BMW M3

The contentious 2022 BMW M3 is a bit of an opinion-splitter for one unmissable reason – but is it as good as we’ve come to expect from BMW?

Back in 2008, fans of BMW’s M badge were petrified. The fourth-generation M3 had arrived in Australia, but the formula had changed.

Since the new BMW M3 has 'Competition' in its name, where better to get acquainted than a racetrack?

Just as we did with the 4 Series before it was unveiled, we've hit the track in BMW's new hero M4 coupe – and its M3 sedan twin

The most powerful and track-focused version of the new BMW M3 sports-sedan range is due in Australia later this year.

Images of the most hardcore version of the latest BMW M3 sedan yet have appeared online.

BMW is reportedly set to give its M3 performance sedan the ‘CS’ treatment for the first time in five years.

BMW M3 Touring and BMW XM to be shown at the Motorclassica 2022 show, along with a yet-to-be-unveiled model.

Finally, a factory BMW M3 Touring has been released – but it's not BMW's first fast wagon. Take a trip though BMW's Touring history.

Want our recommendation for a great road trip from Melbourne? How about these routes from Season 1 of Drive TV

We reveal the best cars money can buy in 1998.

When I got the call from the dealership to say my new M3 Competition was ready to be collected I could not get there quick enough.

My story begun when I was a young. I have always been into performance cars and as I grew up becoming more financially capable, I set out to save enough money to find my dream car. At first being at the age of 20, my main criteria for the car were cheap and fast, not a hatch, manual trans and preferably a coupe. The Toyota 86 was bang on in that criteria, however, I was not content with the power although most people would say the car was never about power but how it goes around a corner. Moving on to my early 20’s, I had my first serious relationship and I was reminded by my partner to get a house before getting a car (a car that is more than a necessity). With that in mind, I was thinking with my head over my heart and noddingly agreed. Fast forward to my mid 20’s, we had a nasty breakup. By that time, I was in the darkest place of my life and what most people would laugh off as a quarter life crisis and “you’ll be right mate”. Over time I reconnected with my interest in cars and with enough money saved, I pulled the trigger and purchased a second-hand 2008 BMW M3 E92. The criteria for the car was important to me at the time, it had to be alpine white, carbon fibre roof and manual. My heart had finally won over my head. Prior to purchasing the car, I had researched the main issues that could go wrong with the car and 2 things that came up were rod bearings and throttle actuators being the weakness of this car. More on this later… The Good I remember at first sitting in the car and taking it for the first drive. It was exhilarating, the exhaust note, the way the engine revs all the way to the redline at 8400 RPM. Having driven ordinary, non-performance cars, you would normally and naturally shift at around 6000 RPM at the latest. Not with this car, as you reach 6000 RPM it had only just begun, the power pulls linearly all the way through to the redline with no hesitation. The handling was very good, with the help of the adjustable Electronic Damping Control (EDC) settings and the type of tyres having very little flex in the side wall. Although the car weighs more than 1640kg, it hides the weight well when thrown around a corner but if you were coming from a Mazda MX-5 or Toyota 86 it would feel pretty nose heavy. The car was an absolute animal in the rain and could easily be “encouraged” to flick the tail out. The interior of the car was standard BMW at the time, with the old iDrive infotainment system (sluggish) and leather heated seats. It was nothing to rave about compared to the interiors today. There was no Bluetooth audio streaming for your music (can be corrected with a Tune 2 Air device). The rear seats were surprisingly spacious in the coupe and can sit people comfortably in long trips compared to the Toyota 86 or Nissan GTR rear seats. The exterior styling of the car was superb with the quad exhaust (functional and not just looks) and the smooth coupe silhouette and bonnet bulge at the front. This was a further confirmation by people on the streets as you drove or waited at the traffic lights, they would look at the car. I even had a person commented as I exited the vehicle saying, “That is a very nice car.” The Bad Here is where the fairy tale ends… a long list of problems appeared. I had the rod bearings replaced as a preventative maintenance as a new engine replacement is $15k compared to $3k to be completed. I will not delve into the rod bearing issue, search it up and you’ll understand the issue with this particular engine. After having the car for 6 months, we had a huge downpour and suddenly one of the xenon headlights stopped working. While I talk of being interested in cars, I was also more of the practical hands on type, I started to inspect the car and did a bit of diagnostics/trouble shooting myself. I realised what had happened, the inspection cover under the wheel fender had fallen off and water had gone into the headlight area. I went on to remove the headlight bulb from the other side of the car and swapped them around to see if it works. The bulb worked. I deduced the headlight