BMW E46 320d, front or back wheel drive?

mag

Can anybody tell me if the BMW E46 (2002) 320d is front or back wheel drive? Thanks.

Anan1

It's rear wheel drive. I can't think of any BMW that isn't either RWD or AWD, although there may be some obscure model somewhere just to prove me wrong.

unkel

There are no FWD BMWs - not of recent times anyway.

mag

thanks guys

mike65

AugustusMaximus

unkel wrote: »

There are no FWD BMWs - not of recent times anyway.

IIRC, the only FWD car in the entire BMW Group is the Mini.

Mr Benevolent

The Rover 75 is based on an unused BMW FWD chassis.

AugustusMaximus

Confab wrote: »

The Rover 75 is based on an unused BMW FWD chassis.

BMW were planning a large FWD car :eek:

SpannerMonkey

rear wheel drive, all current bmw's are rear with only a few SUV's being 4 wheel drive , but apparently bmw have done the unthinkable :eek: the sacreligious:mad: the dark days have come they are going building a front wheel drive nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

SpannerMonkey

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

BMW were planning a large FWD car :eek:

no they are planning a 1 series fwd nothing bigger

AugustusMaximus

davy_b wrote: »

no they are planning a 1 series fwd nothing bigger

I would have thought a Rover 75 chassis would have been considerably bigger than a 1 series.

SpannerMonkey

it is a lot bigger but as far as i know they only used the engine from the rover 75 in the 320d the chassis is BMW thankfully
they also have fettled with the engine to tune it up as the rover one was seriously underpowered iaround 110 bhp while the latest version from bmw has 177 bhp

AugustusMaximus

davy_b wrote: »

it is a lot bigger but as far as i know they only used the engine from the rover 75 in the 320d the chassis is BMW

That's not what Confab was pointing at though.

JHMEG

davy_b wrote: »

the dark days have come they are going building a front wheel drive

Makes a lot of sense: cheaper, safer handling, more interior room, more economical.

I would imagine the majority of BMW owners don't know or care which are the driven wheels.

SpannerMonkey

sorry just seeing that now doesnt change the fact that there has never been a fwd in bmw range maybe an obscure modle i dont know about but if it did exist it was VERYshort lived

SpannerMonkey

JHMEG wrote: »

Makes a lot of sense: cheaper, safer handling, more interior room, more economical.

I would imagine the majority of BMW owners don't know or care which are the driven wheels.

i know and this saddens me it would ruin the companys motto
ask anyone that owns one for a reason other than brand name
i have owned 8 and i could never go FWD again

AugustusMaximus

I would have thought the safer handling of a FWD car (more likely to understeer) could easily be mimicked by using TC and ESP ?

SpannerMonkey

sorry dont know what you mean by micked ???

AugustusMaximus

davy_b wrote: »

sorry dont know what you mean by micked ???

Mimicked. (Bloody keyboard :rolleyes:)

SpannerMonkey

probably but the chassis is very very good on them you really have to push them very hard to get the rear to slide out and safer/understeer isnt as good to drive , , unless there is ICE then they are bloody lethal

bazz26

The MINI is fwd.

SpannerMonkey

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Pretty much all modern cars are setup for understeer even the RWD ones.

Maybe so but I can vouch that any BMW I ever had oversteered , never had any understeer only once with crap Tyres

and mini ain't BMW just owned by them dames as rolls Royce

Seweryn

Anan1 wrote: »

It's rear wheel drive. I can't think of any BMW that isn't either RWD or AWD, although there may be some obscure model somewhere just to prove me wrong.

There were (and sill are) 4WD BMWs since E30 and E34 models (3 and 5 series built in '80 and up)...

Anan1

Seweryn wrote: »

There were (and sill are) 4WD BMWs since E30 and E34 models (3 and 5 series built in '80 and up)...

AWD = All Wheel Drive.;)

jayok

Seweryn wrote: »

There were (and sill are) 4WD BMWs since E30 and E34 models (3 and 5 series built in '80 and up)...

