What is OEM+?

[maw1124]

I too think about OEM+ as removing some of the factory "mass market" restraints while maintaining factory safety and reliability standards.

On this car, slightly lower, stiffer and lighter or more powerful is about all you can do IMO, since the car is almost maxed out from the factory. The CSL, for example, is mostly just L, not so much more power or lower or stiffer. So headers, wider and lighter wheels, lighter seats, all of those make sense.

On my S55 AMG, a pulley and a tune good for 10% more power was all that made any sense, although cost no object would bring headers into the mix. Headers on almost all US versions of these cars falls within OEM+ to me.

But as someone said up front, once you start injecting NVH in pursuit of stiffer, you've probably lost the thread. It's a delicate balance so blunt instrument thinking isn't particularly helpful.

"Radding" the car out might just be ratting it out.

maw

[George Hill]

I've been thinking about this, because I do use this phrase too. I think of it as taking the ethos of the car and going a step further. This could be different for different models but still using the same idea. Since BMW makes these cars for the masses they still restrained themselves as evidenced by the CSL. So I view this as just taking another step without completely loosing track of what the car is as a whole.

As an example, converting a sunroof car to a carbon slick top.

Or in the case of exhaust, something like a SS system is "OE+" where as a BW single 3.5" isn't even though it could provide more performance and less weight.

Or wheels adding a little width (front and rear) and a lighter setup is "OE+" where as something like a 275 square isn't.

Or sealed monoballs, yes, heim joints, no.

I think Obioban, heinzboehmer and Bry5on are good examples of this.


In the same instance a loud(er) even if more powerful exhaust on a 7 series is not an "OE+" mod, where air cooled seats would be.

IMO, YMMV and all that jazz lol

[Tbonem3]

Karbonius is such a flawless replica of CSL parts (seomtimes even higher quality?) I think it'd be easy to argue its worthiness of OEM+ tag. Still, OEM+ was supposed to denote improving the vehicle using genuine/OEM parts that come from another model.

[Stilt]

So are we saying then that a Karbonious CSL intake is not "OEM+"?

Referencing the above logic, Dinan is not "OEM+" lol

[lemoose]

So are we saying then that a Karbonious CSL intake is not "OEM+"?

[samthejam]

I have always interpreted OEM+ as only using the BMW parts bin if a BMW to modify the car or near OE level of quality for aftermarket parts The latter being a grey area for OEM+.

[maw1124]

Does this mean that depending on how many aftermarket mods this car has, this should be reflected in the number of pluses? Like if it's just a short shifter, it's OEM+. If you add aftermarket wheels, it's OEM++. Add aftermarket suspension and a big brake kit and it's OEM+++???

Joking...

https://carsandbids.com/auctions/K15Va4bd/2004-bmw-m3-coupe?utm_source=listing_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hero

OEM + Stage 2




maw

[Stilt]

An objective definition does not exist; everything is circumstantial and subjective.

[Tbonem3]

OEM means Original Equipment Manufacturer. It refers to a brand, a brand that makes parts for BMW. Those parts, genuine parts, are referred to as original equipment, but only on the car model that they came with. That same brand could sell the same part, with slight tweaking, to fit other bmw models or simply sold aftermarket, for the same vehicle model, and that part will be referred to as OEM or OES.

So OEM+ could be seen as using parts made by BMW quality level brands (think lemforder, sachs, brembo, ATE). Because OEM refers to the brand and not the vehicle originally equipped with such parts, these parts could come from any BMW model, even others like Audi or Merc (I used porsche hardware for my brakes, for example).

Despite how good a few parts from non OEMs are (karbonius, supersprint, falline, dinan, etc), I do not consider a car replete with such high quality mods to be OEM+, just very well modded, which is revered and highly valued as well (resale), but it's a different methodology to OEM+ IMO.

[PetrolM3]

:cough: e9X M3 uses the same engine mounts as e46 M3 :cough:

that wasn't always the case... the original E46 M3 mounts were a different part altogether and even BMW themselves chose to go OEM+ on this.... haha

[SQ13]

OEM+? Spending double what the car was bought for on mods in an effort to reach P E R F E C T I O N, only to be scared of driving it afterwards bc you don’t want someone to crash into it. Aaannnndddddddd…..someone crashed into it anyways on one of those rare days that I do take the car out smh. It’s a love-hate relationship.

[heinzboehmer]

Outside what I'm formally educated to do, and put into practice four to six hours a day (with the rest of the time being dedicate to dumb office stuff) for the past 24 years I know I'm a dummy.

Oh man, I seem to relearn this every time I start a "quick and easy" project.

I spent hours trying to get him to see the complexity of what was being asked for, and that no, it wasn't going to be a day or two.

You call yourself a professional and you can't even get an entire new feature implemented within hours!?

[oceansize]

Good lord I felt this

You can't call yourself a car guy if you haven't pulled your suspension at least three times because the fog of "man I bought something new and shiny" leaves and you realize your car now drives like a horse and buggy.

[oceansize]

I, too, like to pretend that I know more than the team of formally educated engineers who spent years designing the car because I read things on the internet and/or sat on my couch daydreaming about how to redesign some aspect of it.

Outside what I'm formally educated to do, and put into practice four to six hours a day (with the rest of the time being dedicate to dumb office stuff) for the past 24 years I know I'm a dummy. It is good to know what you don't know. Example: I have a new PM, the new PM doesn't include me in a meeting. He looks at the problem presented and says, oh that's easy, day or two for that feature. He then turns it over to me. I immediately see this is a path finding problem coupled with some tree traversal decision path stuff, but I can tell from experience there are going to be some edge cases where things aren't going to be clean, or easy. Now this new PM doesn't know what he doesn't now, and he is dangerous because of it. I spent hours trying to get him to see the complexity of what was being asked for, and that no, it wasn't going to be a day or two.

[9kracing]

Personally I like to build my cars in the OEM- methodology, where I make them worse than stock and wish I had left them alone

Good lord I felt this