ballast was the culprit and took it into an independent shop. The shop went on with the repaired and in turn fried the footwell module (FRM). “It will be $1000” was the response. A few expletives to myself later, I begrudgingly agreed and got the repair underway. Moving on to 8th month of ownership, one day without warning when the car started up, it had put itself into limp mode and the dash lit up like a Christmas tree. Ah F&^@ was my response, the car was still drivable and what I could only describe as driving a Toyota Yaris with half the power. I limped the car to the shop to diagnose the problem. It was the throttle actuators. For those of you that do not know, the throttle actuators control the amount of air that goes into the engine. The actuators have plastic gears in them. The teeth gets worn over time and starts skipping or jumping. There are two actuators in the car. As I dug further, I had found out that one of the actuators got replaced recently and the other one had a rebuild kit done on it (replaced plastic gears with brass gears). The previous owner had cheap-ed out instead of getting a new one. Here comes the killer… a brand new one from BMW costs $2300. After literally a month, while driving, all of a sudden I hear this loud bang coming from my engine bay. The power steering was lost and I knew at that moment something had terribly went wrong. I managed to drive this back home and opened the bonnet. To my surprise, the auxiliary belt had exploded and shredded to pieces inside the engine bay and the alternator belt only had 3 ribs out of the 6 remaining. The idle pulley had disintegrated. I was particularly frustrated at this because I had the car serviced every 10,000kms/year and they had not mentioned the belt/pulley needs to be replaced. Following 2 months down the track, I thought my bad luck would end but nope. While driving, the ABS/DSC and Hill Assist had all stopped working. I did a bit of research and it could be one of two things, either ABS wheel speed sensors (cheap) or the ABS pump module or pump (expensive). Through trial and error, I replaced the sensors and that worked for about 2 weeks and it was back again. I paid $120 to get the codes read and boy oh boy it was showing up as the ABS pump. The mechanic told me, “Sorry to say but it will be $4000 new from BMW or $2000 for a refurbished one.” You could imagine the horror on my face. Defeated, I stepped out and drove the car away. Determined and fired up, I did a bit of research and there are companies that actually repair the units, I paid $450 and had the unit repaired with one year warranty. After that ordeal, for the next service, I was told there was two major issues for the car. One being the valve cover gasket is leaking and engine mount is cracked. Roughly $1500 to repair both items mentioned. Sigh… Once the car was all up to scratch, another 3 months goes by and there is a noise that sounds like someone had strapped coke cans to your car as you drove. I did a bit of research and it seems to be the centre support bearing is failing for the prop shaft. (this is due to the design of being two piece to lessen the vibration into the car). Lessons Learnt With all the issues I had mentioned, I would like to give readers a bit of advice having gone through this. Although I had done research on the main issues for the car I wanted to purchase, there could be another ten so called “minor” issues that could go wrong that will easily add up to a few thousands of dollars. Through self-reflection, I believe there is a fundamentally underlying issue with the culture of most European car manufacturer. This is not a standalone BMW issue but is an issue for Euro cars. For example with this car, when you replace the valve cover gaskets you cannot reuse the aluminium bolts because they are one-time use. A bolt which I have requested a quote from BMW is $17 each!! And there 13 of them each side. And has anyone else figured out how to pick up aluminium with a magnet tool if you dropped one in the engine bay? It is as if during the development phase a conversation such as this took place: • Technician/Engineer: “We will need to make this 6mm thick” • Corporate Manager: “Nein, 3mm will do” • Technician/Engineer: “…But it will fail in 3 years” • Corporate Manager: “Das is fine, 3 years is outside of the warranty period.” Time will tell if the reliability has improved for the owners of F80 M3/M4 reaches the 10 year + mark… Another issue and I get this a lot, while you are in there you might as well replace this and that. Not because the item needs to be replaced but simply because you must move a lot of stuff out of the way to get to it. This is where the labour cost will bite you. You have noticed I have not talked about any items that are standard maintenance items, such as tyres, engine oils etc. These costs come with any car. My advice to anyone looking for a performance car especially Euro 1. Have deep pockets, pay to play 2. DIY most of your repairs if you are competent (or know a mechanic friend) 3. Buy one within warranty and sell it with say 6 months warranty remaining I know there will be a lot of people disagreeing with my views or that you should not be complaining because you bought a 10 year + performance car and not expect things not to go wrong. So all in all, I am now driving a 2019 Mazda 3 GT BP Series and I will be doing another review once I get more years out of it.