Yep, more popular in the states though. E46s, E60s, etc, I think they use "x" in the name designation. E.g. 330xi

Seweryn

jayok wrote: »

Yep, more popular in the states though. E46s, E60s, etc, I think they use "x" in the name designation. E.g. 330xi

It is rather 330iX (not xi). And that's E30 325iX:

Confab

Confab wrote: »

The Rover 75 is based on an unused BMW FWD chassis.

I reckon you are wrong there, the Rover 75 was developed from scratch by Rover with very little input from BMW.

jayok

Seweryn wrote: »

It is rather 330iX (not xi). And that's E30 325iX:

Yep, and the E46+ is the 330xi. Follow the link

unkel

jayok wrote: »

Yep, and the E46+ is the 330xi

New to me too. Every day is a school day on here

xi is 4WD petrol
xd is 4WD diesel

these days...

JHMEG

unkel wrote: »

New to me too. Every day is a school day on here

xi is 4WD petrol
xd is 4WD diesel

these days...

They've been around a while... even I knew about them

unkel

JHMEG wrote: »

They've been around a while... even I knew about them

Fair play to ya

SpannerMonkey

i thought they were common knowledge
pity they dont sell them here

pburns

When I saw the OP's question first I was temped to reply 'Is the pope Catholic?', but thought better of being a smartarse...

Just goes to show BMWs aren't the preserve of the enthusiastic driver any more.

davy_b wrote: »

probably but the chassis is very very good on them you really have to push them very hard to get the rear to slide out and safer/understeer isnt as good to drive , , unless there is ICE then they are bloody lethal

That's the one thing always concerned me about BMWs, I do quite a lot of early-morning driving on country roads and this time of year RWD would be a pain...

unkel

pburns wrote: »

Just goes to show BMWs aren't the preserve of the enthusiastic driver any more.

Because one person asked if a BMW was RWD or FWD?

I don't think BMW were ever the preserve of the enthusiastic driver, manies the BMW found itself on someones drive who didn't know they were RWD.

AugustusMaximus

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I dislike the way some people think that you have to have RWD in order for a car to handle well. Rear wheel disorder (RWD) i think should be called

Indeed, 4x4 is good too.

FWD though....

peasant

LIGHTNING wrote: »

I dislike the way some people think that you have to have RWD in order for a car to handle well. Rear wheel disorder (RWD) i think should be called

I think we all know that RWD on its own is pants anyway ...the engine has to be in the back too :D:D

SpannerMonkey

Best handling car I ever drove was a Mazda 6 mps all wheel drive , but all sports cars are 4 wheel or rear wheel drive I.E. Koenensegg -rwd ,ferarri a lot of front engine rwd,Aston martin front engine rwd
bugatti awd no such thing as fwd sports car ,

Eoin

davy_b wrote: »

Best handling car I ever drove was a Mazda 6 mps all wheel drive , but all sports cars are 4 wheel or rear wheel drive I.E. Koenensegg -rwd ,ferarri a lot of front engine rwd,Aston martin front engine rwd
bugatti awd no such thing as fwd sports car ,

Depends on how you define a sports car. If you mean more of a super-car, then maybe you are right - but I reckon there are a lot of people who track FWD cars (I'm thinking the likes of Integras etc) who will tell you that RWD isn't the "be all and end all".

SpannerMonkey

Not disagreeing with you you can have great fun in fwd but choice of fun ones is limited and they do understeer on a track , I know this from experience ,also very limited on power it doesn't need to have big engine to be fun the definatuve sports car is a Mazda mx-5 which has front engine rear drive just saying that the vast majority of sports cars not super cars always were and probably always will be rwd but not all !!

TJJP

LIGHTNING

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Well I wouldnt listen to the Honda vtec crowd according to them the 1.6 Dohc Vtech engine is the greatest thing ever built

In fairness to Honda it is a great unit, astounding performance and reliability from quite a small and light engine.