[The HACK]

The way *I* see it...

These newer BMWs (heck BMWs since the lat 1980s) have such high limits that the ONLY way that any of its limitations in terms of handling can be experienced on the street, is if you do something WRONG. Heck my 1991 318is can be made to understeer or oversteer if I drive like a completely noob or idiot on the street, but I couldn't get it to understeer or oversteer at the track because, well, it's got far more mechanical grip than power (and speed) if I were to drive it FAST. Even the mighty E9X M3, the ONLY place where you can potentially drive it hard enough to find the actual limit where it understeers or oversteers is AT THE TRACK. If you managed to get either while driving it on the street, you're doing something wrong.

And I'm not against mechanical improvement. Far from it. I believe that as your skill start to improve, you will continue to put more stress on various parts of the components of the suspension, and that additional stress needs to be alleviated with beefier components or stiffer suspension or adjustable shocks or swaybars. It's a simple fact that the "harder" you drive your car the faster it wears. I'm a huge proponent of replacing factory parts with parts engineered to absorb more of the rigors and stress of performance driving.

But, as you all know, I'm also fond of saying that, if you're only capable of taking advantage of 1/10th of the car's actual performance, whether you know it or not, you can double the performance of the car and you'll only really be able to take advantage of 1/10th of the increased performance. If you can take advantage of 9/10th of the car's actual performance, then doubling that performance you're actually getting 9/10th of your investment in return.

So here-in lies the rub. I used to work in the aftermarket performance parts industry so I understand the vast majority of "our market" comes from people like most of you here on this board. If ONLY those that can fully take advantage of a performance mod buys performance mods, well, I'd be out of a job a lot sooner. So I'm not saying don't buy sways or coil-overs or whatever to address what you think might be understeer or oversteer. I'm saying, that once you buy it, find out what exactly it is by going to a local track to really experience it. You'd be surprised at how "neutral" these cars are before the limit kicks in.

One last parting shot. I can almost guarantee you that, by adding another 1.5 degrees of negative camber up front, you'll actually get BETTER result than going to a wider tire. A 225 wide tire on -2.5º of camber will likely grip and perform better than a 245 wide tire on -0.7º of camber up front. And this is why the M3 control arms seems to make such a dramatic difference in handling, not because it's the M3 control arm, but because it adds anywhere from 0.5-0.7º of negative camber up front.