M Coupe: respect from other drivers

[funkle]

I've been pretty surprised at the amount of respect I've been shown on the roads when I drive my MC. I live in San Francisco, where any sort of respect from other drivers is a rarity. Usually a tunnel-visioned opportunistic, me first attitude with very little attention focused on other drivers unless they're in your way. But I've had numerous occurrences of what I could characterize as honest good will, which I don't get in my Passat or Mini, nor in my previous 3 series. I'm talking about people who clearly have the right of way waving me on, and people pulling into another lane to let me by. I'm not driving aggressively, tailgating or being pushy in these situations, rapidly sometimes, but polite. It's almost like the stupid BMW olympics ad where everyone stops for you. I've gotta think it has to do with the unusual, slightly exotic nature of the M Coupe, and perhaps the supersprint exhaust. Anyone else experience this?

[Arsonism]

In Austin cars aren't typically "Hipster" enough anymore and I can't say that mine stands out enough. I think color has a lot to do with it and I purposefully chose TiAg for a reason (cops don't see silver, and it's saved me twice with my radar I imagine now). Exhaust could be a factor as I've fallen culprit to getting behind several stupidly nicer cars (Maseratis/Astons/AMGs/etc) just to hear their exhaust note as they all sound amazing). However with the area that you mention and how you speak of it, maybe they see the M Coupe as more exotic than other cars on the road.

In Austin I've received some waves and a thumbs up or two with a few folks getting eccentric and taking photos behind me, but that's about it. Nothing too too drastic unless its another M driver and generally they want to race the highways and little else. Then again I'm the guy going out of my way to try to give people a thumbs up or a wave for anything I think is a half cool car or has some work into it done right.... because I would want the same in return.


Maybe I should move to San Fran.

[angelr]

I think I've noticed a little bit of that too. Seems like folks enjoy looking at it, even those that are presumably non car folks like kids and women. I notice some people will jockey for position seemingly in an attempt to get a better look.

[funkle]

I think maybe it's exotic & rare enough to stand out, but humble enough to not make you seem entitled?

[angelr]

I think that might be a large part of it....plus it's kind of small/cute/nonthreatening

Originally Posted by funkle

I think maybe it's exotic & rare enough to stand out, but humble enough to not make you seem entitled?

[bjbstewart]

If you're not pissing people off, you're not driving it right :-)

[PLCZ4MC]

I get a lot of that with my z4m roadster driving in orange county and la in south california. Many young teens to older man turn around when IM ppassing by maight be the SS exhaust like you mention. I found it more when I am driving slow and enjoying the air and music than when I am driving like a miniac witch I try to avoid the most.

[donoman]

I am getting no respect in San Jose... where every other car is a BMW and every 10th car is a Tesla

[XMetal]

Originally Posted by PLCZ4M

I get a lot of that with my z4m roadster driving in orange county and la in south california. Many young teens to older man turn around when IM ppassing by maight be the SS exhaust like you mention. I found it more when I am driving slow and enjoying the air and music than when I am driving like a miniac witch I try to avoid the most.

Yes...its the SS cans. I got a lot of head turning when I had the SS exhaust. Too much unwanted attentions, especially for a red car. One of the main reason I took off and sold the SS exhaust

[Vanne]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Yes...its the SS cans. I got a lot of head turning when I had the SS exhaust. Too much unwanted attentions, especially for a red car. One of the main reason I took off and sold the SS exhaust

Too much attention? you hauling a dead body in the boot?

[bjbstewart]

Originally Posted by donoman

I am getting no respect in San Jose... where every other car is a BMW and every 10th car is a Tesla

Well show it off on the 3rd with us!!

http://www.zpost.com/forums/showthread.php?t=973247

[Asianoak]

Mine isn't an M but here in Central Oregon the Z4 Coupe is extremely rare so I get a lot of looks, stares, thumbs up, hoots/hollers, comments, smiles, phone numbers from girls
I've noticed quite a few roadsters that don't seem to get the same respect so I really do think it's the rarity and then exotic looks, the addition of the roof makes it look like completely different form teh roadster and much more upscale.

[jdoublehcubed]

Originally Posted by donoman

I am getting no respect in San Jose... where every other car is a BMW and every 10th car is a Tesla

I hate that people seem to think that Tesla is some kind of hot shit. Go into one of their showrooms and look at one of the body-off chassis. Absolutely shit quality engineering everywhere you turn. Impossible to access maintenance parts. Tapped holes in aluminum to mount just about everything. Just disgusting design practice left and right. And people are buying them over BMWs, Porches, you name it.

