I love M's!

[Gast]

heb je er niet mee gereden?

Het verschil tussen 240 en 321pk zou je normaal wel voelen hé....

[Dragon]

heb je er niet mee gereden?

Het verschil tussen 240 en 321pk zou je normaal wel voelen hé....

Nee de wagen stond achteraan in de garage achter een bmw of 7,8 en ik had ook geen afspraak gemaakt. Ben deze morgend onverwachts daarheen gereden. Ik zal het wel zien morgen hoe het hiermee afloopt

[Sega]

John... Rij toch eerst eens met die wagen vooraleer je een beslissing neemt!



Ik weet nog een leuke E30 M3 te koop staan moest het u intresseren!

[Gast]

Zie je ook direct aan blok als't een 240pk is.

[///NFSThunder]

jup is herkenbaar als je motorkap opendoet. vooral het luchtinlaatsysteem is opmerkelijk anders.
US versie:


Europe versie:

[Gast]

cilinderkop van een M50 dat erop zit

[Sega]

Die eerste dat je gepost hebt is van een E46 he NFS.

Dit is een E36 M3 USA:





En dit moet erin liggen:

[Gast]

John is nog meer een stresskop dan mij zeg!
John, doe die kap open, kijk ernaar, doe de boeken open, kijk ernaar, doe die kar open, rij ermee, en dan beslissen!

[Porker]

Afscheid van een E90 M3 door Drivers Republic:

It's been over a month since the M3 was rolled into the back of a BMW transporter, I signed a bit of paper verifying the time of collection, and then it disappeared forever. I've been very remiss in not writing an end of term report sooner, but I felt deserving of a period of mourning.

You see this M3 saloon is without a shadow of doubt the best car I've ever had the privilege to run. I shall spend the next 3000-words or so explaining why everybody should own an M3. So for all you owners now is the time to just sit back and bask in your own wisdom, and for the non-believers or interested parties, be prepared to start browsing for M3 saloons (or Coupes) this very afternoon.

Let's start by breaking down how I use my everyday wheels. Not just with my family, but also in its role as DR chase car. The boring stuff is my mercifully short commute to DR HQ - a couple of miles of urban misery, 5-miles of dual carriageway and then, just as the oil temperature is getting towards its sweet spot, 2-miles of B-road. Treacherous B-road, too. Our offices seem to exist in a microclimate and if there's even the suggestion of a light frost at home the last mile or so of my route to work will be virtually sheet ice (the record is three cars off in a single morning). Even in just wet conditions the combination of over hanging trees and farm entrances caked in mud makes every trip to work a bit of an adventure. Of course the M3 also spent a fair bit of time on the M40, trundling down to Heathrow, or zinging across country for various DR group test duties and chasing other cars around Silverstone with a video camera stuck to its bonnet.

The weekends were a bit of a break for engine, gearbox, M-differential and rear tyres but an assault on the lovely Fox Red leather (1-year olds have no respect) and a test of its load carrying ability. Non-parents can switch off for this next line. Now, to the fellow exhausted/covered in dried food fraternity, you'll be pleased to hear the M3 saloon easily consumes a Quinny Speedi SX and a week's shopping, plus all the other stuff a small human seems to require about his person at all times. I do wonder how my parents coped with three boys and a Lancia Gamma Coupe...

So let's tick off the requirements for the perfect Bovingdon wagon: It should have a decent ride to cope with the bloody speed humps on my road; it should cope with dull two and three lane stuff with quiet composure; it should be sharp and exciting when the mundane disappears and the challenging and slippery unfolds and it should be fast enough on track to prove a steady and consistent chase car. Oh and I'm a sucker for Sat Nav. When the M3 arrived I thought it had all the bases covered. And it had a bit extra, too - that wonderful quality that makes it impossible to walk away from in a carpark without a proud little glance back towards it. I've said it before but I reckon that the M3 Saloon is chunkier, better proportioned and plain sexier than the Coupe, and in Sparkling Graphite with that Fox Red (think terracotta) leather, I think it looks simply stunning.

Ok, and now the reality. The reality is that the M3 did all of that stuff, but by the time I'd discovered how it soothed my journey to work, spiking my pulse rate only on that last B-road section and only then when I asked it to, I'd already fallen deeply in love with it. In doing so I'd rooted the brakes (this was the start of a thoroughly annoying pattern), scared myself a little bit and driven three of the most memorable laps of the 'Ring ever. Yes, sorry for the gratuitous Nürburgring reference, but having been stunned by the M3's raw speed around there I can't not mention it.


