[hinckley]

Originally Posted by hinckley

I'd love to get back into the brand, but BMW's execution of xDrive has been all about foul weather traction and has ruined any vestige of performance orientation. Audi has calibrated it's Quattro system for performance first (especially the trick sport diff in its S models) with foul weather traction as an added benefit.

BMW's press release states that the M550i xDrive "splits drive power between all four wheels as the situation demands". Does this mean that power is split front and rear as well as side-to-side? If so, is the side-to-side torque split via the diff (like Audi) or via braking? Those are the things that make AWD enhance a car's performance. If BMW has done that with the M550, I'll be out of my S6 and back in a BMW.

Originally Posted by michal12

Fair point mate. I am afraid if BMW really did a proper torque vectoring technology in this model, they would do more song and dance about it..

The following statement is encouraging, but I have no idea whether Motor Trend knows what they're talking about. This is what they say:
Additionally, the M550i xDrive, as the name implies, comes standard with BMW’s xDrive intelligent all-wheel-drive system that uses torque vectoring to determine exactly where power is sent—and can send it independently to any wheel it chooses.

Full article here: http://www.motortrend.com/news/2018-...h-4-0-seconds/