[donoman]

Originally Posted by jdoublehcubed

I hate that people seem to think that Tesla is some kind of hot shit. Go into one of their showrooms and look at one of the body-off chassis. Absolutely shit quality engineering everywhere you turn. Impossible to access maintenance parts. Tapped holes in aluminum to mount just about everything. Just disgusting design practice left and right. And people are buying them over BMWs, Porches, you name it.

That's interesting, I've taken a look at the same chassis and thought it was pretty cool... Looked really simple. Maintenance of what? It has an electric motor, I thought the point was zero maintenance! I guess tapped aluminum is bad cuz it's not strong enough to hold bolts? What disgusting design practices? Forgive my ignorance... but I'm interested in what you are thinking!

[Phishman]

Originally Posted by Asianoak

Mine isn't an M but here in Central Oregon the Z4 Coupe is extremely rare so I get a lot of looks, stares, thumbs up, hoots/hollers, comments, smiles, phone numbers from girls
I've noticed quite a few roadsters that don't seem to get the same respect so I really do think it's the rarity and then exotic looks, the addition of the roof makes it look like completely different form teh roadster and much more upscale.

Do people ever ask you if the roof comes off? When I first go my coupe everyone was like "the roof does come off though, right?"

[jdoublehcubed]

Originally Posted by donoman

That's interesting, I've taken a look at the same chassis and thought it was pretty cool... Looked really simple. Maintenance of what? It has an electric motor, I thought the point was zero maintenance! I guess tapped aluminum is bad cuz it's not strong enough to hold bolts? What disgusting design practices? Forgive my ignorance... but I'm interested in what you are thinking!

I think that assumption that electric motor=zero maintenance is a big part of the problem. Think of how sub-frame bushings on the Z4 are a huge bitch, because you really can't access them without taking a ton of stuff apart. Now apply that sort of poor planning to 80% of the bushings on the car. Except because the Tesla has super high torque motors, the bushings are going to get a lot more wear than bushings on most cars. That was one of the first things I noticed looking at the chassis.

Tapped aluminum is bad because its so hard to repair. Think about taking apart things on your Z4. As a general rule, bolts are used to hold things together, by passing through 2 items and then being restrained with a nut. If you mess up the nut, or the bolts get sized, etc., you just cut/torch it off and replace it. On the Tesla, chances are instead of that nut, there is a whole in the frame that has threads tapped in. When you mess up those threads, its a lot harder to fix than simply replacing a nut. You have to drill out the bad threads, then either helicoil it (retap to larger size then thread in an insert that repairs the original threads) or move to a larger bolt size. In many cases, you won't have enough space to do that without taking more items apart.

This gets worse for home mechanics, because (having less experience) they're more likely to cross thread or strip something than the dealer. And once they've done that, they may or may not have the knowledge to do a thread repair. And now some part of the car is taken apart, so how do you get it to the dealer for the repair?

These two problems are representative of the overall design sloppiness of the chassis. Design for maintainability and repair-ability is one of the absolute most important things to keep in mind when you're designing something that has to stay in service for many years and have regular maintenance done on it. If I had tapped holes in a maintenance part in one of my designs at work, I would (1) get laughed out of the design review and (2) everyone would assume I was a moron at future design reviews for missing something like that.

Those things may not be obvious to non-engineers, but they should be extremely obvious to the engineers designing the car, because they are fundamentals of design. It points to the general lack of organizational processes and institutional knowledge at Tesla; something that you could reasonable expect when a brand new company decided to make something as complex as a car.

Having a lot of friends at SpaceX, I can tell you its pretty much a hallmark of Elon Musk leadership.

Edit: donoman, thats a fair question, not at all ignorant. mostly I'm frustrated that the people who should point this kind of stuff out (tech media, car magazines, etc.) seem content to give Tesla a huge pass. Its not something that you'll notice when you first buy the car, its the kind of stuff that screws you 3 or 4 years down the road when it starts needing maintenance, so its something most owners won't think about until muh later.

