Quote:
Originally Posted by frankiebones
Michelin Pilot Alpin winter tires my man...who needs 4 wheels when you have amazing winter tires. They help in the wet as well.
I run PS4S during the non-winter season (April to November) on my M3 CS (the tire the G80 comes with) and find they handle heavy rain beautifully.
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They are great winter tires, but they are 100% better on an AWD car. In my S4, I can stomp around with relatively standard ease and attitude in 95% of winter scenarios. A little snow in the M3 and even with the snow tires you're driving it like a grandma. As such, M3/4 Competition drivers in areas like where I live in NY will have a 100% more enjoyable driving experience during the winter months, and people who daily drive 1 car in these areas are definitely going to think twice about that AWD option being more important than the manual.
I think a lot of you guys are really, really missing the point of my thread here. I'm not saying that BMW is killing the manual by providing a competition model that has a few more horsepower (and 70 foot pounds of torque).
That's one of 5 reasons why I believe this product positioning will dramatically reduce the already awful manual take rate.
The other reasons are now it isn't just an M DCT for $3,500 on the same platform. . . It's a faster car with way more Torque that ALSO has selectable on/off AWD.
It doesn't have to take up a driveway or garage slot in the winter on snowy days, and you don't actually have to get an SUV/winter beater if you get the Competition/AWD. That literally makes it way more valuable to many consumers - not just faster. At that point the extra $3,500 on the price tag is legitimately a worthwhile investment. My s4 goes anywhere in all but legit deep, heavy snow. I also drove my m3 in situations a lot of people would probably cringe/go nuts over.
You have option heads, 4 season drivers, "horsepower sluts (who seem to get the most chagrin overall), and those who don't do a ton of modding/prefer to lease and are afraid of BMW finding out about tunes etc now with other viable options.
We already know (because we hear all the time) that the uptake rate on manual cars is low in the US when they are offered at parity to their automatic counterparts. It stands to reason that it will very likely be even lower because of the way the options can pivot some buyers.
Since the take rate is already "low enough" that every other car model and manufacturer has trashed the manual, I just hope and pray that this isn't the final straw. In 2 years when BMW says "see look, we tried and for some reason people only wanted the faster, safer, all weather version of the car in all US markets except the permasummer states" I just hope someone is able to make the case that it wasn't a fair fight to some level of understanding.