Driving the M3 at the 'Ring also put the lap times bandied about by manufacturers and local experts (some of whom are more expert than others, I suspect) into perspective. The M3 Coupe on Michelin Pilot Cup+ tyres runs a lap in around 8:05 according to Sport Auto - so the heavier saloon on more versatile Michelin PS2s will be maybe 12-15-seconds slower? That might sound awfully slow compared to something like a GT-R or ZR1, but I can tell you that it feels very, very quick indeed from the driver's seat. The way the V8 just puts on speed even on the uphill sections is incredible, and the almost complete absence of understeer means you can carry so much speed in the quick corners that it's plain unnerving. I really think that the grip levels are right up there with my old E36 M3 when it was running semi-slicks and super aggressive spring and damper rates.

Of course I'd expected it to feel at home there - every new performance car should when you consider the miles completed in development - but the efficiency it displayed, the way that you could put every bit of power down without wheelspin, the balance of the chassis; everything just felt so right. I left with warped discs (a shame as the brake feel itself is superb) but a massive grin on my face and huge respect for the M3. It covered the 500-mile slog home with three adults, one baby and about 100kgs of camera gear with just the odd grumble from the brakes and at 23mpg.

I had to come on to the thorny issue of fuel consumption sooner or later. The E46 M3 was renowned for its relatively parsimonious thirst, but the new E90 series is quickly forging a reputation that's quite different.

You see the 4-litre V8 likes a drink. On a run you can see as much as 25mpg (rarely), but more likely it'll settle at around 21mpg. However, that can quickly plummet to 17mpg should you start using a few more revs. Unfortunately my M3 coincided with fuel prices soaring to ridiculous levels, and chucking over £70 down its neck became a frighteningly regular habit. But with fuel back at 90p or so for Super, I could quite happily live with the consumption in return for access to one of the truly great road car engines of all time.

'What an engine!' That was pretty much the first impression of anyone I took out in the M3, or anyone from within DR who had borrowed it and not experienced the 4-litre V8 for a few weeks. The key to its appeal is the sheer breadth of its power and the noise: whether lugging at 3500rpm or chasing the 8500rpm cut-out, the way the V8 could be simultaneously super smooth and sharply serrated was utterly addictive. It may lack a little torque relative to a C63 AMG or Lexus IS-F but don't believe for a single moment that it needs to be wrung out to make sensational progress. In fact if you drove an M3 for the first time I guarantee you wouldn't venture much over 5500rpm for the first few days - except maybe on an empty stretch of very straight road. It's thumpingly quick.

But the M3's speed isn't just generated by the engine. Yes, it is perhaps the car's defining feature initially, but it's integrated into the package seamlessly. In fact once you've got used to the engine (the novelty never fully wears off but eventually you stop giggling as much), you start to uncover the core of the M3's enduring appeal - a chassis with the sweetest balance you could ever wish for. It has very, very little understeer for a modern performance car and heaps of grip even in pretty atrocious conditions. The whole cars feels tense, reactive to any little input. Sometimes you can mistake this for snappiness at the limit - the car seems to lose and gain grip quickly, like it's all sharp edges and grip and no finesse. But with time it gels and suddenly everything feels elastic and fluid when the tyres are slipping. Of course it's not an MX5 - the speeds you're operating at are much higher and so you need to be quick and hold your nerve to keep up with the M3, but with practice (on a track!) it soon becomes second nature to just drive the thing like a mrk II Escort.

One feature that doesn't get enough credit is the M button. It's an innocuous little button on the steering wheel but it is the work of genius. In the iDrive menu you can tailor the car to your liking, adjusting steering assistance, throttle response, the EDC dampers and the stability control. Once you've dialled-in your favourite setting that little M button gives you instant access to it.

The button became known as the 'Roundabout button' and after much experimentation I settled on the following settings: steering in Normal (Sport seemed artificially heavy and got very sludgy between fast direction changes), throttle response on Sport (Super Sport too edgy, Normal a bit unresponsive), the EDC dampers in Normal (Comfort is great for most road driving but a bit floaty at speed, Sport is superb on smooth tracks but won't make you popular with passengers on the road) and stability control Off (M Dynamic mode is excellent on wet roads but I graduated to fully 'Off' quite quickly, such is the temptation of such an exuberant chassis). In normal driving my default setting mirrored the M button save for the stability control, which was still engaged. On track the suspension on full hard made a pretty substantial difference - cutting a tendency to turn-in oversteer if you trail-braked (I use that term in the context of any trackday driver, i.e. out-braked yourself).


