M6 Competition Pack....delivered :)
Discussion
This, I think, is the first M6 CP in the UK and, as you may know from my earlier posts, it is my second F13 M6 (the first being a very early launch-spec car).
Contrary to the majority of car nuts, I do like my M6's, having also owned a previous E63 shape a few years ago - they just seem to suit what I like in a car very well...breathtaking thrust mixed with impeccable build quality and refinement without being as barge-like as the even bigger coupe's like the Bentley GT or Mercedes CL.
After driving it for the last 24 hours, the differences between the 2014MY and Competition Pack upgrades are very obvious compared to my previous 12MY version. Here are my main observations so far:
Steering
The first M5/6's received a bit of slating for their relatively poor steering feel and response, some of it I feel justified as I felt the steering was barely OK in comfort and too heavy and artificial in the other settings. Whatever the setting though, I never found it a particularly responsive or accurate rack and my '12MY example used to give a slight shimmy through the steering column over certain bump frequencies (interestingly, Chris Harris mentioned this in his review of the M6 vs. SL63, stating it made the car feel less structurally stiff than it probably was). I also had an insistent steering wobble (much like unbalanced tyres) at around 90-100mph - whilst this may have been a fault or imbalance somewhere in the front axle or steering (it wasn't wheels or tyres), there are a few other similar reports on the US forums so ay have been typical on early examples
All in all, the steering was the weakest point of an otherwise exceptional car and the promise of this area being vastly improved in the CP was good enough motivation for me to buy one.
The first thing I noticed on blasting away from the dealer was the level of feedback transmitted from the road surface is a surprise in an otherwise hugely refined car - you can feel the vibrations of the road surface much more than in my E39 M5 that I've been driving for the last few weeks. This feedback I don't mind, but it made me fear that the high speed wheel wobble would be ever present in my new car....however I'm delighted to confirm it's gone
The rack in CP is much more direct than my 12MY, it instantly responds to inputs off-centre and you can steer the car with noticeably less arm twirling. The quality of feel is also much more natural and, as mentioned above, there's more of it (which could initially be deemed as a lack of refinement but it really is just a case of having more of it than you might expect in such a car). To top off the positive changes, BMW appear to have mounted the rack much more solidly as I haven't felt any of the slight steering shimmy that afflicted my previous example - as a result, the car now feels resolutely rock solid.
It's worth noting that BMW also made improvements to the non-CP 14MY steering so I assume the improvement in feel and robustness are across the board. I believe the CP-specific improvement is the more direct action of the rack.
Dynamics
I reckon the M6 rides and handles very well for such a heavy car but there's always going to be a compromise and it certainly doesn't respond anything like a lightweight sports car. But thats not why I buy a car like this.
The ride quality of the standard car was pretty exceptional however it wasn't immune to body roll or vertical movement on bumpy roads. The CP adds stiffer settings all round (springs/dampers/ARB's) and, honestly, I can't detect any significant trade-off in ride quality. This is a great result as the additional stiffness ensures the body movement is much improved - hit a bump and the car just deals with it, containing subsequent vertical body motion very well for such a heavy car.
Theres also very little roll now, to the point were it's a non-issue. In fact, I reckon the tighter control of body movement is why I don't feel any deterioration in ride quality because, whilst it's stiffer in theory, the reduced body movement makes it feel more comfortable in practice.
Sound
The CP supposedly has a sports exhaust compared to the standard car and I'm 99% certain my previous one didn't have the flaps or the actuators in the exhaust shown below. It sounds marginally louder but nothing like you'd expect an aftermarket system to sound like - which suits me perfectly!
I know some people give these new M5/6's a bit of a hard time for their 'synthesised' sound but I see no problem with it (and this is coming from an AMG fan!). Whilst it's not a traditional V8/muscle car tone, it's a more sophisticated and technical sound and thats whether we're talking about the real noise coming from the exhausts or the synthesised sound inside the car....both are remarkably similar so I don't think we have much to worry about when BMW are getting the 'fake' sound so accurate!
Performance
The standard car is outrageous and the CP, with it's colossal 15bhp extra appears, erm.....exactly the same. Honestly, these cars must be underrated by BMW as the level of thrust on offer feels as strong as my 911.2 Turbo. The 911 was over 10% less powerful but weighed a good 400kg less...the M6 would need around 600bhp to match the performance of the lighter Porsche. Now, as my 911 was manual, the M6 could feel as quick solely because of it's DCT (which is phenomenal) but, it's so much more refined than the Porsche that to feel anything like it in terms of thrust is impressive.
