mk7 gti on top gear now

[mikeok]

BMW cars have been aquaplaning off the road like that for decades, its about time the media admitted it.

I would have thought that the aquaplaning was caused by the depth of the water, the type of tyre fitted to the car and the driver having his foot planted at 120mph in dangerous conditions with the traction\esp off rather than it being a BMW. The M135 has Michelin Pilot Super Sports as standard, and they are pretty close to a track day tyre and are not good a clearing water, but are fantastic in the dry\damp (not full wet). These tyres would have also helped it with it's dry lap time, maybe 1 sec per lap faster than the Bridgestones on the Golf...).
I looked very closely at the M135, and was tempted but the Golf won me over as the sensible choice out of the two.

I have PSSon my 335i and they are fine on road to very wet conditions.  Have just come back from germany at weekend and it chucked it down all the way there and I was not hanging around either.  Graham above puts his finger on it, its the rwd which can bite you. I got caught out recently overtaking a car and it tried it bite me stepping out. Pant wetting moment. Fine on a track, not so on public roads. Also if your rwd had runflats which alot of bmw do its even worse. Such bad tyres.

I would say it had more to do with it being RWD than anything else, just a slight change in grip levels between the front and the back and off ya go! ive seen the same thing happen on a Toyota MRS i was following up a hill in very wet conditions, only difference was there was no nice grass for this guy to hit and it was straight into the kerb time for him

[corgi]

I doubt the fact that it was rear drive had much of an impact.

More likely the tyres design (and possibly the state of them given it was a BMW press car) and the fact that the BMW was going much faster... the Golf, at that speed, may have suffered the same fate... we'll never know...

[GrahamFR]

I doubt the fact that it was rear drive had much of an impact.

More likely the tyres design (and possibly the state of them given it was a BMW press car) and the fact that the BMW was going much faster... the Golf, at that speed, may have suffered the same fate... we'll never know...

surely given the amount of runway left the gti wouldve made 120 in that weather? its likely that 135 could get it 120 over a 1/4 mile and they must have therefore been doing a 1/2 mile drag. Even a bluemotion could get 120 over a 1/2 mile...

[mikeok]

Yeah they both would of hit the same speed.
I love bmw dont get me wrong I will miss the shear grunt of my 335i but they are twitchy know doubt about it.

[corgi]

As I said, rear wheel drive is not the cause - it may be a small factor - a few years ago a friend of mine was driving his Impreza STi PPP along the A1 (at what he claims was 70 mph) in the wet... suddenly the car let go at the back and steered itself into the central reservation... the major factor we reckon was that his tyres whilst legal had ~2mm tread on the rears and about 3mm on the front.

Therefore, the reason, I think the BMW span off was probably because the rear tyres were worn to the point that they just couldn't ship the water fast enough and the fronts could - (1) they're narrower (2) given the BMW being rear wheel drive and quite powerful they would be more worn than the fronts...

The Golf, (at the same point was going much slower ~20mph) if it were going at the same speed, with the rear tyres more worn than the fronts... the same result is just as likely...

[V5Ade]

As I said, rear wheel drive is not the cause - it may be a small factor - a few years ago a friend of mine was driving his Impreza STi PPP along the A1 (at what he claims was 70 mph) in the wet... suddenly the car let go at the back and steered itself into the central reservation... the major factor we reckon was that his tyres whilst legal had ~2mm tread on the rears and about 3mm on the front.

Therefore, the reason, I think the BMW span off was probably because the rear tyres were worn to the point that they just couldn't ship the water fast enough and the fronts could - (1) they're narrower (2) given the BMW being rear wheel drive and quite powerful they would be more worn than the fronts...

The Golf, (at the same point was going much slower ~20mph) if it were going at the same speed, with the rear tyres more worn than the fronts... the same result is just as likely...

What he said