Drove a brand new BMW M3
Discussion
With a 4.0 V8 and the new DCT (Dual Clutch Transmission) 7 speed gearbox.
£60K worth of car! Fully equipped.
Overall the drive was very firm, but wasnt impressed with the sound of the engine for a V8, suppose thats the same with all BMW's sounds very tinny!
From what i can see most of the money goes on all the mod cons inside and outside, more of a luxury car than anything..
BUT! impressive car that it is id rather have 3 Monaros for that price.., one thing that did make me laugh was when i told him mine had a 6.0 V8 he soon stopped talking about the size his engine!! lol
£60K worth of car! Fully equipped.
Overall the drive was very firm, but wasnt impressed with the sound of the engine for a V8, suppose thats the same with all BMW's sounds very tinny!
From what i can see most of the money goes on all the mod cons inside and outside, more of a luxury car than anything..
BUT! impressive car that it is id rather have 3 Monaros for that price.., one thing that did make me laugh was when i told him mine had a 6.0 V8 he soon stopped talking about the size his engine!! lol
Edited by maxmc2 on Tuesday 5th May 12:38
MadMaxHSV said:
It is a very nice car, although feels very lacking in the lower rev-ranges. The RS4 IMO was a better drive for the money,
Although plummed for the Monaro over both of them. If you ignored the niceties and gadgets, its much more fun and people let you out at junctions
It is (relatively) lacking in the mid range, thats why you need to rev it so hard..... makes for quite an exciting drive! Its a very different tool to a Monaro, much sharper when you start extracting 9/10ths from the chassis but it does lack the immediate roll on torque of the Monaro's 6.0Although plummed for the Monaro over both of them. If you ignored the niceties and gadgets, its much more fun and people let you out at junctions
A couple of points:
1. New M3's are not £60k, they are in fact as cheap as their nearest Vauxhall competitor, the VXR8 Supercharged. Yes, the supercharged, at Vmax the other week, once rolling, me and VXRphantom's? (awesome and beautiful!) VXR8 supercharged were exactly matched all the way to our speed limiters at around 155mph.
How are they as cheap? Well fully loaded, specced to the eyeball M3 saloons with 10 miles on the clock are currently being pumped out at BMW dealers for £38-40k. A VXR8 supercharged with a suspension upgrade will be about the same price, no?
2. Depreciation: Actually not bad at all. Cheapest M3 on autotrader is £33.5k, 2007, 17k miles. There is a 2008! VXR8 supercharged with 11k miles for sale on PH for £26k.
3. You can't judge the M3 on a short test drive with some numpty salesman. The chances are it was set up crapply. Once you own one and set it up with right suspension mode, razor sharp throttle map, correct steering weight its not an issue (settings are stored to your key).
4. Ignore the low torque figure. Its torque at the wheels you need to look at, since it revs to 8.5k rpm and has shorter gearing as a result its actually surprisingly high (higher than the torque rich BMW 335i for example)
5. It's not really like the S2k in that its all about the top end. With my old civic type-r accelerating hard from lights used to be annoying, waiting for it to drag itself to 6000rpm in 1st before it picked up its skirt. The M3 will accelerate in 1st ferociously from only around 2.5k rpm.
6. The Audi 4.2 RS engine is crap. Clogs up with rubbish after a few thousand miles and is then hugely down on power. The Audi R8 at Vmax could only manage 162mph (unlimited!)
7. Soul... yeah I'll give you that, nothing beats mooching around at low revs with an LS V8 and load exhaust!
BMW's biggest failing, offering an official sports exhaust on a bloody 325i but none of the M range!
Sorry for the rambling rant, feel free to ignore and 
1. New M3's are not £60k, they are in fact as cheap as their nearest Vauxhall competitor, the VXR8 Supercharged. Yes, the supercharged, at Vmax the other week, once rolling, me and VXRphantom's? (awesome and beautiful!) VXR8 supercharged were exactly matched all the way to our speed limiters at around 155mph.
How are they as cheap? Well fully loaded, specced to the eyeball M3 saloons with 10 miles on the clock are currently being pumped out at BMW dealers for £38-40k. A VXR8 supercharged with a suspension upgrade will be about the same price, no?
2. Depreciation: Actually not bad at all. Cheapest M3 on autotrader is £33.5k, 2007, 17k miles. There is a 2008! VXR8 supercharged with 11k miles for sale on PH for £26k.
3. You can't judge the M3 on a short test drive with some numpty salesman. The chances are it was set up crapply. Once you own one and set it up with right suspension mode, razor sharp throttle map, correct steering weight its not an issue (settings are stored to your key).
4. Ignore the low torque figure. Its torque at the wheels you need to look at, since it revs to 8.5k rpm and has shorter gearing as a result its actually surprisingly high (higher than the torque rich BMW 335i for example)
5. It's not really like the S2k in that its all about the top end. With my old civic type-r accelerating hard from lights used to be annoying, waiting for it to drag itself to 6000rpm in 1st before it picked up its skirt. The M3 will accelerate in 1st ferociously from only around 2.5k rpm.
6. The Audi 4.2 RS engine is crap. Clogs up with rubbish after a few thousand miles and is then hugely down on power. The Audi R8 at Vmax could only manage 162mph (unlimited!)
7. Soul... yeah I'll give you that, nothing beats mooching around at low revs with an LS V8 and load exhaust!
BMW's biggest failing, offering an official sports exhaust on a bloody 325i but none of the M range!Sorry for the rambling rant, feel free to ignore
and S600VXR said:
HHmmmm these VXR8's cant be very quick then as my old bus 
romped away from the new M3's, noticably after around 100mph... That was at V Max last year and I can pull on a new M5 as well... I do have to try with the later mind as revs need to go over 5K to make the point!
romped away from the new M3's, noticably after around 100mph... That was at V Max last year and I can pull on a new M5 as well... I do have to try with the later mind as revs need to go over 5K to make the point!To be fair my limiter was caused by an ecu PROBLEM not the actual limiter, the result meaning spark was being pulled at around 156. This was happening pretty early down the runway and as such I was having to drive fairly conservatively once about 100mph so as not to hit the limiter and try and judge going through the beams at 155 before hitting the limiter.
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