Theres going to be very few standard production cars, outside of the really high-end hypercars from the usual suspects, that'll outrun one of these (to it's limiter anyway!). What I really like about this engine is it's ability to pull very hard from nothing and then build on this with ever-increasing force, revving to a level almost unheard of for a production turbocharged car. It's like the best of both worlds - the low down guts of a turbo with the higher revving capability of a N/A engine and I reckon it's quite unique in this respect. The CP upgrade gives it's all at above 6k rpm so I can't currently say if the difference is at all noticeable.
Other
I haven't had chance to see if theres any valuable difference from the changes to the tuning of the CP-specific diff and MDM functionality - no doubt that both are things I'll rarely feel the real benefit of on the road.
However, outside of the Competition Package there's a few other options which are worthy of mention.
Firstly, the ceramic brakes are outrageously good. If anyone claims that ceramics are useless on the road or lack feel then they either haven't experienced a set of the latest-gen ceramic brakes or they need their head reading. I can feel the benefit of these brakes every time I drive the car, they also look staggeringly good and should give no brake dust. Worth the money? Well no, of course not (the standard ones are more than adequate), but they are a very satisfying extravagance.
Then theres the B&O audio system. I had a bad experience of a B&O system in my SLS which was dire - truly the worst audio I've had in a car in many years. In the M6, the standard audio was already very good but the B&O is on another level and is the best factory-fit audio system I've heard to date. It delivers really deep and tight bass, combined with crisp and clear highs and level of power that's beyond what anyone would need. It;s also easy to listen to very loud, without being bright like so many systems can be when cranked up.
One thing I didn't consider when ordering the B&O was how the design of the speaker grills really uplift the interior - in pictures, the grills just look like silver plastic but in reality, they're all machined out of metal and mounted in a way that gives them a 3D-effect. Very avant-garde. The illuminated pop-up centre speaker is a gimmick, albeit one that looks pretty cool.
On the subject of the interior, the 6-Series design is pretty decent anyway but another thing I didn't realise was, in ordering a BMW Individual interior (which bizarrely was the same price as the non-individual full-leather interior), I'd get contrast stitching on the seats and dash. It looks magnificent, right up there with almost anything I've seen from any other manufacturer, as is the quality of materials throughout (the carbon trim and how it curves around parts of the interior is a masterpiece - I can't believe they make that standard!)
And finally.....the wheels. A subject of considerable concern as I have to admit, they look crap in the BMW pictures. I ordered them on the basis that they a) couldn't look that bad in real life, b) they define the Comp Pack and, c) if I really disliked them, it would be easier to change to standard wheels than the other way round. I'm happy to say that I don;t plan on changing them as I reckon they look good on the car and they actually suit the coupe shape (I don't think I'd like them as much on the nigher-sided M5).
Disappointingly though, when I removed the wheels (yes, I'm probably the only person to take delivery of their new car yesterday and immediately remove the wheels to seal the inside of them!) it seems the CP wheels aren't forged! Scandalous on BMW's part when you consider the non-CP 20" wheels are forged and these CP wheels were part of a £6k+ option.
Whilst on the subject of things I'm not happy with (and to add some balance!), I'm stunned that my '14MY M6 doesn't have the new iDrive touch....it does have the latest iDrive NBT upgrades (so it operates a lot faster and with better functionality than in my previous example) but theres no touch controller. Infuriating when I consider BMW are fitting this to 3 and 5 series (possibly even 1 series?) yet exclude it from the latest MY of their most expensive car. It really dampened those first few minutes after I saw the car (although I got over it soon enough!).
I'm also really unhappy with the typical BMW paint finish - the level of orange peel is truly shocking. I had this (but even worse) on a new M3 a couple of years ago and I took the brave decision to have it wet sanded, after which it looked exceptional. I'll need to be feeling very brave to do this again on the M6!
Got to give a nod to Sytner Nottingham who did an exceptional deal to enable a car of this spec to slip within my budget and they've really looked after me throughout the sales process. They just need to do the right thing now and throw in the first service like some other dealers appear to be doing!
Enjoy the pics......
Contrary to the majority of car nuts, I do like my M6's, having also owned a previous E63 shape a few years ago - they just seem to suit what I like in a car very well...breathtaking thrust mixed with impeccable build quality and refinement without being as barge-like as the even bigger coupe's like the Bentley GT or Mercedes CL.
