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In my old E36 323ti I could drift from corner to corner on rainy days, but it quickly ran out of power on dry tarmac. Because of the rear axle geometry from the E30, the E36 Compact was very steerable with the throttle. The F20 116i is not. When you get it sliding, you need to stab the throttle to get the wheelspin started. Then the turbo lag kicks in, and nothing happens. By the time you have power available, the rear tires are gripping again, and the car accelerates instead of rotating.
If you have gone fast enough into a corner to make the car start sliding, and you get a powerslide going, it works smoothly. I can usually not hold the slides very far, as I run out of power. My Michelin tires are quite grippy in the wet, and the car accelerates rather well also when sliding. Then engine feels weaker when it runs into high RPM, and there is no way the slide can survive shifting up a gear.
On ice or snow you have enough power to keep the slides going, and it feels almost like the car has an LSD, but not quite. It is a lot better than an open differential.
One thing I have noticed, is that the e-diff seems to help rotate the car. If I am driving around a corner on the limit, and add some throttle, I would expect the car to squat a little, spin the inside tire, and understeer. What really happens, is that it squats, accelerates, and remains neutral. My guess is that the e-diff is braking the inside rear wheel. This causes some torque vectoring that helps rotate the car into the corner, killing the understeer that should have been there. I can start accelerating earlier in corners with this car than any cars I have had before, and still not understeer over the outside kerbs.
I have not had a chance to drive the 118i.
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