I’ll always remember this BMW Motorsport as my first European car. My first car was a Little Tikes Cozy Coup that Mummy and Daddy bought me when I was still crawling but I was just so embarrassed driving it through the inner suburbs with its lack of lights, its novelty character face and wide turning circle. When Daddy went through his midlife crisis and went out and bought a BMW M3 one day I chucked the biggest tantrum the world has ever seen and demanded he trade in the Cozy Coupe on something with black rims and a badge! Fortunately for me the tantrum worked (they always do!) and low and behold a brand new BMW M3 Baby Racer Motorsport arrived with same day delivery - apparently another baby had cancelled their order and the dealer arranged immediate delivery to me. The vehicle delivered included the Motorsport Package with exclusive sports trims, lowered suspension and exclusive blacked out 5” super low profile rims. Whilst I love the black rims, the ride is a little firm for my liking, even though the seat is quite comfortable particularly when I have a thicker cloth nappy on (which my Au Pair prefers). It didn’t take long at all to get accustomed to the lower ride profile and sportier drive and I’ll always remember this car as my first true European driving experience and how much better it is than that floaty American built Cozy Coupe poop ? The fuel economy has been amazing - thanks to the all-wheel drive pedal power I’ve been getting zero litres per 100km. But it’s the little luxuries which means once you go Euro you’ll never go back: like the full LED front and rear lights with auto off for when I run off to drink some milk and have a nap. And the keyless push button start - inserting that large novelty plastic key into the Cozy Coupe every time made me feel like I was 18 months old every time! Whilst it’s been an enjoyable ride I recently saw baby Ryder over the back fence rolling around the block in his brand new Mercedes GLE SUV Baby Racer on 6” dubs so I threw the tanty to end all tanties and got Daddy to agree to trade in the M3 Baby Racer on a brand new MY21 BMW X7 Baby Racer with M Performance Pack and 7” blacked out rims because every baby deserves an SUV to battle the inner suburbs! It was all going well until a hipster baby (Elvis) in the playground pointed out that my European BMW X7 is actually built in the USA!!! Like my old Cozy Coup!!! Mummy and Daddy!!!! ?

