I know there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the new ///M3. I'm beginning to realize the short comings of having a coupe (I own an e92 M3)---mainly it is no good for rear facing car seats and with a two year old at home the wife's car is the one that is always used, but with plans for another kid, I'm just resigned to the fact the coupe may have to go.
With this is mind, and all the glowing reviews by a few race car drivers, I called my SA and asked her if they had any ///M3 builds available, she said she had one left. So I after getting pricing from her, I headed over to the dealership for a test drive and to put down the deposit.
Steering: very precise. Return to center was good, and there was a little less play off center than my e92 ///M3 but between local road and highway test drive up to 90mph, any talk of this new steering being that much better----no idea. I'm not a professional race car driver, but no stranger to the track either. To each is their own I guess....steering is probably better, but not night and day, though at the limit on a track, the small difference probably stands out more.
Seats: they were really nice, but can't say there are that much nicer than the current ones. Different. Some worse, some better. I like the shell look and feel, but miss the bottom extenders......to each their own I guess.
Throttle Response: very good, much better than I expected from an FI engine. Is it as good as the S65? No. Will one notice the difference or care from day to day in 99% of it's driving including track time? Probably not. I love the throttle response of the S65 and it was my biggest concern of BMW ///M going to FI, but I must admit, the experience was not muted and I stand corrected, no issues here.
Suspension: honestly, I don't notice a huge difference from my 2011 EDC system and this one. COMFORT is nice but stiff as it should be and SPORT+ is stiff as hell but nice
. Didn't try SPORT. I have read so many reviews about how it's so much better and I don't care what anyone says and all the articles on how much quicker it responds, on day to day driving, there is no real perceivable difference. I guess track time if you were a pro driver and put this system on one F8x and fitted the old system on another F8x (which wouldn't even be possible) then we could accurately compare, and then maybe we would find a difference in lapse times.
DCT vs DCT: I drive an e92 with M-DCT and the test car also came with DCT and really there was no huge difference except for one: the F8x felt more like an automatic, even in MANUAL mode. Even the appearance was disappointing. Instead of a leather boot around the gear knob, it was just the classic M knob from the e92/e60/F10 stuck on a plastic stick that ran down into the car, exactly like a standard BMW automatic gear shift. It also felt like crap when placed into reverse. Instead of a solid rubber "bang" feel like on the older SMGs and DCTs, it bang like some old GM auto. Really, really disappointed. However, in daily operation of just "rowing thru the gears" if blind folded and using paddle shifters, I'd have a tough time discerning between the two if both in similar settings. As a manufal guy who converted, as I said with the last generation, DCT in these cars is just a great fit.
Low RPM vs High RPM: the one area that really impressed me is that this engine really pulls hard to redline. In fact, it felt S65 like. VERY impressed. At lower RPM the F80 felt great, but honestly, I felt the S65 did fine around town even shifting around 3k or so.......but F8x was an improvement, you cannot argue with that.
Highway Power / High Speed: I hear all the complaints about no low end torque on the S65, I don't agree, but I hear and understand them to a point. With this in mind I wanted to see if at highway speed this car was better than the S65 and creating separation without down shifting. To be honest, I was disappointed. I expected a bigger difference, but it was a small one. At 70mph, you hit the gas on the S65 in 7th and it just goes, as is the case with the S55 in 7th, except here is where the lag thing becomes obvious. Not enough to make it an issue, but enough to eat up some of the advantage the S55 has. I know the stats say otherwise, but reality said otherwise......
Overall: something is missing. This car looks killer from the outside and checks all the boxes but comes short in the biggest box of all: a soul and being an ///M car----and its just not that much faster in real life to even come close to making up for that. The details of how this car "feels" is missing, even the DCT seems to have been softened. The M3 has always been somewhere between sporty sedan and sports car, always leaning more to the latter (at least that is how I feel). But now, it's definitely closer to the former.
See this car feels more like a planted 335iS than an M3. Now being compared to a 335iS in every other situation would be a compliment, but in this one it's not. It reminds me of the 335i vs e46 M3 comparisons back in the day; I know because I bought one of the first e92 335i's because my work situation had me driving 21k /yr and did not want to trash an e46 M with that kind of mileage. However, I always looked at every e46 M3 that I saw with envy and regret. My car was faster, at every speed (with only a light Dinan tube) and got twice the gas mileage, but something was missing. Before even turning the car on, you sat in an e46///M3 and new something was different.
Going from my e92 ///M3 to the F80 was just like going from a e46 M to a tuned 335i----numbers all say its faster but something is just missing. To be honest, I didn't even feel a big performance difference between the F8x and mine. Maybe how you get the performance is different. Perhaps if the F80 had been the e92 (in that it followed the e46) this would be a better comparison, but the e92 just set the bar too close to sport car in feel. It's like comparing a GT3 to a GTR----the paper says the GTR is the car to own, but I for one would rather drive the GT3.
Will they sell a ton more of of the F8x? Yup, it absolutely appeals to a wider audience. Would I own one? Yup, I would absolutely lease, not buy one. Would I give up my e92 for one? No way in hell. Every M has always had one thing in common: a soul. It never was the fastest in class, yet always was on top because there was something special about it, the way it talked to and made the driver feel. The F8x does not, and there is something missing. After a bunch of glowing reviews by pro drivers and non-pro I expected to be putting the deposit down and saying good bye to the e92, instead I drove home and told the wife we need a plan B, she laughed and said "No problem, we will figure it out".
Cheers,
e46e92