BMW to drop carbon fibre drive shafts on M3 and M4
BMW will replace the current carbon fibre drive shafts in the M3 and M4 with a smaller one made out of steel. German company BMW has officially revealed its plans to drop the currently used carbon fibre drive shafts on its M3 and M4 performance cars, in favour of a steel one.
By Tushaar Singh Gill
BMW will replace the current carbon fibre drive shafts in the M3 and M4 with a smaller one made out of steel.
German company BMW has officially revealed its plans to drop the currently used carbon fibre drive shafts on its M3 and M4 performance cars, in favour of a steel one. This change will be applied on all M3 and M4 models produced from November 2017.
According to BMW, this change is being made so that the M3 and M4 can better comply with the stricter emission regulations. Technically, the carbon fibre drive shaft is larger in diameter, and therefore occupies more space under the car. The replacement ‘M-specific high-performance steel shaft’, as the company claims - is a space saver.
While this decision may be a cause of worry for performance aficionados (due to steel’s added weight over carbon fibre), BMW claims that the superlative performance and handling qualities of the two cars won’t be affected by this change. Whether the company will make any other tweaks to better go with the new drive shaft is not yet known.
Otherwise, the BMW M3 and M4 draw their muscle from a 3.0-litre, 6-cylinder, twin-turbo petrol engine churning out 425 horses and 550Nm of torque. This motor comes mated to a 7-speed dual clutch automatic gearbox which feeds power to the rear wheels.
Since the BMW M3 and M4 are imported to India via the CBU route, it won’t take very long for the updated cars to come here, post the global production beginning. Currently, the M3 and M4 are priced at Rs. 1.21 crore and Rs. 1.23 crore respectively, both ex-showroom.
