M3 E92
- Thread starter monkadill
- Start date
I have looked at buying one on and off for a couple of years...
I actually looked at 8 earlier this year and being honest,non of them i would like to own... I was looking at cars between £20.000-£23,000.
Have you actually driven one ? IMHO they are fairly sedate and dare i say boring,the engine has little character and can have some expensive problems.
I just didnt think the car(s) was worth the money... I would prefer a nice E46 M3 ..
I actually looked at 8 earlier this year and being honest,non of them i would like to own... I was looking at cars between £20.000-£23,000.
Have you actually driven one ? IMHO they are fairly sedate and dare i say boring,the engine has little character and can have some expensive problems.
I just didnt think the car(s) was worth the money... I would prefer a nice E46 M3 ..
I swapped my Z4M for one and I didn't rate it much at all, the V8 doesn't sound anything like a V8 and it needs 6k revs plus to actually feel quick.
Mine was a manual and 8400rpm in third is 110mph so that gives you a good idea of how difficult it is to enjoy on the road, it also feels gutless low down because of its 1650kg weight.
It just never felt special and when going steady you may as well be in any other 3 series because the interior is identical bar dials/seats.
It's a torque light engine for a V8 and the two V8's I'd owned previously had much more torque so it just felt flat to me.
On a more positive note I rated it's induction noise very highly and it's chassis was much more resolved than the Z4M's.
It's an engine that suits a track and I would have liked to have experienced that engine in a much lighter car because it's wasted in a 3 series body for me.
Mine was a manual and 8400rpm in third is 110mph so that gives you a good idea of how difficult it is to enjoy on the road, it also feels gutless low down because of its 1650kg weight.
It just never felt special and when going steady you may as well be in any other 3 series because the interior is identical bar dials/seats.
It's a torque light engine for a V8 and the two V8's I'd owned previously had much more torque so it just felt flat to me.
On a more positive note I rated it's induction noise very highly and it's chassis was much more resolved than the Z4M's.
It's an engine that suits a track and I would have liked to have experienced that engine in a much lighter car because it's wasted in a 3 series body for me.
It's certainly worth test driving one and I test drove one back in 2008 and I wanted one ever since then, when I finally got one in Jan 2013 I was so excited about picking it up I barely slept!
Living with one day to day though I pretty much ended up hating it but I might have felt differently if I'd used it as a second or occasional car.
Using it daily it just frustrated me because you could hardly ever use its performance and it was all about its top end, yet when stuck in traffic it's drinking fuel and it just didn't make much sense.
It was a case of you should never meet your heroes for me sadly and I wished I'd just left having one as a dream.
Living with one day to day though I pretty much ended up hating it but I might have felt differently if I'd used it as a second or occasional car.
Using it daily it just frustrated me because you could hardly ever use its performance and it was all about its top end, yet when stuck in traffic it's drinking fuel and it just didn't make much sense.
It was a case of you should never meet your heroes for me sadly and I wished I'd just left having one as a dream.
monkadill said:
Good decision. I have been in a few V8 BMWs recently and they all make me think, yea OK pretty good, but I get back in the MC with all the mods and think pffff no comparison. I have had car lust for years before the MC, but now I wouldn't consider anything unless it was leagues above, so good these are.
LeeZ4MR said:
Makes a lot of sense, the car needs an autobahn or track to stretch it, you have to be going silly speeds to get the most out of it. All the sound insulation and "sensible stuff" dulls the balls-out excitement a lot, missed opportunity by BMW.
Everyone says the M4 is a better car, been in one and I couldn't really see how it was "getting back to its roots", but I wasn't driving it, just felt faster at lower rpms due to the massive torque advantage. The M2 looks like the winner and would be my choice but 50k is a lot of money.
I had one for 11 months, and used it for long distance driving, a role it does very well but so would a 330D. The engine is not gutless at all but very linear and ultimately blunted by either 6 speed manual and the kerbweight. Mine was a DCT which IMO is a better combination, due to the better spaced gearing and the truly excellent shift speed and extra ability it gives (no comparison with the SMG3 gear I had in my E60 M5).
The engine is muted, but the "official" exhaust mod fixes that for £200 (Google "Paul the Welder" and 2 pipe mod), giving the exhaust sound it should have had from the factory.
What put me off mine was the use I was subjecting it to, with its prodigious thirst meaning a 400 km autonomy becomes a bit boring, as I was usually in for a 500 km stint. Also, the interior is quite plain, recommend searching for one with extended leather and upgraded audio and with the new CIC nav system (or one without, as the CCC one is quite outdated, slow and not intuitive to use).
The Z4M is, however, IMO a more special car, raw and analogue, and its compact size and 2 seater setup makes it a more interesting car for an occasional weekend car.
Finally, I was also scared off by (mostly US) stories of rodbearing failures, same as the E60 M5, as the engine is essentially a 4 litre V8 version of the 5 litre V10, with 2 cylinders chopped off, and that engine sees quite some failures. An AUC warranty would take care of that problem, of course.
The engine is muted, but the "official" exhaust mod fixes that for £200 (Google "Paul the Welder" and 2 pipe mod), giving the exhaust sound it should have had from the factory.
What put me off mine was the use I was subjecting it to, with its prodigious thirst meaning a 400 km autonomy becomes a bit boring, as I was usually in for a 500 km stint. Also, the interior is quite plain, recommend searching for one with extended leather and upgraded audio and with the new CIC nav system (or one without, as the CCC one is quite outdated, slow and not intuitive to use).
The Z4M is, however, IMO a more special car, raw and analogue, and its compact size and 2 seater setup makes it a more interesting car for an occasional weekend car.
Finally, I was also scared off by (mostly US) stories of rodbearing failures, same as the E60 M5, as the engine is essentially a 4 litre V8 version of the 5 litre V10, with 2 cylinders chopped off, and that engine sees quite some failures. An AUC warranty would take care of that problem, of course.
