Hey guys,
First post on this board from me. I've been reading here for a while to learn more about your cars, but felt I needed to make a comment about this:
Posted by RotaryBzzz:
The car that "rotates" was the E36 BMW M3. Under spirited high-rev driving, the engine part of the drivetrain rotates under certain loads. What you get is downshifting from 4th to 3rd is actually 2nd gear even though you swore you put it into the 3gear slot
As a two time M3 owner, I've gotta set the record straight. There are a few guys out there that have over-revved their engines and caused damage, but its not due to any rotation of the drivetrain at all. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I've ever heard of that said about an M3.
Anyone that has driven a manual trans M3 should know first hand that the syncros in the tranny are incredibly strong. The E36 M3 is one of the few cars that can easily be slipped into first gear at high speeds. Guys that have caused engine damage due to over-revving have inadvertantly downshifted from 4th gear to 1st gear, while thinking they were selecting 3rd gear. This is driver error that can occur in any car, but, infortunately, the M3 allows the driver to downshift into 1st gear very easily at any speed, without any protest from the trannsmission at all.
To sum it up, boneheaded M3 drivers do a good job of grenading their engines all by themselves.
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99 M3
01 CL Type-S