Boston’s Great Flood and the new BMW

by philg

We had some heavy rain here in Boston yesterday, which always creates foot-deep lakes across Storrow and Memorial Drives (these follow the Charles River out from downtown Boston).  Alex and I got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam behind one of the lakes.  Thousands of Hyundais, Kias, Chevrolets, etc., had made it through the lake without incident.  However, a brand-new gleaming silver BMW sedan had expired on the other side of the lake and was blocking traffic.

16 thoughts on “Boston’s Great Flood and the new BMW”

  1. See, that is why you need a SUV in Boston. But seriously, observing a single incident like this does not make me want to drive a Kia instead of a BMW. Or wasn’t this the point of the story? (Disclaimer: I’m driving a Mercedes 190D.)

  2. Qwerty: I think there has been enough talk of SUVs around this blog recently. The analogy Java == SUV really pissed off some of the folks at slashdot, who made silly remarks about Philip like “This to me is a sure sign of a guy stuck in academia” and “Was he involved in maintaining and supporting any commercial projects?”… had they not come across or ArsDigita?

  5. Note to the affluent: you’ve got to know your cars if you’re going to run with the big boys! BMWs are particularly vulnerable to water so it’s not wise to drive them through vast puddles like those described by philip in the post. I know on older models the air intake is kind of low and its very easy to suck water up into the engine. Happened to my friend up in maine – same situation – all these cheapo, lame brand cars were crossing this little stream where it cut a dirt road. my friend’s BMW made it halfway across before the engine blew up because it sucked up river water. You’d have thought they’d changed the design by now, but you never know.

  7. Many BMW’s are performance sedans at the core. The design considerations made up front are evidence of this. A good reason for having the air intake low (if it is indeed low relatively speaking) is that hotter engine compartment air, will be high in that area. A lower air temperature at the throttle body will make a difference.

    However, I’m not sure how it is on newer Beemers. I have (access to) an ’89 325i. On this car it’s rather high, but intake air is also snorkled in from outside of the engine compartment.

    Oh, and SUV’s are useless gas guzzlers!

    Cheers,
    BDKR

  8. I took a 528e into several feet of water at 30+ MPH one time.

    It was a lesson in the physics of drag (I and the passenger really felt the shoulder belts…), but the car kept running. Of course that thing had the ground clearance of many modern SUVs.

    (But then, even my current mid-sized sedan has been 30 miles off pavement, which, I’d guess, is further than most SUVs ever get.)

  9. Would be nice if you all would do some research…”Beemers” are the MOTORCYCLES…and they came first, along with the airplane engines (What did you THINK that logo was? That’s right, a WHITE propeller on a BLUE German sky…). You four-wheel wannabes need to remember the proper name for that fine German automotive engineering is “Bimmer”…feh, gotta have four wheels and only two of them drive. There’s a reason we call ’em “cages.” http://www.ibmwr.org/

    And yes, MOST of the “SUVs” have never had their diff-locks engaged anyway…the drivers wouldn’t know what to do with them if they were. And that’s just the ones that DO have 4-wheel drive capability…I won’t comment on the posers that buy an SUV that’s only 2-wheel drive.

    It’s good to know that the fine folks in Boston can’t drive in the water any better than the ones in Houston…and we even get more opportunity to practice. Of course, 12 inches of water is just a carwash for a Land Rover…

  10. Fording water obsticles you have to remember some basics; you must slow down. The fan impeller
    will spray water around inside the of the engine compartment. This does short the ignition and stop the
    engine DEAD! You can avoid this by temporarily removing the fan belt. Inalso ruined a fan clutch driving into
    a flood at too fast. The water stalled the fan ruining its clutch.

    Also watch out for helpful bystanders. As an 8 year old I causally told a moped rider that I had
    just walked across a flooded road and the water didn’t even come up to my knees. What I didn’t say is
    I avoided the deepest part where the water was over 2ft deep. This was admiraly demonstrated
    when the rider attempted to ride down the flooded road. The moped made it to the deepest point. The
    engine was entirely under water and stalled. This greatly amused myself and friends who acted as
    innocent bystanders. Then running off when our laughter betrayed our innocence to avoid the consequences. This was as good as the invisble rope trick. Don’t ask what that is it can only get you into trouble.

  11. Isn’t that strange: I live virtually next-door to BMW headquarters, but can only think about getting a Toyota (But BMWs are VERY safe cars, fine-tuned to incredibility, although one sees lots of old Mercedes cars, which in theory are build to last about 300.000 kms, but none of BMW on the market/streets, or am I blind? But you just get a new BMW, thats better anyway!)

  12. BMWs do not take easily the typical US servicing mode: “change oil every two years and that’s it”. A typical Mercedes will take this sort of abuse much longer, but would eventually disintegrate too. One of the reasons American cars and designed-for-US Japanese cars have a very crude drivetrain and are awful to drive is they had to be designed for minimal servicing and no preemptive maintenance at all.

    With proper servicing a typical BMW engine and chassis would easily last half a million miles. There won’t be much left of the interior, though.

  13. As a side not,back in the late 70’s I used to manage rain and snow in Boston elegantly with my 1964 VW Beetle. Parking in the winter by MIT was a snap as I would just drive up one of the snowbanks on Memorial Drive, then pull it back onto the street after class. I have matured greatly then, now driving a 1970 Karman Ghia and Type 2 Bus .. still dont worry about weather, although I do now use multigrade synthetic oil.. and for less than $5K I own two reliable vehicles (note: the Bus, using 1970 technology and the aerodynamics of a brick achieves around 20 mpg). The Bus works great on backroads in the Arizona mountains too 🙂

  14. Alexei: I wouldn’t be surprised, if BMWs would fit into the roughly “two-years and that’s it” servicing mode you mention. About 15 years ago (that’s when I lost interest in the subject “cars”, which is why my “knowledge” is a bit dated 😉 one speciality of BMWs compared to “normal” cars was that they were (even back then) full of electronics, and had self-diagnostic systems, which signalized when a service inspection was due, i.e. the car would drive as long, until it “felt” the need for service, without the need for normal “fixed” service terms! Don’t know, if they changed that or if its now commonplace for most modern cars. But anyway, that’s how it was back then. BTW-the interior will surely not fall apart! (It’s one of the quality distinctions of such cars)

Comments are closed.