Does the sales guy think I'm stupid?

LOL.... I doubt that is true but it doesn't surprise me he said that. When I bought my Toyota Tundra I had some jerk in the Financing office tell me that I had to get my oil changes done at Toyota because they used a new specially pressurized oil system on my truck and if I took it to a regular lube n tune I would mess up the motor. I laughed in his face and told him he was an idiot.

"Bob" wrote

Contrary to the other guy's posting, it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility/probability. IIRC, recent M cars have had a rev-limiter built into their engine program for breakin. I haven't heard it of E90s, why don't you check the online manuals?

FloydR

I agree with Floyd however, you should check the online manuals or do a search to see if it is true. Although I've never heard of this personally.

Unlikely, though technically feasible of course (perhaps even a good idea). However, BMW would open themselves to massive litigation if limiting engine output in a critical situation was found to be the cause of an accident/death - even more so if this were not clearly stated on in the owner's manual.

Nothing in the owners manual about this, but it is perfectly reasonable to say power output will be lower during the first few hundred miles simply because the engine is new, very "tight" and needs a bit of wear to loosen up. There is a runnig in period of 1250 miles / 2000km where you should not exceed 90mph(!) and a certain engine speed (3500rpm for a diesel, probably 4000rpm for gas) My car, an E91 320d (Euro Diesel) performance was flat, uneven, uninspiring, until about 700-900 miles had gone by where it rapidly improved and is still improving every day now after 1500 miles.

As a direct quote it's total BS. However, if you restrict engine speed to the recommended 4500 RPM you could be at about 215 HP at that point. There is nothing in the car that will automatically limit you from going all the way to redline and getting the full 255 HP.

Kyle.

Would the same apply to suppling the same model with a less powerful engine?

Seems to be true you guys live in a litigious society...

Absolute nonsense, but a great urban legend. I found that when I purchased my car, I knew much more about it than any of the sales staff.

OTOH, you should limit RPM to 4-4500 for the first 1200 miles or so and that would achieve the same end as reduced power. That's the one problem with a lot car, some yahoo climbing in and taking it to redline while the oil's still stone cold. A good way to take a serious chunk out of the service life of the engine.

R / John

I have no idea if it's true or not, but can see no reason that it would not be true. It would be easy to program the computer to not produce full output until the odometer hit a certain number. Why on earth would you argue that particular point?

its all true my 330i premium was electronically restricted for that mileage....

sold it soon after due to an offer on an Audi RS8 I could not refuse........£55k a far better machine in build quality and performance........0-100 in 5.6seconds

Hmm... That would explain why the E90 330i I took for a test drive was so unimpressive in the motor department...