The following is for car nuts only, if you’re not interested in reading about some guy gushing over details of a car, you probably won’t want to read it 😉 Enjoy the photos I took of my M3!

What makes the E46 (2000-2006) BMW M3 one of the most coveted car enthusiast dream car? Great handling balance, good power, timeless looks, practicality, free revving naturally aspirated engine… yes, the list is long and it definitely deserves to be held in high regard in automotive history.

Utah

As the performance car icon for BMW in the early 2000s, the M3 comes with a great inline 6 engine which revs to an ear piercing 8000rpm. My car comes with the 6 speed manual. It is great fun to listen the car sing to red line gear after gear. Although the power is very decent at 333 horse power, I do feel that the engine is lacking just a bit of top end specialness to make it truly amazing. I think the problem is the linear power delivery; the power curve is simply too smooth all the way to redline. There’s not enough of an extra surge in the upper RPM range to make it feel more exciting. Don’t get me wrong, it is very satisfying and I never really feel wanting in terms of power, but the engine feels competent instead of egging you on like a devil on your shoulder. Surprisingly however, low end power is very decent for such a high revving engine, and there is no need to rev it extremely high everywhere you go.

Beartooth Pass

One of the best attributes of the E46 chassis is the 50/50 front to rear weight balance of the car. The M3 just feels absolutely balanced in the corners. That wasn’t the case when I first bought the car though. With the stock tire size of 225 section front and 255 rear, it simply understeered too much on turn in and mid corner. However, after I swapped 245 wide front tires on, everything was perfect. The car will turn in with great grip, settling into very minor understeer if throttle is applied before steering is unwinded. Or, if I trail brake slightly, the car will very gentle tighten up the line. On corner exits the car will slowly swing into controllable oversteer, aided by the M-Differential which puts power down to the ground with great confidence. While it doesn’t quite have the quick darty turn in of a Mini Cooper or Scion FRS which I liked a lot, the M3’s steering and chassis telegraphs every move the car makes. This is very confidence inspiring. The neutral balance of the chassis lets you carve corners with fluid motions few other cars can match. The suspension also has a great ability to shrug off bumps mid corner, making it a very fast car on less than smooth mountain roads. Unfortunately the stability and traction control is too restrictive on dry roads. Even with the M-traction mode programmed, it intrudes too often in the dry. Turning it off allows me to explore the limits of the car of course, but that also takes away the safety net, so I didn’t do it too often.

Great Sand dunes national park

The car’s ride and interior features are both pretty decent. I put Koni adjustable dampers on the car not long after I bought it. This improved ride over small bumps tremendously. The M3 usually feels poised and in control. However, it does seem to be a bit sensitive to crosswinds on the highway, and the front end definitely has a bit of lift at very high speeds (200kph+). Stability and grip suffers more than I’d like at those speeds, which usually doesn’t matter for public road driving. The car is a pretty nice place to be for long journeys. It isn’t very quiet, with some wind noise, tire noise, and engine note audible. However it’s not objectionable. Seats are fairly comfortable and well bolstered. The seating position isn’t as low as I’d like for a sports car though, it feels very much like sitting in a normal car. The Harmon Kardon sound system is quite good; it’s definitely better than most non luxury car sound systems out there.

Bonneville Salt Flat

I drove the M3 through the long winters of northern Alberta for 6 years. Contrary to what some people might think, it’s actually quite good to drive on snow and ice despite being rear wheel drive. The electronic stability control does an excellent job of keeping the car pointed exactly where you want it and refuses to let the car spin. I did program in the M-traction mode for my car, which relaxes the stability control slightly. This allows for some tail out action at lower speeds (below 60km/h) on snow and on wet roads before the computer shuts me down. As competent as the M3 is on snow, it certainly wasn’t very quick in accelerating. Even though it has the M-limited slip differential, physics still reigns supreme, and the M3 is only about as fast as a normal front wheel car drive on snow.

Overall I would rate the 150,000kms spent in the M3 a solid 8.5/10. It was very reliable, fast, fun, and stylish. However as a sporty car, the seating position is a bit high, the turn in is slightly sluggish, and the engine doesn’t have an amazing top end, even though it did rev very high. It is always very competent and obedient. It never felt lacking, yet it also didn’t have an air of lightness and willingness to it that some other sports cars have. What it does best, is that it makes the driver feel supremely in touch with the road. It’s got an analogue fluidity that is sorely lacking in most other cars.

While I still have the M3 right now, I do plan on selling it off soon. To replace the M3 as my daily driver, I’ve bought an Audi S4. It has adaptive suspension, dual clutch transmission and torque vectoring rear differential. I’ll write a detailed review of that in the future. But I’ll say this, the M3 is a great car and I pretty much loved every minute of driving it. It is definitely a very cool car, and I’m glad I had the chance to drive it for so many miles to so many incredible locales.

Jasper

Pikes Peak

Crater Lake

Banff



Mount Revelstoke

Fort Mcmurray



Oregon

Road trips with the M3:

2010 – Jasper, Banff, Nelson

2010 – Glacier National Park

2012 – Oregon, Mount St Helens, Crater Lake

2014 – Seattle, Vancouver

2015 – Yellowstone, Colorado, Utah