[Aevintiri]

Originally Posted by robbiep

Ok. The car he is driving is a rear wheel drive M4, and he's got all the driver aids switched off.

Your car is AWD. So your car has a differential that is constantly trying to send power to all 4 wheels. Whilst you can switch off DSC, etc. you can't switch off the AWD.
When you are doughnutting in your car, the centre diff can't get power down to those front wheels, so that differential slips. That causes lots of heat, and eventually the differential internals get above what BMW have defined as a safe working temperature. So you start getting faults.

I've already told you all this.

But you don't seem to want to listen.
Or maybe it's a lack of being able to listen.

I'm not sure which.

Whatever. I've explained why it's a stupid idea to do this in a AWD car. You don't agree. Go for it.

I do understand your concept but I just have a hard time believing that BMW would put so little efforts into there AWD systems. After all, the main reason AWD was implemented in any car was for better off road use and bad weather conditions. I would think a name so big in the performance industry would build parts that can handle a beating. It would be unrealistic for BMW to make a car assuming that it would never be competitor racing or rough terrain with slippage, especially considering the competitive Audi Quattro System and even a higher performance car such as a Nissan GTR with the same AWD systems are able to handle the stress of these activities.

I'm not trying to be rude and I do appreciate your input. I really hope you're not right though, otherwise I'd be very disappointed in the lack of thought and development that goes into such a well know AWD system. Also, I am talking about 3-4 donuts or even just wide slides, not trying to hold a donut for minutes.

I think it could be a electronic connection or something got triggered by accident. I did more donuts a couple days after and it didn't happen again.