[nesrevival]

Originally Posted by XMetal

Yes...its the SS cans. I got a lot of head turning when I had the SS exhaust. Too much unwanted attentions, especially for a red car. One of the main reason I took off and sold the SS exhaust

same here.. I had ss exhaust. too loud for my taste

[Finnegan]

Originally Posted by jdoublehcubed

I think that assumption that electric motor=zero maintenance is a big part of the problem. Think of how sub-frame bushings on the Z4 are a huge bitch, because you really can't access them without taking a ton of stuff apart. Now apply that sort of poor planning to 80% of the bushings on the car. Except because the Tesla has super high torque motors, the bushings are going to get a lot more wear than bushings on most cars. That was one of the first things I noticed looking at the chassis.

Tapped aluminum is bad because its so hard to repair. Think about taking apart things on your Z4. As a general rule, bolts are used to hold things together, by passing through 2 items and then being restrained with a nut. If you mess up the nut, or the bolts get sized, etc., you just cut/torch it off and replace it. On the Tesla, chances are instead of that nut, there is a whole in the frame that has threads tapped in. When you mess up those threads, its a lot harder to fix than simply replacing a nut. You have to drill out the bad threads, then either helicoil it (retap to larger size then thread in an insert that repairs the original threads) or move to a larger bolt size. In many cases, you won't have enough space to do that without taking more items apart.

This gets worse for home mechanics, because (having less experience) they're more likely to cross thread or strip something than the dealer. And once they've done that, they may or may not have the knowledge to do a thread repair. And now some part of the car is taken apart, so how do you get it to the dealer for the repair?

These two problems are representative of the overall design sloppiness of the chassis. Design for maintainability and repair-ability is one of the absolute most important things to keep in mind when you're designing something that has to stay in service for many years and have regular maintenance done on it. If I had tapped holes in a maintenance part in one of my designs at work, I would (1) get laughed out of the design review and (2) everyone would assume I was a moron at future design reviews for missing something like that.

Those things may not be obvious to non-engineers, but they should be extremely obvious to the engineers designing the car, because they are fundamentals of design. It points to the general lack of organizational processes and institutional knowledge at Tesla; something that you could reasonable expect when a brand new company decided to make something as complex as a car.

Having a lot of friends at SpaceX, I can tell you its pretty much a hallmark of Elon Musk leadership.

Edit: donoman, thats a fair question, not at all ignorant. mostly I'm frustrated that the people who should point this kind of stuff out (tech media, car magazines, etc.) seem content to give Tesla a huge pass. Its not something that you'll notice when you first buy the car, its the kind of stuff that screws you 3 or 4 years down the road when it starts needing maintenance, so its something most owners won't think about until muh later.

Thank you for taking time to explain this!

I learned something valuable today!

[Swashplate]

Originally Posted by Finnegan

Thank you for taking time to explain this!

I learned something valuable today!

Agreed. As a fellow Eng. I thoroughly enjoy your posts dblqubd!

So back to the thread. I always find lotus drivers double neck.

[donoman]

Originally Posted by jdoublehcubed

Having a lot of friends at SpaceX, I can tell you its pretty much a hallmark of Elon Musk leadership.

Edit: donoman, thats a fair question, not at all ignorant. mostly I'm frustrated that the people who should point this kind of stuff out (tech media, car magazines, etc.) seem content to give Tesla a huge pass. Its not something that you'll notice when you first buy the car, its the kind of stuff that screws you 3 or 4 years down the road when it starts needing maintenance, so its something most owners won't think about until muh later.

Thanks for the explanation!!! I'm also a mechanical engineer by training but dealt with much smaller devices in my day (MEMS) that never needed repair. We would design for reliability and forget about it... if they broke, you designed it wrong! Now I'm an electrical engineer and things don't move... thank goodness!!!

It is amazing how a trained eye can spot stuff like what you've pointed out. I was so impressed by the chassis that I went out and bought some shares of TSLA. Luckily for me the general investing public doesn't see what you see... maybe it's time for me to unload those shares.

Back to the original topic, everyone at work knows that I drive a 2.5i 'vert and when they saw me in the M Coupe they were wondering why I bought the same car.

[Huz-Z]

Seriously -is everybody here a mechanical engineer LOL! My background is more on the consulting /HVAC side and I've been in telecom for a while now.

But those are certainly some good points on the Tesla. You would think that with all the turmoil in the North American auto industry that Tesla could have gotten some great automotive engineers who would have designed the thing better.

[Asianoak]

Originally Posted by Phishman

Do people ever ask you if the roof comes off? When I first go my coupe everyone was like "the roof does come off though, right?"

Ha ha, no I don't actually. But people do always say they saw one just like mine with the top down.... not realizing it was an e89. There are a few of those around here.