Minggu, 13 Desember 2009

BMW Efficient Dynamics & The Ultimate Driving Machine

My Beaming Beemer *I wished*

Photo taken by Aaron



If you are wondering whether you have been reading the wrong blog or this post is in the wrong blog, I won't blame you. Since when did Eiling ever do a car review? NEVER. Technically, I'm a car noob. Asthetically, I appreciate the design of a car and its speed. That's all I (as a typical lady) cared about anyways.



Ok, so how often one gets to drive a beemer (if you don't own one and so do your parents)? Never. Although I have been chauffeured driven in a 530i, M5, M6 Coupe and a 750i, I actually haven't driven one! So finally, the day has arrived. The day I get to tickle the throttle of a BMW with my own foot of course! It was an imensely good experience.



Before I go on and on about BMW and its Efficient Dynamics products, let me introduce to you my driving partner for 2 days from KL to Hutan Belum in Perak and then back to KL. We were invited by BMW Efficient Dynamics to test drive its new diesel cars!





The notorious Huai Bin from Sixthseal.com.



Yeah, so you can imagine how exciting (or rather dangerous) the driving excursion was for those 2 days. I had to make sure that I was heavily insured and of course I had to also make sure that the airbags are working!



To get a clearer picture of BMW Efficient Dynamics, it is actually a continuous strategy by BMW to reduce fuel consumption and emission levels, while at the same time enhancing the vehicle's performance and driving pleasure. In short, a diesel car need not look, sound and feel like a diesel truck!



So this is a rundown of what I knew about BMW Efficient Dynamics and it's not one but 2 (320d Sports and the 520d Sports Edition) of the 4 new models of the diesel lineup which also includes X3 xDrive20d Executive Edition, and the 730Ld. (Note that: i stands for petrol models and d for diesel in BMW models)





Listening to Aris for instructions.



  1. To drive comfortably, you must first know how to sit properly. A perfect car for each person is a car with at least 4 fingers space gap between the top of your head and the car ceiling (is there a technical name for it?). And the legs must be bent for proper braking. One must always know how to operate the car properly to realise the full potential of the car!





    Photo taken by Aaron





  2. The BMW Advanced Diesel has a 4-cylinder turbodiesel engine with a lightweight aluminium engine block. The 320d, with 177 horsepower and 350 Nm of torque takes just 8 seconds in 0 to 100 km/h acceleration while the bigger 520d takes 8.4 seconds because it's a larger car.







    I like the cool engine start stop button without twisting a key!



  3. Auto Start Stop function that automatically switches off the engine when the car is at a standstill and in neutral, then restarts it as soon as the driver presses the clutch pedal again. That means if the engine is not running, it's not using any fuel.



  4. Gear Shift Indicator. The monitor on the dashboard shows the shifting of the gear and also the fuel consumption rate.





    Photo taken by Aaron





  5. Brake Energy Regeneration is when you take your foot off the accelerator, the kinetic energy is captured and channeled to the battery which reduces the power that the battery takes from the engine. This lowers fuel consumption. This is a smart car too. When it is raining, it sends a signal to the braking system to ensure that it is kept dry for better braking on wet and slippery roads. I like!





    Photo taken by Aaron





  6. Taking Corners. I love it when I take corners with the beemer. Taking a bend above 100km/hr is no problem when you have a car like this. I like it how I can instantly switch the gear to sports mode and then lower the gear shift as I come to a curve and then you can switch it back again to normal driving mode after the bend. It sticks on the ground like a lizard!



  7. Electric Power Steering. If the steering wheel is kept in a constant/straight position while driving, the electric motor is inactive and does not use any energy.







  8. The 320d does not have the iDrive and you have to go for the 323i for one. However, the 520d comes with an iDrive and I like how you can have a GPS, radio/CD/Multimedia, telephone, BMW services and whole lot of other functions on screen.



  9. It's so fuel saving that we drove a total of 1000km with a single tank of diesel! For the 320d, the average consumption was around 7 litre/100km on the highway (there were some traffic). For the 520d, the average was around 8.4 litre/100km with quite heavy traffic. This is a big difference compared to a petrol car. The same 5 series petrol BMW that went with us had to refuel twice for the same distance!







  10. It's so awesome that even the Audi TT has to stop for me. Muahahha....



Sometimes, you kinda feel invincible driving that ultimate driving machine. This includes hitting at 180km/hr and don't feel anything like scared and shaky and adrenaline rushing. Probably I'll feel the rush if I have a chance to hit 200km/hr. It also includes overtaking dangerously because you know that you can do it in time! Now that I'm back to driving my own car, I drive very carefully and safely...



Of course, there were concerns with the Euro2M diesel that we have compared to the 4/5M that the Europeans are using now. In fact, half or more cars in Europe is now using diesel and BMW sold more of its diesel models than the petrol ones.



According to BMW, it has done adequate testings to ensure that the engines should be running fine with the Euro 2M fuel and the engines that we get here are the 3M capables and not the 4/5M like those in Europe. Another point to note is that they also removed the DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) due to the sulphur levels of Euro 2M which also means one less thing to replace or fix! haha...







In general, as a car-specs-ignorant-lady-like-me, just ignore all those points and just go get one because all I cared is that it is fast, nice, quiet and makes me look and feel good. Isn't that convincing enough? Oh, and it's fuel-saving and less CO2 to the environment. Need I say more?



(Note: This might sound like an advertorial but it's not because I was really utterly impressed with the sheer ultimate driving pleasure I derived from those two days that we also thought of hijacking the car right before turning into Petronas Twin Towers on the last day.)



Enjoy these short-time-wasting clips:







Me driving the ultimate driving machine with Ivan giving instructions.





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