3-Series (E36)Chat relating to the BMW 3-Series from 1992-1999. Autodoodad
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There are no stupid questions, just stupid people (who don't get sayings right).
The rear location was chosen for weight balance, keeping it away from the heat of the engine, and making it very accessable for adding aftermarket audio ( I seriously doubt this last one was intended, but still true).
BMW chose to put the battery in the trunk, one as said before for weight distribution, but also longevity. The battery stays alot cooler in the trunk vs. the engine bay...less heat, less stress on the battery, longer life (typically, unless you live in Phoenix, AZ where you replace the battery every 2 years no matter what...lol)
yeh its done a lot. my dads 73 corvette has it inside in the "trunk" behind the drivers seat. and from off road experience its better to have all ur electronics inside away from the elements
Yup BMW figured out from the get go that moving back a large lump of lead from the front to the back is a HUGE benefit to weight distribution. When i had my Z-28 i used a battery relocation kit to move the battery from almost the front grill to the rear hatch area. The difference was equivalent to movig the entire engine back ten inches!!!! The mathi is pretty scary if you think about it. Lets say a battery weight 40 lbs (i am guessing but BMW batteries are kind big ) lets say you move it from about 2.5 feet from the the very front of the car to about 1.5 feet from the back Since an E36 is 14.5 feet long you are moving a 40 lb mass approximately 10.5 feet. 10.5 multiplied by 40 lbs equals a distribution of 420 lbs of mass from front to back (this of course assimes the disatnaces are spread equally across the wheelbase, which I am not sure is exactly the case.) the math is for illistration to show that there is a lot of potential to affect handling by moving weight around that may not seem at first to matter much.
you guys are all on crack! some of the answers are hilarious! not that i know the answer, but one of the sales guys told me when i owned my first bmw was that if you were in a head on crash that your electronics would still work. So that got me thinking.. what happened if i got rear ended? And if it was a bad crash and i was out, what would the electronics do to help me? And lastly the only reason i would believe his story was if bmw offered onstar, like cadillac and gm vehicles do to contact police and emergency crews right when the vehicle was hit. Kinda funny my first bmw was a 95 M3. It didn't quite have that technology.
I don' know if this problem exists in bmw or not, but my dad has a toyota and I was driving it one day. And all sudden the battery failed, the engine stopped right away also, but what a was dangerous was that the steering wheel froze I could no longer steer the car, good thing I was in mall parking lot, or it could easily be an accident.
Originally posted by Live_the_Curves@Aug 16 2004, 11:09 AM I don' know if this problem exists in bmw or not, but my dad has a toyota and I was driving it one day. And all sudden the battery failed, the engine stopped right away also, but what a was dangerous was that the steering wheel froze I could no longer steer the car, good thing I was in mall parking lot, or it could easily be an accident.
LUCKY U, frozen steering, can u sue anybody if that happened... just wondering
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to that... 
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