Quote:
Originally Posted by JB'sLGT
I get that, but I'm not talking about Corvette ZR1s and Porsche GT3s. They're both comparably tired and in the same class.
I could put the same tires on the M1 and it would've been right there with the times of the Boss LS. The tire wear rating for the Boss LS's Pirellis are 60 and the M1's Michelins are 220. Factory option or not, it's pretty easy to see someone is playing with a stacked deck.
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BMW has offered the Pilot Sport Cup on some models of the M3 as a factory option in the past. Its even mentioned in the little owners manual that comes with the Pilot Sport Cup tires. I'm sure BMW could have offered lower treadwear rated performance tires with the 1 Series M if they wanted to, but the simple fact is they didn't.
Its how the car is available from the factory.
The Pilot Sport PS2's on the 1 Series M are rather soft for 220 treadwear tires that do very well in autoX and track use for street tires, so its not like the car comes with hard all season tires.
Also you can't compare treadwear ratings of tires of different brands to each other to compare their grip. The Pilot Sport Cups and the Pirellis on the Boss 302 LS have the same treadwear rating, but anyone that has used both would say the Pilot Sport Cups have more grip and are a better overall dry track tire. Sure the 302 LS had grippier tires the other cars in the test, but it didn't have an as advanced stability control program as other cars in the test. Should we nitpick every detail of the two cars? The Boss 302 LS didn't have a computer controlled rear diff that can act as a locked diff to gain more traction out of the corners. I don't think any non BMW product in its price range in the comparison had that. Should we have to add that to each car in the 1 Series M's price range to even out the fairness of the test? Should we have to change the stability control progras of each car so they are more evenly matched? Is BMW playing with a stacked deck because they have a computer controlled rear diff while the Boss 302 LS has a diff who's basic design goes back 40+ years? What about "free" mods that you can do to some cars to increase their performance? If we nitpick tires, differentials, stability control, then should we nitpick details such as why didn't they do the "free" power mods that you can do in some of the cars tested?
What if we did change the tires and the stability control program of some of the cars didn't act properly because instead of pulling 0.92 lateral g's the cars now were pulling 1.2 lateral g's and the program wasn't designed for it?
The rules specifically state that Car & Driver asked the manufacturers to provide the most track friendly wheels and tires available. Here is the little rules section that was published in the magazine last year:
If its what the manufacturer offers in a mass produced vehicle, then its not playing with a stacked deck or using a ringer vehicle. The 1 Series M was a lower production model than the Boss 302. Its production stopped in December 2011. BMW didn't offer tires more performance oriented than the Pilot Sport PS2. For something so limited in production, they could have offered different tires as a factory option, but they didn't.
This is a test of cars as available form the factory. Sure you can modify these cars in many different ways to make them faster, intakes, headers, exhausts, computer reprogramming, different wheels, different tires, different seats, removing air conditioning, etc.... but that's not how they are delivered from the factory.