Enough about its ultimate abilities for now. Some of the everyday stuff is worth exploring. For example the ride quality is very good. BMW still won't come clean about the different suspension settings for Saloon and Coupe, but they do exist and the four-door is the nicer car for everyday driving. This can be negated by fitting the standard 18s on the Coupe, which I found out thanks to Mark Burton on this Group. But as a general rule I think it's fair to say that the Saloon rides more compliantly. BMW has since upgraded iDrive with a more intuitive menu system (at least that's what I've read), but I found it perfectly easy to navigate. The only frustration was that the Sat Nav doesn't have full postcode entry and that my phone wouldn't share the contents of its address book via the Bluetooth facility.

The M3 arrived with 3521-miles showing, on a fresh set of Michelin Pilot Sport 2 tyres and with stripes vacummed into its carpets. It left DR HQ with 16,460-miles, on only its second set of tyres (still the excellent PS2) and having benefitted from a £10 hand car wash. OK, so it wasn't quite as perfect as it arrived - the local car cleaners aren't as good as BMW's press garage valeters, the tyres were shot and the brakes were showing signs of wear (it had new discs around 3000-miles earlier). But inside it wore the miles effortlessly. The drivers seat looked a tiny bit distressed (I'm nitpicking here), but every other surface looked as new. In my time with the M3 nothing went wrong, fell off or caused any additional trips to the dealership. It required a top up of oil from time to time, but in total I put in no more than 2-litres. And much of that was in the early days, the consumption seemed to halt past about 9000-miles. Painless is the only way to describe the M3 as day-to-day transportation.

In fact the one big blot on the M3's copybook wasn't really its fault at all.

And it was entirely unexpected. And for some people maybe it wouldn't be an issue at all. But when it went in for its only service (at 14,343-miles), I left Wollaston BMW in Northampton genuinely angry. Not because of the bill - £236.67 didn't seem too bad, although much of that seemed to be for a pollen filter - but because without telling me or seeking my permission they'd seen fit to take it out for a test drive. I was assured that this was part of their customer service and to check 'that the driving experience was perfect', but the thought of somebody getting into my M3, thrashing it from cold and going God-knows-where just made me feel a bit sick. The car had done 6-miles extra, the fuel consumption had dropped from 19ish to 17.7mpg, and I couldn't help feeling that somebody had been on a joy ride at my expense. It still makes me angry just thinking about it. I suggested they tell customers about this procedure and hope they now do, but it's worth checking before you hand over your keys...

At around 10,000-miles the tyres were in desperate need of replacement. However, they had been subjected to a few laps of the 'Ring, several of Donington on a sunny RMA trackday and countless laps chasing a Lotus Carlton and VXR8 around Silverstone for its filming duties. Although the PS2s were worn they never, ever showed signs of tearing-up on track - which is very unusual for strict road rubber fitted to a powerful car and driven on a circuit. In fact they were so good that I decided not to fit the Cup+ tyres fitted as standard on the Coupe, but instead just fit the PS2s again. It was a good decision as the autumn mulch was at its worst and because the M3 had to stand toe-to-toe with the Mercedes C63 AMG and Lexus IS-F in a DR group test just a few days later in mixed conditions. You can read the verdict in Features, or watch the video in DR TV, but suffice to say it more than held its own and reminded me just what a stunning car this M3 is. Forget the lukewarm reception when the Coupe was first launched - this is a very special M3, and every bit as exciting as the E46 M3 CS. Not to mention quite a lot faster.

How fast? Well, in these times of ZR1s and GT-Rs the M3 is pretty tame. And if you read certain forums you'd think anything less than 600bhp is simply irrelevant in 2009. Of course that's complete bollocks. The M3 - 414bhp, 295lb ft, 1690kgs - is indecently fast if you use all the revs. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's perfectly fast - you never feel like it needs more power (road or track), and it always feels thrilling when you decide to keep it wound tight. Of course power is addictive and the more you have, the more you want... but if you're honest with yourself the M3 is already very close to being too much for the road. Of course the magic is in the balance of power to grip...

