BMW to sell engines to GM, Daimler and Fiat?
April 3, 2008 by Alborz Fallah
BMW can extract 309kW (at 8,300rpm) and 400Nm of torque from a 4.0-litre V8, so there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that when it comes to building engines, BMW is up there amongst the best.
But what good is all that R&D if you can’t maximise profits? The German powerhouse has been toying with the idea of selling engines to other manufacturers for some time now but the company has indicated today that it will decide whether to sell by the end of the year.
The main customers are expected to be General Motors, Daimler and Fiat.
“We are talking with those companies (but) it does not make sense to go on talking and talking forever” Friedrich Eichiner, the carmaker’s board member for corporate and brand development.
Championing the plan is BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer who sees it as strategic plan to boost the carmaker’s profitability.
Although we would love to see some of BMW’s high performance engines find their way into ‘lesser’ cars, if the plan does go through, it’s more likely that BMW will only sell its non-performance engines.
Print it: 
***** F R U G L O *****
Read this some time ago. BMW engine commodore perhaps.
The ONLY thing FIAT will use is its Carolina factory in Spartenburg USA to assymble AlfaRomeo’s for USA the Nth.American market.
FIAT Group are WAY smarter engineers than BMW, they dont neeed any buy-in motors.
The sooner the HFV6 is axed from the groups large cars
the better, thats a bad taste from when FIAT was married to GM….YUK!
Having said that Jag. platforms could well be used in Lancia and Alfa large sedans, thats ok, its not like a engine which is the heart of a vehicle
Cheers
F–0
Don’t know why GM wants BM engines – GM can build some pretty good ones themselves.
Think that’s just hype? No – check Ward’s top 10 engines list for 2008
“The winners for 2008 (engine and tested vehicle):
Audi AG: FSI 2.0L turbocharged DOHC I-4 (Audi A3)
BMW AG: 3.0L turbocharged DOHC I-6 (335i Coupe)
Daimler AG: 3.0L DOHC V-6 Turbodiesel (Mercedes E320 CDI)
Ford Motor Co.: 4.6L SOHC V-8 (Mustang Shelby GT/Bullitt)
General Motors Corp.: 3.6L DOHC V-6 (Cadillac CTS)
General Motors Corp.: 6.0L OHV V-8 Hybrid (GMC Yukon Hybrid)
Honda Motor Co. Ltd.: 3.5L SOHC V-6 (Accord Coupe)
Mazda Motor Corp.: 2.3L DISI turbocharged DOHC I-4 (Mazdaspeed3)
Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.: 3.7L DOHC V-6 (Infiniti G37)
Toyota Motor Corp.: 3.5L DOHC V-6 (Lexus IS 350)
General Motors Corp. lands two first-time winners on the list for 2008.”
But that’s not to say a Torana version of the VE with a sweet BMW twin turbo 3.0 litre 6 would be a bad thing :)
Wards is american centric. You’ll note that the smallest engine is a 2 litre turbo & there are no diesel categories.
& what category did GM win? surely it was the Paralympics you know the one after the all the able bodied medals have been handed out.
BMW will have to be very carefull which engines they sell. It’ll be harder sell a $90k 6cyl 3 series (a $35k premium over the base ) If you can get the topshelf motor in a deawoo.
Trackdaze, I don’t really think Wards is American centric. 7 of the 10 engines are NOT americam.
And GM didn’t “win” anything. Their engine was voted the best in two of the categories.
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April 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am
I don’t get GM or Toymota at all, I will tell everyone why, these particular manufacturers are exactly like their owner’s with an attidude my parents told me they are the best, the ads told me they are the best, they keep comparing to more superior manufacturers and say they are better, this is all childish intellect..
The day Holden announced the VE is comparable to BMW, was the day I nearly died from laughter and they keep doing this, now in America, a sad G8 pontiac ad on youtube is trying to demonstrate it’s much better than BMW can offer, I believe GM has some sort of wrong relationship here, why would GM pick on BMW if they want to include BMW’s engines for certain vehicles, wouldn’t it be funny Pontiac want them in the G8 hahahahahaha…..
