Don't mean to come off as arrogant, but you guys brought it up. It's probably the truth when I say that I have more practical and theoretical experience, than all of you arguing against me combined.

Have already spent more than two sems working for a Fortune 500 company that produces engines you see on the road every day. Experience in competitive intelligence and product dev. Yes, I have first hand experience with the LS_ engine assembled/disassembled. Same goes for other Domestic, Japanese and German engines (yes BMW too) diesel and petrol, some of which aren't even available in the North American market..ie MB, BMW, Audi diesels. Have done engine builds. Go through a systematic and analytical method in disassembling an American v. Import engine, then analyzing specific components, and you'll appreciate my arguements.

Beyond that I also have a decent amount of experience in engine manufacturing.

And btw, one of the guys I worked with was a lead engineer in the development of the last gen Viper. Among the other notable coleagues I was privelaged to learn from: engineers from Garrett, Borg Warner, Mahle, etc.

As far as transmissions go, unless we're talking about the actual mechanics of modern automatics, they're very simple. Dealing with gear ratios is almost completely theoretical.

LM,
That's a cool page of info...do you have a link for that comparo site?

Vig, I understand your enthusiasm to debate...I didn't bring up squat
other than my ol'pushrod V8 is, as J pointed out, highly detuned/under
stressed, provides gobs of torque at any rpm, still manages to get to
6G RPM+, is a great motor and delivers 30+ real world mpg. I was not
pumping Vettes, but I was boasting about what I perceived to be a
great value, very dependable, haul azz fun and "touring" 2 place car,
slightly in defense of those that remark about its unrefined state or,
it's just a Chebby with a big V8, etc. ...

When I'm driving it, I don't notice lack of "Nappa leather", doodads or
refined accoutrements, :rofl: .

I realize the lil' 3.0 IL 6 in our X, is probably well advanced over the
small block V8 in our Vette, but I sort of don't care or think about it,
much. They both do "well", for how they are designed, or in the case
of the Vette V8, a lack of or, older "design".
My Qtr's up...
BR,mD

Can you elaborate what exactly are you trying to say here?

Sure, here it is.

Josh made a comment about me being inexperienced, and you followed up. I was just pointing out that it's quite possible that I have more automotive experience than you. I'm arguing a position. Some of you are arguing the counter-. We're having a healthy debate...don't read into it too much. :)

What makes you think that you have more automotive experience than all of us here combined? We were having healthy debate before you started.

That's pretty concentrated experience, and doesn't even include my non-work related reading on engine theory. It'd be a similar, but the opposite scenario if we were having a debate on something related to IT.

I am not talking of myself. You said "all of us combined". That also includes SANguru and JV. What you had is therotical experience and associated practical experience. Real world experience is totally different. I am sure several here will agree with me. How many years of real world experience you had at age 20?

If we were talking about almost any other subject, I'd be in total agreement with you. However..for the topic at hand, I do have more practical, objective, industry experience, as real as it gets. I constitute that as very real- world experience. By real-world experience related to the automotive field if you mean an upbringing on muscle cars and the associated bias, then yea you've got me there.

disregarding most of this thread, can't we just once have a healthy DISCUSSION about non-BMW products without it getting out of hand...?

This is an X5 site in name, but an automotive site in general, we should all keep that in mind. If all we have to tlak about is the current and future X5 models, we're going to run out of topics very quickly.

just my .02 ....