CARLOS LAGO: Hey, Carlos Lago with Edmunds here.
And that is the 2021 BMW M3.
It's not just any M3.
It's the M3 competition.
A fact it proudly displays with badges on its fenders and door
sills.
The M3 has been synonymous with fun-to-drive sedans
since the 1980s.
But now it's in its sixth generation.
So it and its competitors have changed substantially.
You still have the traditionals, like the Mercedes Benz C63
AMG, the Audi S4.
And you also have new competitors
from Alfa Romeo and Cadillac and a few others,
including the Tesla Model 3 performance.
The world's changed a lot.
So what is the M3 doing to stay relevant?
What's good about it?
What's not so good about it?
And is it worth your hard earned cash?
Or is it worth the time you want to spend
on the internet arguing about it?
Why don't you go ahead and start an argument
below in the comments because we'll
answer some of these questions.
And also, be sure to visit edmunds.com/sellmycar to get
instant cash offer on your car and also give this video a like
and subscribe to the channel if you like what we're doing.
We really appreciate it.
Before we start talking about the M4 and the M4,
we have to get the biggest headline out
of the way first, this, all this because this
dominates the conversation when you
talk about the M3 and the M4.
My personal take is it's ugly, and I don't like it.
And I want to not like the car because of it.
On the other hand, taste is subjective.
So there are probably people out there
who actually think this looks cool and it's stunning.
And it gets a lot of attention.
No argument about that.
You also have to appreciate how bold BMW is being.
I mean, this car is effectively highlighter yellow
and has a contrasting blue interior.
It's definitely not the way I would order it.
But if you want to be loud and proud, you can.
There's that saying, flaunt if you got it.
And if you don't got it, hey, still flaunt it, right?
Let's move on.
The 2021 M3 is longer, wider, and
taller than the previous generation M3.
We haven't weighed this particular car yet.
But using BMW's own specifications,
this is about 260 pounds heavier than an equivalent M3
competition from the last generation.
It's also more expensive.
The base M3 starts at roughly $71,000.
And that's rear-wheel drive with a six-speed manual
transmission.
Getting the M4 coupe adds three grand to that price.
Adding the competition package to either
is two grand respectively.
So why would you want the competition pack?
Well, it adds additional cooling hardware.
If you want to go fast on a racetrack,
for example, you get a couple aesthetic upgrades.
And you also get just over 500 horsepower from that twin turbo
straight six under the hood.
On the down side, it's only available
with an automatic transmission.
But on the other hand, it will be
available with all-wheel drive very shortly.
And that should make for improved 0 to 60 mile an hour
times, which are always important
and when it comes to internet bragging rights.
Anyway, this particular car has a bunch of options on it.
Most of them have to do with carbon fiber.
You have the carbon fiber exterior trim, carbon fiber
interior trim, the carbon bucket seats, carbon ceramic brakes,
and also the M drivers package with a few other things, which
gives us a higher top speed and also a day of driver training.
All total, this car costs just under $100,000.
And that's quite a lot of money.
Another upgrade you get with the competition package
are the wheels and tires.
They're an inch larger, front and rear.
And they look really good.
It's probably the best-looking part on this car in my opinion.
The front, they're 19's.
In the rears, their 20's.
They're wrapped with Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires.
275 in the front, 285 in the rear.
And as for brakes, the base M3 and M4 come with 15-inch rotors
in the front, 14.6-inch rotors in the rear.
But when you opt for carbon ceramics,
because what self-respecting sports car in 2021
doesn't offer carbon ceramics?
My God.
You get 15.7-inch rotors in the front and 15-inch rotors
in the rear.
That's a lot of brake.
Now, I'll also point out too if you happen to see a new sports
car riding around with these Michelin's Pilot Sports--
or I believe the cups, too.
And you see this like, texture here, go ahead and rub it
because it feels neat.
It's almost like felt. But maybe ask the owner
before you do it because that's a weird thing to do to tires
you don't own.
But it's neat.
[MOTOR]
Good Lord, this thing is fast.
So the M3 has always been so desirable
because it marries extreme fun-to-drive behavior
with the utility of a sedan.
Part of the way, you get that behavior
is through a dynamic engine.
Now, the M3 has had almost every configuration of engine
that you can put in a sports car from a 4 cylinder
to a 6 cylinder to a V8.
And now, turbo-charged 6 cylinders
have been in the previous generation and this generation.
I for one long for the days of naturally
aspirated high-revving engines that
don't have turbochargers and superchargers because they
sound and feel really exciting.
But that's no longer the world we live in generally speaking.
So this engine, given the restrictions
of today with regard to fuel economy and efficiency and all
that stuff, this is pretty exciting from especially
from power delivery standpoint.
