Can you drive your BMW M car in the winter time? I have the e60 m5 here
with the S85 v10 engine this thing produces over 500 horsepower so can you
drive a 500 plus horsepower super sedan or super saloon car in the winter time
there's definitely some things to consider and we're gonna walk you
through that today I know with this m5 this car has in fact been driven in the
winter time but there's some things that you must consider number one is the
hardware up to snuff first of all you have to understand this car with the SMG
transmission or even a manual gearbox can be challenging a lot of times these
cars are like an on/off switch and so engaging and disengaging to find that
optimal point of traction is very very difficult and often very difficult on
the clutch so that whole issue about traction becomes a question and a
serious question in fact for these cars so you have to consider tires that's the
first thing you need to consider when buying or when utilizing your m5 or m6
or any other rear-wheel drive em car for the winter time tires and so if you look
down here I'm gonna show you these are the tires that I'm using right now
these tires I've yet to put them on but I am running the bliz acts so these are
a Bridgestone Tire and they're blizik LM 60 of course now these car these tires
here are actually an 18-inch rim a duplicate to the factory wheels that I
have actually on the car over here which is a 19-inch wheel that's the factory
19's this is the 18s looks identical just the diameter is a little bit
smaller on the 18s obviously and that's partially because it's easier to find
tires at 18 inch then it would be for the 19's a little bit cheaper too so
we've got the blizzaks LM60 so these are the tires now you have to consider this
is a winter tire of course you'll notice winter tires are by their very nature in
most cases are unidirectional so they have to go
in a certain fashion of course what makes them a winter tire of course are
these nice little sipes these little tiny little ridges these have a way of
grabbing and dissipating the snow and the moisture as well as do a better job
of gripping the ice these are a must if you do not have these you're not capable
of driving this car properly in the winter time and how do you know that
it's a winter tire you'll have this symbol here it's the snow symbol the
snow and ice that means this is a dedicated winter tire it's a must-have
in these cars you use the factory tires the summer tires you're going to be all
over the place it's dangerous it's hazardous and more importantly you just
won't be able to move as a matter of fact I got caught here one time before
winter and I hadn't put on the winter tires yet and the car was down on the
driveway I really couldn't get it up on into the
garage even at a slight incline because even just slightly the tires all he do
is to slowly spin and of course the wider the tire the more the power and
the torque the less chance of you gripping the road and of course you need
to have those grippy winter tires for this car now of course the other thing
to consider if you have a car with traction control like the e60 m5 has a
factory traction control system that does a pretty good job of keeping things
at bay you need to keep that enabled as well as disable any power options you
don't need to run in M mode when you're running in winter time all that's going
to do is accelerate the urgency of the shifting and the transmission pickup
that's just gonna make it even more difficult to engage as you accelerate
and move away so do not drive in M mode that's just going to be a lot worse
another thing that you have to consider of course is this oil and we all know
that I've had a lot of discussions around rod bearings and these e60 M fives
this here is the factory oil that I use yeah it's a synthetic but look it's a 10
W 60 the problem with this is you would not use a 10 weight oil in any car so
why would you use it in the M car if you're driving around in weather of
say -20 - 30 degrees which is very possible in these parts I know even in
the northern US a lot of the states have temperatures like that you cannot use
this oil well you can but at obvious detriment to your engine of course when
you consider winter driving you're not only considering traction and all those
factors you're also considering what is it doing to the engine the transmission
all the fluids that you run have to be taken into consideration when you're
driving in winter for example you're driving this in winter you have to
consider maybe a zero weight or a five weight now the problem with because
these cars are known for rod bearing issues using these in the winter anyway
has its obvious detriment to a car - these cars in particular the S85 engine
why well because we know that there's a few factors that go in to the rod
bearing problems number one is the extremely tight tolerances and that is
just exaggerated by the fact that the oil that they spec is too heavy and of
course the warmup period is extremely critical and if you don't do that
properly that's as well going to add extra wear
so there's a few things of course if you're running the car in very cold
weather that's going to take much longer to get the car up to warming and
operating temperature so that's even more important the lighter weight of oil
is much much more important even yet so that's extremely critical that you run a
lighter weight oil for winter driving run the winter tires run the traction
control on but that will get you on your way and once you do that this car with
nearly 50/50 weight distribution can be a lot of fun yes you can drive it in the
winter time I've driven this car in the winter time and it actually works ok as
long as you follow those guidelines now the other thing you have to consider
when driving these cars in the winter time now fortunately a lot of these car
parts on this car are made out of aluminum not everything is some of the
panels are aluminum some of them are plastic and of course some of them are
steel now with that we have to consider corrosion now I know a lot of
Provinces here in Canada as well as probably in Europe I would imagine
there's countries that utilize similar products certainly in somes US states
particularly some of the northern US states will use gravel on the roads for
traction in the winter time for people that don't prepare their cars properly
for winter it helps for additional traction not only for taking off they
don't just dump gravel at the intersections they dump gravel all along
major roadways to keep fire cars from skidding off the road so there's gravel
that is on these roads as well as a lot of states and provinces as well use
products that are either sprayed or laid on the road to help assist ice melt so
the roads become less icy to travel on and so the application of these salty
products or any of these other corrosive products does a real number on your
paint and it does a real number of course on the metal underneath it's not
just the surface metal that takes a hit often because the moisture and the and
the slop that you find in the winter time driving often you get water in
behind the fenders and you can't even clean a lot of those areas so sadly
enough often rust sets in from the backside and you don't even know about
it until five six seven years down the road and it's too late then the car has
started to rust and then you might as well consider you know what that car has
hit beater status so you have to consider whether your car is up to snuff
for taking on rock blasts because driving on a roadway with lots of gravel
will subject your car - lots of gravel splatter of course from adjacent
vehicles driving by and the salty road conditions that will of course initiate
the rust process for a lot of these cars now again as I said before there's a lot
of cars that are made out of plastic or composites or aluminium and rust is less
of an issue but again the gravel blasting that your car is subjected to
take a real toll that being said with that you're gonna look at changing your
windshield very regularly probably once you know every year or every two years
your windshield will be changed as well as your hood and your fenders and your
mirrors are likely the best protection for them is to be
putting on some sort of a clear coat paint protection film like a 3m product
or expel or one of those products that does a number on preventing the actual
rock from penetrating the paint job and creating an ugly paint so if you are to
consider driving your car in the winter time you need to consider a lot of
factors so everybody I really hope you enjoyed the video I just want to give
you a short summary can you drive your M car or in this case your M five car in
the winter time and the short answer is yes
but the long answer is yes under certain conditions and there's numerous things
that you have to take into account so I really hope you enjoyed the video
everybody make sure you give it a thumbs up like subscribe to the channel so make
sure you drop a comment in the comment section below and I'd love to hear
whether you drive your fancy car your 500 horsepower M car or 400 horsepower M
car rear wheel drive car in the wintertime do you and how do you prepare
it for the wintertime anyway so thanks again for coming out everybody and I
hope to see you on the next one catch you that bye bye