build a factory in China saw them building cars two years later qualified for the highest standards of World Class Manufacturing. Fiat GAC aims to build at least 200,000 cars a year, with at least one new model per year. The second part of the production plan foresees a raise in production to 300,000 units. The Iconic Jeep will be made in China next year ( thankfully only for their domestic market ). We have never had a real car manufacturing industry Downunder so I never saw the rose colored glasses Aussie GM Holden thing seriously so I'm not too worried about the PRC, as a superpower you should. They are the biggest single foreign market for Jeeps, that is all about to go offshore. They are better and getting better by the year, given who owns the national debt I would be very uneasy.
Anyway back to the topic of BMW body weakness, at the link below would you recommend these be stitched welded in the under chassis of a E36 M3. I have never been too fussy about the wire spool I used for bodywork before. Tube work sure but I am interested in the specs of a wire that I should use for this reinforcing panel, size 0.6 thru 0.9 I can accommodate in house.
http://store.bimmerworld.com/e36-rear-subframechassis-reinforcement-kit-p541.aspx
BMW's rear sub frame body sheet metal failures are relatively rare in a street car and usually related to neglect/abuse. If they fail due to age/abuse and are not replaced then the energy will get transmitted directly into the body. If you do not replace the subframe mounts when they go bad (around 60k) then it is inevitable that you will have the failure at some point in time (quicker when driven hard). I wouldn't class the E36 chassis as weak in general because of it, in the main it is a pretty good track chassis. Cars all have a weak point, that is what one of the chapters of track preparation is about. In theory if you keep the subframe mounts in good shape, you shouldn't have any problem with the subframe tearing away from the chassis. I was asked to turn up some bushes out of delrin and refused as the original rubber bushes are there to help absorb the shock stresses. Nolathane Polly bushes increase the shock transmission rate over rubber and this is what we installed, but I said I wasn't happy about it ( but it wasn't my car so thought mmeeh!).
AFAIK all the E30 M3's were left hand drive and we drive on the wrong side apparently,
so were never saw a real one.
As for what demographic drives a particular brand I don't let that cloud my own judgement. Sure the seriously unhinged ( but funny none the less ) Jerremy Clarkson has said BMW's are driven by Concrete sales Rep's and W*nk#rs, I don't disagree. That the little X 1/9 has a reputation as a hairdressers car for women Downunder does not stop me from seeing the X for what they really are. I am not a hairdresser but I still appreciate the little Fiat, I just seek more HP to confound those in their far more expensive cars that think they can keep up with it.
I have been curious about automobile manufacture in China since the French ( PSA ) have building cars there. I have always had Pugs' in my life so I showed an interest in the changing economics of who builds what where. I had been unimpressed by the PRC efforts for a long time but a recent loan of a Peugeot 508 challenged my assumptions- I was actually shocked. It was a damned good car. If you have had VW or a GM product then you may have seen the initials SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation) - massive. It may be State owned but that doesn't ensure it gets it's own way. Their foray into Korea with SsangYong was a disaster when their controlling share was reduced to ~ 10%. But a disaster for who is of debate if you follow the story of SAIC, did they unduly benefit from exposure to Mercedes technology that Ssangyong controlled during that time. That is a discussion that would ally with what you have said.
The PRC joint ventures with foreign car makers such as Volkswagen, General Motors, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Kia, Nissan, Peugeot, and Renault bring with them a Quality Assurance program that delivers fairly good results with no backdoor subcontracting that I am aware of. China's automobile industry had Soviet origins mainly so it may come as a shock to some that since 2009 annual production of automobiles in China exceeds that of the entire European Union or that of the United States and Japan combined. I don't disagree with your sentiments and I won't get bogged down in the suspect politics of China as politics will only end in tears. Suffice to say they are guilty of blatant copies of the Matiz, Merc CLK, Fiat Panda, Smart For Two etc etc and the 51% ownership by the state of joint ventures to build/sell cars locally are a way of getting their hands on technology from overseas. BYD is the one of the worst photocopy machines with many of the BYD F3 body panels being interchangeable with the Toyota Corolla E120 platform. I don't know how Japan feels but from 2011 the BYD F3 was being assembled in Russia until it went under last year, a blatant copy of the Corolla IMHO.
Fiats first foray in China (Changsha city, Hunan province) was in 2009, agreement with the Chinese firm Guangzhou Automobile Industry Group (GAC) to build a factory in China saw them building cars two years later qualified for the highest standards of World Class Manufacturing. Fiat GAC aims to build at least 200,000 cars a year, with at least one new model per year. The second part of the production plan foresees a raise in production to 300,000 units. The Iconic Jeep will be made in China next year ( thankfully only for their domestic market ). We have never had a real car manufacturing industry Downunder so I never saw the rose colored glasses Aussie GM Holden thing seriously so I'm not too worried about the PRC, as a superpower you should. They are the biggest single foreign market for Jeeps, that is all about to go offshore. They are better and getting better by the year, given who owns the national debt I would be very uneasy.
Anyway back to the topic of BMW body weakness, at the link below would you recommend these be stitched welded in the under chassis of a E36 M3. I have never been too fussy about the wire spool I used for bodywork before. Tube work sure but I am interested in the specs of a wire that I should use for this reinforcing panel, size 0.6 thru 0.9 I can accommodate in house.
http://store.bimmerworld.com/e36-rear-subframechassis-reinforcement-kit-p541.aspx
BMW's rear sub frame body sheet metal failures are relatively rare in a street car and usually related to neglect/abuse. If they fail due to age/abuse and are not replaced then the energy will get transmitted directly into the body. If you do not replace the subframe mounts when they go bad (around 60k) then it is inevitable that you will have the failure at some point in time (quicker when driven hard). I wouldn't class the E36 chassis as weak in general because of it, in the main it is a pretty good track chassis. Cars all have a weak point, that is what one of the chapters of track preparation is about. In theory if you keep the subframe mounts in good shape, you shouldn't have any problem with the subframe tearing away from the chassis. I was asked to turn up some bushes out of delrin and refused as the original rubber bushes are there to help absorb the shock stresses. Nolathane Polly bushes increase the shock transmission rate over rubber and this is what we installed, but I said I wasn't happy about it ( but it wasn't my car so thought mmeeh!).
AFAIK all the E30 M3's were left hand drive and we drive on the wrong side apparently,
so were never saw a real one.As for what demographic drives a particular brand I don't let that cloud my own judgement. Sure the seriously unhinged ( but funny none the less ) Jerremy Clarkson has said BMW's are driven by Concrete sales Rep's and W*nk#rs, I don't disagree. That the little X 1/9 has a reputation as a hairdressers car for women Downunder does not stop me from seeing the X for what they really are. I am not a hairdresser but I still appreciate the little Fiat, I just seek more HP to confound those in their far more expensive cars that think they can keep up with it.