When this engine gets into the meat of its power band,
it feels real strong between 5,000 and 6,000 RPM or so.
And the gearing is space close enough
that when you're shifting in between those points,
you feel like you're riding this wave of acceleration that
feels really, really good.
And it's a lot of acceleration as well.
This is just over 500 horsepowers.
The way it's able to generate speed
is very, very exciting too.
Now, the sound is aggressive.
And when you have the exhaust in the sports setting
in the engine in its sport plus mode,
there are some additional engine feedback
coming into the cabin that's not there, otherwise.
And it is, again, adds to the experience.
I'm not going to say it sounds good, but it is aggressive.
And that is pleasing.
You know when you're on the gas pedal in this thing,
how far you are to red line based
on the sound and the experience from behind the wheel-- that
sense of acceleration again.
It all feels really nice.
So given the constraints of today,
I'd give it a pretty strong A-plus in terms of response
and feel.
That's nice.
The transmission-- this eight-speed automatic
shifts basically without any complaints from me.
It does exactly what I ask it.
This transmission does the job.
I would hope it too shifts quickly.
And it shifts responsibly at the end of the day.
Now, you can probably hear in this cabin
that this is a bit louder of an experience
than you would expect from a normal 3 Series.
And part of that has to do with the additional changes
that the 3 Series goes through when it becomes M3.
This is a stiffer, firmer chassis
with all the upgrade suspension componentry and so on.
That translates more feedback-- road feedback
coming through the wheels, tires, and into the cabin.
You feel it most noticeably through the seat.
Like if you put this on a textured surface like I am now,
I feel each one of those impacts--
each one of those tire impacts, not
in a way that's uncomfortable.
It's not firm.
The suspension control is enough to control those impacts
and just relay that they're happening to me, the driver.
It's a nice way to provide feedback without interrupting
the driving experience.
But I will say when you're on the freeway
and just driving to work, this is a louder, noisier interior
to do a literal sound and noise but also those frequencies
and bumps from the road.
So that's mixed.
But that's what gives you the exciting driving experience.
When you have the suspension in sport
like I have it in now, on a road like this,
you can charge up this with confidence in the traction,
confidence in the steering, and confidence
with the entire driving experience, which
leads to having a lot of fun at the wheel.
The steering wheel itself is chunky.
It feels good to hold onto.
The gripping is appropriate for an M3.
This works really well.
In terms of precision, I put it up into sport
to get a little more resistance, a little bit less assistance
out of it because that helped me dial in my input a bit
more accurately.
But overall, it feels really nice.
These optional bucket seats that we talked about earlier,
they are very supportive without feeling uncomfortable.
A lot of bucket seats give you a lot of support
but not a lot of comfort often.
These ones do a nice job of blending the two.
And I think part of that has to do with the fact
that their side lumbar is power-adjusting.
So if you're a bit wider than myself,
you can open up that lumber and fit more comfortably.
That's really good too.
[MOTOR]
Ooh, hoo, hoo.
This engine just wants to rip.
[MOTOR]
My god, this thing is fast.
My god, this thing is powerful.
This engine is really, really capable.
And it feels like you have just a smidge more
engine than you have tire grip.
And in my mind, that's the right place to be,
just slightly too much power.
That's always a good feeling when
it comes to a driving experience in an M3.
I know all-wheel drive will be available for this car.
I look forward to evaluating that version
of the M3 and the M4.
Would I want it based on my experience with this?
I don't think it's necessary so far, unless you really
care about that all-important 0 to 60 time.
Overall, this M3 in my mind does what
you would hope an M3 would do.
It is usable as a family car so you
can sell it to the family as a responsible idea.
But it's also thrilling to drive.
This thing feels very exciting and serious in a way
that you would expect from the competition badge.
That is an important distinction.
And the fact that you can get it in a four-door sedan
with a drift mode is it's just cool in my mind.
Driving experience is great.
Does it outweigh the exterior design?
That's for you to decide.
When you hop inside the M3 or at least this particular M3,
you go, whoa, that's really blue and yellow--
kind of reminds me of Spandex from the late '80s
and early '90s.
Don't get your car in this color.
Actually if you do, if you want it, get it.
I definitely would not.
But anyway, missing the point.
The M3 because it's based on the 3 Series,
much like how the M4 is based on the 4 Series coupe,
you reap all the benefits that you would get from a sedan.
That means a really nice, large interior space
for both front and rear passengers.
There's plenty of room in that backseat for adults
of normal size.
And a usable interior with a interior layout
that makes sense and plenty of outward visibility too.
You reap all the benefits of being a sedan
and having a trunk as well.
