Quote:
Originally Posted by GreatWhiteM2
And the brakes still fade  why they don't put race fluid in I will never know. |
BMW uses DOT4 brake fluid which is a great choice for mixed street/canyon/track driving. A lot of other performance-oriented cars (mainly American I’ve noticed) still come with DOT3 and have to mention in the manual that you should put DOT4 in for track use. I’m going from memory but I believe the current Corvette is like that.
I don’t know where comments like this always come from but the ONLY car company whose factory stock cars are better suited for track duty is Porsche. I work at a shop that works on all brands of cars and does a lot of track prep and setup and in my opinion, out-of-the-box M cars are phenomenal on track when everything is considered. That’s why I’m going for an M2 Competition for myself, putting my money where my mouth is. Going back to the Corvette Z06 as an example you’re even supposed to change the oil to 15w-50 for the track and then change it back to 5w-30 immediately afterwards for street use. Anyone who wondered how a Nissan GTR could beat the 997 Porsche Turbo for “so much less money” when the GTR came out should look at the GTR owners manual to see how much you need to spend every 3,000 miles to change out engine oil, transmission fluid, F&R diff fluids, etc if you do track the car or get it hot. Hint: the OEM transmission fluid by itself was $900 back then and is still around $600 today. Needs to be changed every 3k miles if it gets above 248 degrees F which is almost as easy to exceed as an M2’s brake fluid is to overheat in stock form.
Brake fluid that can withstand higher temps also tends to absorb moisture more quickly and should be bled or flushed more often. 95+% of M car buyers don’t want to flush their fluid every 6 months or bleed it after every 1 or 2 track events like you should with a higher end race fluid. For those of us who track or even push the car hard enough to outpace the factory fluid, we can spend literally $30 or less for Motul RBF600 or whatever else is preferred and a max 1 hour labor if a shop is doing the flush. If you’re getting the brakes that hot, you should also invest in up-rated pads since all street pads are prone to leaving deposits on rotors when they get too hot.