It's easy to go into a drive in an M3 and get suckered in to the hype-train. Afterall I'm pretty sure if you look in the dictionary next to 'best sports saloon' it won't be long before you stumble across a photo of the famous kidney-grilles (or a questionable load of sports themed American Bars.) But then one year they went and put a V8 in the m3 much to the disgust of purists that had been spoiled for two decades of silky straight-six performance. So I must admit, I went into the test drive expecting to be underwhelmed. You see, I'd seen a late model E92 M3 Competition after weeks of looking for the new car which had seen me drive C63 AMG's and RS4s. Both had been akin to trying to crack a walnut with a sledgehammer, especially in the C63's case. Great muscle car performance, but in the twisty stuff showing a bit of a lack of finesse. A walk around the outside and you see the typical garnish once reserved purely for M cars. A splattering of ///M badges adorning most panels, side vents, quad exhausts and a large wheel package tucked under some aggressive arches. Subjective, I know - but I think it looks absolutely stunning. Menacing yet somehow quite understated. Somewhere in the middle of the inelegant brashness of the Merc and the rather handsome but quite dull lines of the same era Audi. Inside you're treated to carbon fiber style trim inserts, leather upholstery and the usual nappa leather. On this car we have the M Performance wheel which is chunky and wrapped in alcantara with an LCD screen for useful driving metrics. Some won't like the thick steering wheel - but then I have hands that resemble like cradling on a lacrosse stick. It isn't hard to find the ideal seating position with the every-which way adjustable, heated seats and well laid-out controls. The iDrive is the heart of the infotainment system - once you master it, you will wonder how you lived without it. BMW executed this much better than Mercedes' attempt. Whilst on the topic though, this brings me to one of the few qualms I have with the car in that the bluetooth audio when paired to an iPhone is frustratingly inconsistent with controls not operating or sometimes it failing to connect altogether. But when you hit the start button, you begin to forgive the M-boffins. The engine startles to life like a cat who owns the tail that you have just stepped on in the early hours in the morning with a deep growl which contrasts the muted, raspy tone of the previous gen M3. It's designed to warm up the catalytic converters when cold, so is louder. Honestly, the neighbours love it (!). DCT into D and you're slowly whisked away with more smoothness compared to the SMG system; but still with a degree of the usual DSG jerkiness. The M3 Competition features the M-Dynamic Mode; or MDM button. Essentially this flips various settings on the car into a set of pre-determined parameters at the flick of a single button. Namely Suspension, Throttle Response and Gear Changes. This means that you can have slow gear changes and comfort suspension around town, and simply hit a button to change that to the fastest possible shifts and rock-hard suspension. It also includes software tweaks that leave a little more slip from the stability control. It all amounts to a noticeable progression in the handling department rather than an out and out transformation. The drive is simply sublime. Many don't like the increased tenseness of the Competition suspension kit - I find it adds a sense of occasion and race-car-esque feel to proceedings. Body roll is minimal as I change direction, bounding between apexes on a mountainous road and the whole chassis hides its 1,500kg girth whilst talking to you like a childhood friend. You get a true sense of knowing exactly what it is doing as you dart between gears almost instantly with the gear change aggression set to "unhinged". All the while, the 4.4 liter flat-plane v8 screams towards the 8,400 rpm redline. Lovely. Over 8 months, the M3 has been a reliable weekend warrior with space for a child seat and the weekly shop if needed. It is quite common for enthusiasts to replace the Main Bearings as a precaution at the cost of $3k or so; whether you do so is down to your tolerance for risk, as many will report 150,000 kms without an issue. A salesman got me seated in a 2018 M3 after my last service; but despite leaving the e92 for dead in a straight line, it's snappy nature, and soul-less turbo'ed heart amounts to a package that just doesn't tickle me in the same way. The trade-off however being the other bugbear of the car; the fuel economy. It doesn't bother me having bought it for fun - but having returns of 12-14l / 100km may quickly tire others. The novelty of pouring $20 of fuel in, only to have the petrol light come back on after the first set of traffic lights quickly wears thin. The Competition Pack adds very subtle tweaks to a well accomplished package; but all round It could be a good time to land the last Naturally Aspirated M car now that we're deep in the trenches moving through turbocharged sixes all the way to electric motoring. The M3 has always been a car that is somehow worth more than the sum of its parts and the M team always seemed to remember when it comes to the m3, that it isn't always about bhp. As a package the e92 is up there with one of my favorite cars of all time - huge call I realise - but to me, BMWs take on the "ultimate driving machine" has never been as perfect.