That's really nice.
Now, all the M stuff shows up in one part
with all the sheer number of carbon fiber bits.
There's carbon fiber on the steering wheel, carbon fiber
shift panels, carbon fiber on the center console
here, carbon fiber on these optional bucket seats.
There's carbon fiber everywhere.
They want you to know that you're
driving something special.
That's why there's also red accents
and red and blue accents in the traditional BMW Motorsport
colors as well.
The thing that really stands out to me
is the sheer number of drive modes.
There's a lot of them.
You have the traditional stuff that you
would expect in a modern sports car,
like being able to change the engine
response or the adaptive damper firmness or the steering
assistance.
You have two to three different settings for each of those.
But then you can also change how responsive or sensitive
the brake pedal is.
This automatic transmission has three levels
of shift firmness adjustment in automatic
and an additional three for manual.
When you get this car with all-wheel drive,
the all-wheel drive system has three different settings.
One of them, fortunately, is two-wheel drive
so you can still do drifts.
But we'll talk about that more in a second.
The sheer number of drive modes is overwhelming at first.
If you buy this car, if you spent a lot of time with it,
you'll figure out the ones that work for you.
And how that works for you is that you
have these little M1 and M2 buttons on top of the steering
wheel.
Those have been around on previous M cars.
And those are basically drive mode shortcuts.
You can program them like you would a radio station.
You set your ideal steering and suspension, stability control
intervention, the threshold.
And then you save that by holding the button.
So you can key up the car and comfort, for example,
have M1 be sport and M2 be race track kill mode
or however you want to set it up for yourself.
So it works after you've spent some time with it.
But I wish that, like BMW would take away
some of the adjustment, because I just
want BMW to have an opinion about how sensitive a brake
pedal should be.
This is a 500 horsepower sports sedan.
I'm going to accept that there's going
to be some control that BMW would
have over that experience.
Anyway, you can solve it with those buttons.
The interesting though, is when we get down here
to this M traction control.
You can only activate the setting
when stability control is off like it is now.
You have 10 levels and an off mode.
What this does here is it keeps stability control off.
But you can change the threshold of traction control
intervention.
Why would you want to do that?
Well, when you're power sliding and you're not
very skilled at it, you want something safety net.
And this allows you to bias that amount of safety net to keep--
it would back off the engine to control wheelspin
so you don't end up in a ditch somewhere
or in the gravel trap at a drift event.
Speaking of drifting, this car actually
has a drift analyzer which is neat and wild and cool
to see in a new car.
When you turn it on, you can see here,
there's actually stars that will guide you
and rate you on the quality of your drift.
It'll evaluate your level of understeer.
It'll evaluate your level of oversteer and so on.
You can adjust the traffic control.
And you'll see that you can actually
have more stars available when you turn traction control all
the way off as opposed to when you turn it all the way up,
you have fewer stars available at your disposal.
It's like a video game, which is neat and fun.
You can also change it from a single drift rating
to a drift session.
It will tell you how long you've been drifting.
This is really fun neat stuff to show up
in a car from the dealership.
I'm really looking forward to being a play with it when we
can get it to our test track.
We weren't able to do that in time
for this review to go live.
But this is exciting and neat.
Something that I think is just a lot of fun
to play around with once you're on a off-highway surface
obviously.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So where does that leave the M3 after our first experience
behind the wheel?
It's pretty good.
Let's go through the pros and the cons, though.
The pro is this thing is really fun to drive.
The acceleration and response from that engine to the ride
and handling make for an experience
that will make you giggle while you're
driving fast, plain and simple.
Combine that with the functionality
of a sedan designed from the interior layout to the trunk,
and you have a really usable vehicle as well.
And that's the formula that made the M3 so special.
And it's worked for the M3 for so many years.
Also, I like the little fun bits in the infotainment, especially
that little drift mode.
It's a nice little touch of character.
On the down side, there's two minor ones first.
And you could probably live with them if you own the car.
The interior noise during the commute
is a little high and the excessive amount
of drive modes.
But that's stuff you could figure out.
After that comes the price.
Stack options on this car.
And it gets expensive in a hurry.
Lastly, though, there's that--
how it looks.
My biggest personal turn off, although I
know some people watching this are totally fine with that.
And if you're OK with that, you're
going to love driving this car.
Let us know if you are in the comments below.
Also let us know what you'd like to see
in the inevitable comparisons and drag
race that feature this vehicle.
We have a few in mind, and we want to know what you think.
Anyway, thanks for watching.
See on the next one.
Make sure you to like and subscribe
if you enjoyed what we're doing.
And also be sure to visit edmunds.com at the links below
to see more information about vehicles like this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MOTOR]