Quote:
Originally Posted by Tracus
Let me tell you that THE HOOD LINE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PEDESTRIAN RULES.
You never wonder why vehicles on the same class don’t have it? Or you believe that they are not pedestrian safety aproved?
Many models, including BMW, have no hood line. There is also nothing of such sort like softer materials, as at the time of impact a plastic can do same damage to a pedestrian. It is irrelevant.
And if you take the logic into consideration then your explanation is futile as bigger cars has no hood line hence metal hoods all the way.
Also, AUDI, VW und others are under the same set of pedestrian regulations and their line-less design is as pedestrian safe and TUV approved as they can be. BMW is not more pedestrian safe than others. And peestrian rules involve a bunch of things that can be addressed in different ways and do not resume to materials only.
Stop buying this bullcrap from BMW employees that wander around this forum.
I have visited many car factories and worked in the auto industry field to know what is going on.
The hood line is because the new bumper style lowers the costs by coming installed with everything on it from other cheaper countries where many components are preinstalled. Without the hood line there is more labor involved and the profits are lower. In a bigger front bumper there is a different structural assembly (existing top structure) and everything comes pre-installed including headlamps that are time consuming if they need to be pre-installed separately. Because BMW became the Marketing company, we have a hood line. All FWD, new UKL platform, no true xDrive, hood line, etc, is all about getting more profits with less customization or less labour.
The new 3 is hoodline free and you can see that the headlamp assembly is installed separately prior to the bumper.
It is all about time, speed, which translates in cost. There is a certain calculation and if they can be in that number and other assemblies are faster they can keep the design. If not, screw the design.
Thats why
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I do wonder why they manage to do it for the 3 series then, and not the 4 series. I mean, I believe you, but I wonder why they'd choose to go with the less profitable setup on the car that is (potentially) going to be selling more than the 4 series.