@mr

Why a V6 .. they already have a 24V

pjinca

Because BMW is sadly lagging behind other car makers in terms of power and economy.
Example:
2010 535i - TT I6 300hp
2010 Ford Taurus SHO - TT V6 w/365 hp
They both get about the same fuel economy (depending on driving style, obviously), so why not?

@mr

ok.. you missed the irony ;-)

But maybe this question is best asked @BMW Lets face it, a company/manufacturer the size of BMW does not choose a route without
a justification or vision.
There are other cars, also in Europe, who outperform a BMW. But so far I like the smooth L6. And in Europe, a L6 is already considered big.

pjinca

2 words - Efficient Dynamics
Unfortunately BMW is moving away from true drivers cars and caving in to the Eco-wussies that want boring cars that are gas sippers and put you in a coma when driven.

TEAM M

With better suspension and braking BMW will still beat the ford around a track.BMW puts a better suspension and braking system then most car manufactures. Making the car more fun to drive. Putting your foot to the floor straightlining isn't as fun as putting ur foot down around a corner.

Excession

BMW are "sand bagging".

The N52 3.0 engine is capable of up to 272hp (90.67 hp/ltr) which would overlap with the turbo charged version (at least according to the official numbers) and some of the earlier V-8's. Given that the state of the art engines are up to 125hp/ltr, I suspect that with more development 330 hp could be possible.

Per Wiki the N52 is the lightest 6 in the world market and I'm willing to bet the longitudinal setup is less nose heavy than a V-6.

Given future CAFE requirements, it would make more sense to go to smaller displacements with direct injection and turbos rather than greater displacement.

Bimmerchop69

I would never compare a ford to a BMW first all. second. BMW underestimated the power output of the 535, 335,135 engines. If you dyno them they are close to around 350 hp. BMW just doesn't want to advertise that. In Europe you pay taxes based on the displacement of the engine so BMW tries to keep the displacement down while maximizing power output.
I don't mean to bash on any ford lovers but I've seen more BMW engines into the 300,000 mile range still running strong as opposed to any ford engines going past 150,000 miles. Of course I'm not talking about diesel engines, because that's a different story.

pjinca

I am no Ford fan by any stretch of the imagination, but that was just an example. We can point to countless others, such as Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Chevy, even Hyundai is getting into the mix with more powerful V6 engines. While the I6 may be the lightest in the world I also find it fairly midling in terms of torque.
I used to have a Jeep Grand Cherokee with their venerable I6 (99 model), which produced 210 HP, but 240 lb ft of torque and you could feel that. It would easily keep up with larger engines when making a pass on the freeway. My I6 in my 530? not so much.
The reason I6's tend to be better overall than V6 is the torque output when comparing the same displacement engines, we're lacking here too.

swajames

Dyno readings are notoriously unreliable at best. That said, the real reason you can be sure that BMW is not delivering those apocryphal 350bhp engines and falsely advertising them at 300bhp is, rather simply, that it would create significant potential liability issues and exposure to deliver a car with a powerplant that was massively more powerful than its rated output. BMW would face incredible liability risk were one of its car that was significantly over-engined in this way were to be involved in an incident - the attorneys would have a field day. Engineering tolerances these days are so tight that you can be sure that the engine does deliver its rated output - but BMW is not delivering 350bhp cars and advertising them at 300. Those that often talk about "German horsepower" when a car is claimed to deliver more than the rated output forget we live in a society moderated by American lawyers...

pjinca

That may be the at least part of it. Remember, Nissan grossly underrated the previous R34 Skyline GT-R at 276 bHP - which everyone knew was a joke, that thing had 400 HP easy. And American car makers were famous for underrating their cars during the muscle car era. Example: 1967 Corvette Stingray with a 427 was rated by GM at 300 HP, when it actually put out 400 HP, this was done for insurance purposes and nothing else (no one cared about fuel economy back then)