As the original tyres wore down that crucial balance actually shifting markedly, with the engine easily overwhelming traction even in quick corners. The ride also deteriorated slightly. This was brilliantly demonstrated when trying to chase a VXR8 around Silverstone with a video camera mounted on the bonnet. To be honest, I just couldn't keep up. The big Vauxhall did a 2:20.59. A couple of weeks later in similar questions but with fresh tyres the M3 was transformed - banging in a remarkable 2:15.5 and making both the C63 and IS-F feels slow-witted and heavy. This might not be what you want to hear, but to consistently get the full M3 experience you need to replace the tyres well before the wear indicators suggest. Of course you won't, but you should.


One area that does need addressing with the M3 is the brakes. I know, I know - I do talk about this a lot, but it's just such a glaring problem. First the good news. The brakes have lovely feel and are very strong in a single application. The bad news is that any form of sustained hard use results in overheated pads, warped discs and a big bill. They are j-u-s-t about acceptable on the road, but simply wilt on circuit. Even at the 'Ring, which isn't that hard on brakes thanks to the long recovery periods on a lap, the M3 ate a set of discs and pads. A new set lasted until the next track outing at Silverstone and then the pads glazed. Before the discs could be damaged I swapped for a set of EBC Yellowstuff pads. These did nothing for initial pedal feel but dealt with the high temperatures much better, with no fade or judder during our Curborough outing (see Feature here), although I suspect they were chomping through the discs pretty quickly. However, they were a cheap and worthwhile upgrade. If I had an E90/E92 I'd have to investigate a caliper upgrade, though.

And I say 'If I had..' with some regret. I miss it terribly and spend many hours looking for my perfect E90 M3 on classified ads. But I think this was my perfect new M3: I'd want the saloon because it looks better to my eyes and fits my life perfectly; I'd stick with the manual 'box rather than opt for the excellent DCT 'box (I just like manual cars); and I'd tick Sparkling Graphite and the Fox Red interior because I happen to think it's a stunning combination. In fact the M3 saloon is a stunning combination. It works as a family car, it's grown up and luxurious for dull motorway commutes and it's happy sliding around a circuit or sucking up a B-road at a furious pace. The M3 is a compromise car, but without compromise. If you need one car that ticks every box this is probably about as close as it gets.

[Lefty]

Op een of andere manier lijken die uitlaten niet te kloppen, ofwel zijn ze én extreem vuil én hebben ze rechts een tikje gehad?

[Beta]

Zijn volgens mij toch de standaarduitlaten. Niet idereen poetst die dingen.

[Stancke]

Lijken mij ook niet volledig 100% te kloppen. De linker hangen wat lager dan de rechter?

[Gast]

Op een of andere manier lijken die uitlaten niet te kloppen, ofwel zijn ze én extreem vuil én hebben ze rechts een tikje gehad?

Kan een valse M5 zijn. In Sint-Truiden is er ook zo een 'M5', alles klopt optisch, maar als je dan kijkt naar zijn kilometerteller zie je dat die tot 260 gaat, en dat er geen ///M staat..

[Gast]

Afscheid van een E90 M3 door Drivers Republic:

Zalig he, heb alle 3 delen ook al een paar keer gelezen

[Stancke]

Toch geen rood.

Yell yeah, red ftw!

[Gast]

Die trl is wel een echte geloof ik, ben die ook al tegengekomen

[Porker]

Op een of andere manier lijken die uitlaten niet te kloppen, ofwel zijn ze én extreem vuil én hebben ze rechts een tikje gehad?

Als ik me niet vergis staan daar ook E9x M3 spiegels op, faker-vermoedens steken de kop op!

[Gast]

banden staan te smal in de kassen vind ik.

[Gast]

Ik zie toch niks verkeerds. Spiegels zijn OEM, bumper is OEM, heeft het M5 kofferdeksel, logo hangt correct (niet scheef of slightly op de verkeerde plaats), uitlaat is OEM M5 (met een aparte kleine demper per uitlaatpijpje), ... 't Ding z'n uitlaathulsjes zijn gewoon zeer vuil, da's alles denk ik.

[Gast]

banden staan te smal in de kassen vind ik.

Ja, zat daar ook op te kijken, maar zou dat dan betekenen dat 't geen echte is?



't Is niet dat de E60 M5 zoals de E39 M5 z'n achterwielen uit z'n wielkassen heeft puilen, hè.