After driving it for the last 24 hours, the differences between the 2014MY and Competition Pack upgrades are very obvious compared to my previous 12MY version. Here are my main observations so far:
Steering
The first M5/6's received a bit of slating for their relatively poor steering feel and response, some of it I feel justified as I felt the steering was barely OK in comfort and too heavy and artificial in the other settings. Whatever the setting though, I never found it a particularly responsive or accurate rack and my '12MY example used to give a slight shimmy through the steering column over certain bump frequencies (interestingly, Chris Harris mentioned this in his review of the M6 vs. SL63, stating it made the car feel less structurally stiff than it probably was). I also had an insistent steering wobble (much like unbalanced tyres) at around 90-100mph - whilst this may have been a fault or imbalance somewhere in the front axle or steering (it wasn't wheels or tyres), there are a few other similar reports on the US forums so ay have been typical on early examples
All in all, the steering was the weakest point of an otherwise exceptional car and the promise of this area being vastly improved in the CP was good enough motivation for me to buy one.
The first thing I noticed on blasting away from the dealer was the level of feedback transmitted from the road surface is a surprise in an otherwise hugely refined car - you can feel the vibrations of the road surface much more than in my E39 M5 that I've been driving for the last few weeks. This feedback I don't mind, but it made me fear that the high speed wheel wobble would be ever present in my new car....however I'm delighted to confirm it's gone
The rack in CP is much more direct than my 12MY, it instantly responds to inputs off-centre and you can steer the car with noticeably less arm twirling. The quality of feel is also much more natural and, as mentioned above, there's more of it (which could initially be deemed as a lack of refinement but it really is just a case of having more of it than you might expect in such a car). To top off the positive changes, BMW appear to have mounted the rack much more solidly as I haven't felt any of the slight steering shimmy that afflicted my previous example - as a result, the car now feels resolutely rock solid.
It's worth noting that BMW also made improvements to the non-CP 14MY steering so I assume the improvement in feel and robustness are across the board. I believe the CP-specific improvement is the more direct action of the rack.
Dynamics
I reckon the M6 rides and handles very well for such a heavy car but there's always going to be a compromise and it certainly doesn't respond anything like a lightweight sports car. But thats not why I buy a car like this.
The ride quality of the standard car was pretty exceptional however it wasn't immune to body roll or vertical movement on bumpy roads. The CP adds stiffer settings all round (springs/dampers/ARB's) and, honestly, I can't detect any significant trade-off in ride quality. This is a great result as the additional stiffness ensures the body movement is much improved - hit a bump and the car just deals with it, containing subsequent vertical body motion very well for such a heavy car.
Theres also very little roll now, to the point were it's a non-issue. In fact, I reckon the tighter control of body movement is why I don't feel any deterioration in ride quality because, whilst it's stiffer in theory, the reduced body movement makes it feel more comfortable in practice.
Sound
The CP supposedly has a sports exhaust compared to the standard car and I'm 99% certain my previous one didn't have the flaps or the actuators in the exhaust shown below. It sounds marginally louder but nothing like you'd expect an aftermarket system to sound like - which suits me perfectly!
I know some people give these new M5/6's a bit of a hard time for their 'synthesised' sound but I see no problem with it (and this is coming from an AMG fan!). Whilst it's not a traditional V8/muscle car tone, it's a more sophisticated and technical sound and thats whether we're talking about the real noise coming from the exhausts or the synthesised sound inside the car....both are remarkably similar so I don't think we have much to worry about when BMW are getting the 'fake' sound so accurate!
Performance
The standard car is outrageous and the CP, with it's colossal 15bhp extra appears, erm.....exactly the same. Honestly, these cars must be underrated by BMW as the level of thrust on offer feels as strong as my 911.2 Turbo. The 911 was over 10% less powerful but weighed a good 400kg less...the M6 would need around 600bhp to match the performance of the lighter Porsche. Now, as my 911 was manual, the M6 could feel as quick solely because of it's DCT (which is phenomenal) but, it's so much more refined than the Porsche that to feel anything like it in terms of thrust is impressive.
Theres going to be very few standard production cars, outside of the really high-end hypercars from the usual suspects, that'll outrun one of these (to it's limiter anyway!). What I really like about this engine is it's ability to pull very hard from nothing and then build on this with ever-increasing force, revving to a level almost unheard of for a production turbocharged car. It's like the best of both worlds - the low down guts of a turbo with the higher revving capability of a N/A engine and I reckon it's quite unique in this respect. The CP upgrade gives it's all at above 6k rpm so I can't currently say if the difference is at all noticeable.
