Quote:
Originally Posted by manicm
I'm afraid so. But then, 1-series apart, BMW has not had much incentive to be cutting edge with their 4-cyl petrols. UK only sells diesel X1s for example, and currently only a diesel X3.
I would imagine in the UK hardly anyone buys a petrol 3-series either. Their 4-cyl 2.0 petrol that you find in the 320i, 120i and the X1 sDrive18i that I've ordered is about 5 years behind I would say.
I would think this diesel trend runs across Europe, but US and other petrol-loving markets BMW need new efficient 4s. To be honest they're quite late to the party, compared to VW/Audi and others as well.
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I agree, BMW are a bit behind with their petrols but in their defence they have always been performance biased. Recently they have been doing a lot of work getting the petrol engines emissions down but I think they have probably reached the limit of what they can do without ditching the I6's and adding a turbo to the 4's.
Different story on the diesel front, they are miles ahead of anyone else.
The one difficult market is of course the US with their love of big engines. This is going to change rather quickly I think as the sheer weight of international demand is going to mean the demise of the big capacity engines in small/medium cars. Of course there will be exceptions like the M3 etc but in general I think NA is going to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new era.