Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Awesome timing on that post. I just got back from the household of a friend whose lightweighted all-motor E46 M3 will have to be pried from his cold dead fingers.
The same household also includes an E39 M5, a beautiful all-motor 128i, an E46 330i ZHP, and an E91 328i, as well as a new Boxster and a 930 Carrera. This is the family that sold me my last car, an E36 M3 (which I owned at the time of the post you're responding to). It's basically a small monument to naturally aspirated, chassis-oriented, Bavarian-made sport sedans. In our extended circle of mutual friends, there is at least one more ZHP and more E46 and E9x M3s than I can count, as well as various other naturally aspirated M cars.
So, yeah, I feel like I know a thing or two about what makes BMW M cars great. In a nutshell, it's not about numbers or easy speed; it's about legit race car dynamics in a usable package. The main reason I no longer own a BMW M car is that I don't feel they take that formula far enough.
But you don't know me at all, so I can't blame you for being so dismissive. No worries.
Yes, there are a lot of active M3 enthusiasts online. The Internet can make just about any interest group look big. The fact remains that, to most people, the M3 is just another performance car that rides too hard, guzzles too much gas, and doesn't seem too impressive on paper. People buy the car for the status, or because they think it's fast, or because they're 17 and have too much money, or because they want something "nice" that'll still keep up with their buddy's Mustang. To those people, what really makes a naturally aspirated M3 great -- its throttle response, its high redline, its magical handling -- is completely unintelligible.
Why do you think the M3's competitors all have more torque and sloppier handling? Do you really think AMG and quattro couldn't hang if they wanted to, or could it be that most people would take low-end torque and a softer ride over genuine race car dynamics?
Why do you think it's essentially impossible to find an E46 M3 for sale in good condition? Is the car really that fragile, or are proper enthusiasts that rare?
Why do you think BMW's current model lineup is so annoyingly soft? Is BMW actively trying to drive away real enthusiasts, or is it following the more prevalent market trends?
Even in the enthusiast-laden online communities, there are hordes of people trying to cheap out on upkeep in ways that make you wonder why they bought an M3 in the first place. So many M3s ride on junk tires and have suspensions that are completely shot, and their owners are constantly trying to find a cheaper oil to run. Among the people who want to go fast, so many are terrified of the engine's best RPM range -- they think using 50% throttle and shifting at 6k is "racing." This is not something you'd expect to see if informed and passionate owners were any more than a tiny minority.
Yes, there are enthusiasts. Yes, they are passionate. Yes, they know their cars. They do not represent the majority of M3 owners, and they are essentially nonexistent in the grand scheme of the automotive market as a whole. They (we) are a subset of a subset of a subset of people who like performance cars, which itself is a minority in the general population. It hurts, but it's a truth that must be faced.
I agree with much of what you posted, but what's your point? My post wasn't about those issues, but rather I called you on your claim that an M3 will "punish" you if you don't drive it hard. It's a baseless claim and nothing you said convinces me otherwise.
I'm not sure where you're going about not owning a BMW M car because they aren't performance oriented enough. Why you driving an RX-8 then?
There are a lot of reasons why it's so hard to find an M3 in good condition. For one, many people blindly follow BMW's 15000 mi / 20000 km oci, which is double what it should be. (FWIW, my mechanic, who works on BMW, Porsche, MB, etc. considers new BMWs to be disposable because if people follow BMW's recommended maintenance intervals, the engines inevitably will become sludged up and dirty. It's well known that BMW isn't alone on this regard. The same thing applies to VAG.)
The other reason it's so hard to find an M3 in good condition is because the cars are becoming cheap enough for young drivers to purchase without knowing how expensive the cars are to own. They can't afford proper tires. They can't afford oil changes. Etc. The result is that cars owned by such people end up as beaters or get totaled. The same thing happened with E36s and E30s. Try finding either of them in good condition.
As for the direction BMW is going, it's irrelevant what I think. I assume BMW is doing what they perceive will result in the most profit and that they couldn't care less what enthusiasts or owners of older models think. I think it's fair to say that if they gave a sh*t, they would have addressed the oil, VANOS and subframe issues differently, as opposed to not all.