Other
I haven't had chance to see if theres any valuable difference from the changes to the tuning of the CP-specific diff and MDM functionality - no doubt that both are things I'll rarely feel the real benefit of on the road.
However, outside of the Competition Package there's a few other options which are worthy of mention.
Firstly, the ceramic brakes are outrageously good. If anyone claims that ceramics are useless on the road or lack feel then they either haven't experienced a set of the latest-gen ceramic brakes or they need their head reading. I can feel the benefit of these brakes every time I drive the car, they also look staggeringly good and should give no brake dust. Worth the money? Well no, of course not (the standard ones are more than adequate), but they are a very satisfying extravagance.
Then theres the B&O audio system. I had a bad experience of a B&O system in my SLS which was dire - truly the worst audio I've had in a car in many years. In the M6, the standard audio was already very good but the B&O is on another level and is the best factory-fit audio system I've heard to date. It delivers really deep and tight bass, combined with crisp and clear highs and level of power that's beyond what anyone would need. It;s also easy to listen to very loud, without being bright like so many systems can be when cranked up.
One thing I didn't consider when ordering the B&O was how the design of the speaker grills really uplift the interior - in pictures, the grills just look like silver plastic but in reality, they're all machined out of metal and mounted in a way that gives them a 3D-effect. Very avant-garde. The illuminated pop-up centre speaker is a gimmick, albeit one that looks pretty cool.
On the subject of the interior, the 6-Series design is pretty decent anyway but another thing I didn't realise was, in ordering a BMW Individual interior (which bizarrely was the same price as the non-individual full-leather interior), I'd get contrast stitching on the seats and dash. It looks magnificent, right up there with almost anything I've seen from any other manufacturer, as is the quality of materials throughout (the carbon trim and how it curves around parts of the interior is a masterpiece - I can't believe they make that standard!)
And finally.....the wheels. A subject of considerable concern as I have to admit, they look crap in the BMW pictures. I ordered them on the basis that they a) couldn't look that bad in real life, b) they define the Comp Pack and, c) if I really disliked them, it would be easier to change to standard wheels than the other way round. I'm happy to say that I don;t plan on changing them as I reckon they look good on the car and they actually suit the coupe shape (I don't think I'd like them as much on the nigher-sided M5).
Disappointingly though, when I removed the wheels (yes, I'm probably the only person to take delivery of their new car yesterday and immediately remove the wheels to seal the inside of them!) it seems the CP wheels aren't forged! Scandalous on BMW's part when you consider the non-CP 20" wheels are forged and these CP wheels were part of a £6k+ option.
Whilst on the subject of things I'm not happy with (and to add some balance!), I'm stunned that my '14MY M6 doesn't have the new iDrive touch....it does have the latest iDrive NBT upgrades (so it operates a lot faster and with better functionality than in my previous example) but theres no touch controller. Infuriating when I consider BMW are fitting this to 3 and 5 series (possibly even 1 series?) yet exclude it from the latest MY of their most expensive car. It really dampened those first few minutes after I saw the car (although I got over it soon enough!).
I'm also really unhappy with the typical BMW paint finish - the level of orange peel is truly shocking. I had this (but even worse) on a new M3 a couple of years ago and I took the brave decision to have it wet sanded, after which it looked exceptional. I'll need to be feeling very brave to do this again on the M6!
Got to give a nod to Sytner Nottingham who did an exceptional deal to enable a car of this spec to slip within my budget and they've really looked after me throughout the sales process. They just need to do the right thing now and throw in the first service like some other dealers appear to be doing!
Enjoy the pics......
Edited by Palmball on Tuesday 3rd September 02:56
That looks fantastic, thanks for the very balanced review. The steering and exhaust are to me the main attractions of the CP so its good to see the steering is much improved, shame about the exhaust. Your pics are the frst time I have found myself really like the CP wheels. Are winter tyres a consideration for you, if so wondering what you are planning there?
Cheers
Simon
Cheers
Simon
The interior looks lovely and as you said the contrast stitching takes it up another level.
k me, what a car 
Mermaid said:
Decent sized brakes on a BMW, finally. Don't like the look of the discs though
They're only 10mm bigger than the standard steels!!http://www.6post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64746...
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