I agree, it is the real dealđź’Ş
Now, according to this thread, if someone had one of the very early production cars they had a real performance unicorn.
Thanks for sharing this link. I kid you not. I remember telling my advisor when I got my M3CS back after an yearly maintenance schedule came up, I believe at 3k miles on the ODO and I told him that for some reason, the car seems slower or detuned and he laughed it off saying that’s because you were driving a 540i loaner for 2 days (which made 0 sense as it was much slower car)…
Fast forward a year, I got yearly maintenance done on the M8, they again kept the car for 3 days and this time, the exhaust sound was lowered down. When i addressed it again with advisor, he had no answer but a quick scroll through bimmerpost and I found a thread on how BMW was toning down the early production M8’s to make it quieter compared to the M8 competitions. Now reading the article you shared, this all makes sense.
It does seem like this sort of detuning may be somewhat of a recurring theme with BMW 
It is probably very very hard to prove it unless one has significant inside knowledge, or one uses the same dyno under the same conditions to try to find the power output differences. One does have to wonder though, when the manufacturers are first getting their cars out there in the hands of magazine testers, they certainly want to put their best foot forward…
However, if they are truly taking away the performance that one thought they paid for upfront, this is a bit disconcerting. If what was mentioned in that thread about the M340 is true, the amount of power that BMW took out was massive.
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Its a nice car but it is not faster than an F80 M3. Maybe 0-60 with AWD but the M3 is gonna gobble it up.
BMW using their maintenance packages to detune/bog down the car… wouldn’t be the first company to do something like this cough cough Apple 
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Great title
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Which brings us to the other aspect which is of speedometer accuracy on BMW’s. On a recent trip to Atlanta, I had my cruise set on 89 mph along with many other cars. When I passed through a speed trap, I felt lucky that maybe the cops gave a pass but then the same thing happened 2 more times in Georgia which didn’t make sense. I glanced at Waze and surprisingly it was showing my speed at 84 mph.
@Clutch Sorry to hijack your thread but, I hope mods can move this to another thread (Not Junkyard though) as its a very good discussion.
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That must be the hulk green competition I think.
Where do you need to go that fast? This is absurdity – Speed traps at every corner, red lights, trafiic –
Lets be real about why people buy these cars – aint got nothing to do with performance
I think people buy these cars for a very simple reason, because they can 
I agree on the speeding thing though, personally I am a little old lady driver, and not from Pasadena.
That said, acceleration is what really excites people more than outright speed (as acceleration is what you feel). From that perspective, going from zero to whatever the legal limit is as fast as possible can be a bit of a tripđź‘Ť
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Exhibition of speed tickets are still a gigantic pain in the ass/wallet
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Agreed. Every car is fast once it reaches a certain speed (even a corolla hits 120) but not every car is Quick !
This is true, believe me when I say that fact crosses my mind when I’m driving the Camaro with the exhaust in silly mode :-). It sounds like it’s going fast even when it isn’t.
Is this even something that can be mandated?
The only situation I could think of that this could be mandatory on a leased car with BMWFS since it is technically “their” car. If someone walked into the dealer and paid cash for a M850i, shouldn’t they be able to decline an update that would hinder the vehicle’s performance?
I believe some folks have done just that, absolutely refused to have any reflashes done as long as everything on the car was working properly.
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That said, I think if this is going on they can maybe get away with it because they are not technically taking anything “away”. I suppose in the most objective sense if they tell us a car has 382 hp, if after they detune it is still 382 or greater, techincally they have not over promised and underdelivered?
If that is happening, I still think it would be a bit disturbing, but I’m wondering if legally it is still acceptable.
And car reviewers get the non detuned versions for their reviews… 
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I’m consistently off by 10%. Was the same for my 340. Same when i drive past those digital radar speedo checks.
Regarding the de tuning, how accurate are the onboard hp meters? Enough to show that hp dropped compared to before the maintenance?
Every single BMW I have had has a speedometer that reads 2 mph faster than the car is actually going. Its like clockwork. I understand this is due to Euro laws related to speedometer accuracy/readings and the penalties associated with underreporting speed.
My 2016 VW Passat R Line that I leased was tuned. Best $650 I ever spent. The car had nearly 300lbs of torque, and I blew away most luxury 6cylinder sedans.
Put a smile on my face every time I drove it. The car just “jumped” and “pulled”.
I sure hope the next owner enjoyed that free power lol
My 330xi is plenty fast with 295lbs of torque. 1 reason why I didn’t even entertain the M340xi.
I just don’t need that additional power and wasn’t going to pay $200 a month more in a lease payment