What is OEM+?

[9kracing]

I would argue that 95% of the cars on this forum are OEM+

This is not

[cobra]

To me, OEM+ means making a small refinement to original parts without straying too far from the original design intent. Once you deviate too far from the original package, you start introducing some compromises like NVH, driveability, economy, etc.

When the parts were engineered at BMW, they had to balance all these factors with cost. In the aftermarket, you can spend as much money as you want so there is room for optimization.

That said, there are a lot of aftermarket "upgrades" that actually don't provide any benefit other than bling, and simultaneously sacrifice performance, quality, durability, and everything else.

[Obioban]

OEM+ example would be using OEM E90 M3 engine mounts on an E46 car because they are stiffer and more robust

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

[sbay]

Anything that isn’t a boser hood

[Nate047]

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

[heinzboehmer]

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

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.

[dukeofchen]

When the parts were engineered at BMW, they had to balance all these factors with cost. In the aftermarket, you can spend as much money as you want so there is room for optimization.

I think this encapsulates it well. 25 years of technological advancement has also made certain parts mostly upside with little / no downside. Not to mention all the flaws in the original designs have been smoked out with years and miles.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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!?

[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.

[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

[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.

[Stilt]

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