Quote:
Originally Posted by Sam@Bimmerpost
Excellent observation.
You are absolutely correct in that the feel and feedback greatly improve with increasing speed and lateral forces. I think the tuning philosophy is that hard driving is where feel and feedback really matter, while it does not matter as much when driving slowly around town or during parking manoeuvres. This is where BMW tunes the steering to be very light, friction free and easy to use. This is what they call Servotronic. Unfortunately, most of their buyers are not enthusiasts.
My first answer is no, the steering is not brimming with life when driving to work.
However, I did not feel that the E90 M3's steering was brimming with life either when I drove it every day to work. It only really started to chat when the commitment increased and the car was worked.
I think for steering that feels very chatty and organic and mechanical even when going slowly, we have to go several more generations back. E46, E36 and of course, the E30.
I will mention also that the one outstanding EPS on sale currently that does feel very satisfying even at low speed is the Toyota FRS/BRZ. Give that car a whirl if you wish to benchmark just how good EPS can feel even when puttering at low speeds. This is how cars used to be tuned in the 80s and 90s.
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I concur with you on the great steering of the FRS/BRZ. I drove that car (named Toyota GT86 in Europe) in France for a couple of hours and had I not known it had EPS, I would have been fooled: beautiful weight and feel.