GM Holden are hypocrites just like Toyleta..
Nobody should be surprised really. manufacturers have been selling each other engines and gearboxes ect on an ever increasing basis lately. And tighter emissions standards and the publics demand for more power and better fuel economy mean that engines are increasingly expensive to develop these days. it just makes sense.
I agree with trackdaze on the point about BMW reputation. A BMW buyer pays for the workmanship and effort put into the car. How will BMW justify the premium if we can get ourselves a BMW sourced engine in say a Holden Comm?
BMW have sold engines before to GM and others. The Opel/Vauxhall Omega used a 2.5 V6 diesel from BMW in the mid nineties, they also sold a diesel 2.0litre 4cyl unit to Rover as used in the Rover 600. It, I believe, the same basic engine as used in the current BMW 3 series 2.0 diesel.
Of course GM are going to shout about it BMW’s 6 cyl units are among the best in the world. More profit for BMW less developement for GM. makes perfectly good sense to me.
Azza – people buy BMW’s for one thing and one thing only, prestige. Its all about the badge baby! nothing else.
And you might all be interested to know that GM has been supplying BMW with automatic gearbox’s for a VERY long time now…
Bavarian Missile [who hasn't been on jere latley due to computer problems etc] first mentioned this on the Forum a couple of months ago.
BMW aren;t among the worlds best engine builders.. they are the best – Max Power / Smallest Capacity not to mention high tech and awesome sound
If the deal goes ahead maybe it will enable Holden to drop the 4 Litre V8 out of the current M3 into the commodore or torana given that M is cosnidering a twin turbo in line 6 for the next model
Aaaww Wheelnut buy BM a new laptop mate she’s missed.
Wheelnut – i remember discussing it with BM a while back! but the 4ltr V8 will never find its way into a commodore, its simply far too expensive to produce which makes it impossible to place in a sub 60k car.
Lets be a little bit realistic here, this story is actually not all that new as GM started talking to BMW about engines a little while back. GM where actually well advanced in developing a new version of their northstar V8 for their next generation of cadillac’s, however due to the stupid american CAFE laws, this is no longer feasable so GM started talking to BMW about using some BMW V8’s to replace the now ageing northstar V8 in their next generation of cadillac models. This is in all likelyhood the extent of the relationship. It’ll be one or two engines, solely for cadillac, and thats it.
Why would GM source 6 and 4 cylinder motors when they already have a huge range of those engines in their arsenal, not least of which the new direct injection version of holdens alloytec V6, which is currently doing service in the new cadillac CTS, and is apparently a bit of a pearler!
I;ll see what BM says.. I mean – I can’t just go out and get her one [even though I'd like to] as she hates surprises.
Bavarian Missile says Hi to all her friends/allies on CA.
Don’t worry Dingo or TP I don’t think she was referring to you.
She hopes to be back on line soon.. possibly tomorrow
Im not so sure if its a big deal really,
as someone stated, these kind of things happen all the time.. well not all the time, but it has happened and not surprising.
Manufacturers buy engines/drive train parts from other manufacturers (competition).
But its ironic, that Holden/GM benchmarked BMW for the VE, even trying to sway M3 and 5 series buyers to opt for the much cheaper HSV range, then they turn around and deal directly to the manufacturer they tried to copy and directly steal some of its market…. but hey, to BMW its $$$.
And I wonder if its designed and build by BMW… as a whole engine… or BMW sell engine blocks/parts and up to GM and Fiat to put it together… GM has plenty of engine parts tooling and have the assembly lines to do it.. by just buying them as parts it’ll save them some money.
Interesting to see BMW is eager to share its sublime sixes with the world, that would provide MAJOR leverage in the ‘pleb’ market.
Jeez bit behind the ball on this one …………..I did mention it a while ago Wheelnut, Jamison what would you prefer a BMW assembled engine or GM ?
Hey No Name me miss you all too………..started texting now NM,Golfy and TonyN would you but a little costly babe to you! Even chatted to NM on the phone other day,lovely guy still wont tell me his age though,gezz you guys are worse than women on that! mmmwwwaaaaa to you all for now!
Wheelnut home soon so better go.