Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilyam5
You are absolutely correct - performance means different things to different people. That's what makes this debate interesting.
To me - the suspension performance in an M or M performance car - is ability to sustain road holding/ traction at the limit.
I tried several M 3/4 cars on the track with adaptive and passive suspensions.
Adaptive - is a comfort compromise and does not consistently hold the at the limit.
I found comfort to be - too leany/floaty. and in Sport/sport + it is skipping. - so mid corner bumps, apex curbs tend to upset the car and the rear steps out. So i left the car in comfort on the track preferring to deal with lean over skipping.
The regular M sport suspension does not exhibit this behavior. But at slow speeds in town on broken roads - it is more bumpy - i can live with that - some choose not to.
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Your comments clearly illustrate the issues involved in suspension choice. Partly a subjective (individual) judgement and also that any suspension is a compromise, even the BMW adaptive systems.
I'm running the 5-series adaptive suspension which is a more advanced and better design than the 3/4 series. It has three base settings. I find the middle setting is the best compromise and if I only had one setting, it would be the one of choice. I do use the two other settings, the sport setting if I'm pressing on. But I wouldn't want it all the time, some roads it is totally unnecessary, plus I prefer a bit of comfort, particularly on long trips.
I had a passive suspension X1 for a couple of days last week. It was a reasonable compromise, but there were times I would have preferred to firm it up a bit, mainly due to roads I was using, once off a major trunk road. If I was in that market, adaptive would definitely be on my options list.