What We Learned After Testing a BMW M3 Over 40,000 Miles | Car and Driver

Hey, welcome to Car and Driver. You know, we have a fleet of vehicles that we evaluate for around a year or so. And in that time, we aim to put 40,000 miles on those vehicles. We call it a long-term test. Now, this aggressive driving cycle includes cross-country road trips and driving in real Michigan winters, amongst other things. And we find that this kind of driving reveals what a car is like to live with during the first few years of ownership and highlights any potential issues you might experience as a new owner. Now, we did all this with our 2022 BMW M3. And in this video, we're going to go over what it was like to live with, what we liked, what we didn't like, how much it cost us, and what you should expect if you were to buy one. We didn't get the most powerful M3 available. That would have been the 503 horsepower competition. Nor did we get the quickest M3 available. That would have been the all-wheel drive competition xDrive. The problem with these variants is that neither offers a manual transmission. And we take that omission seriously. No, we got the base M3, and that was the right decision. Even after options, which included roughly $2,500 worth of leather seating, $1,000 for aluminum interior trim, and $1,500 for a package that included a heated steering wheel and a power-operated trunk, our M3 cost $77,825. That's less than where the competition xDrive starts. And after 40,000 miles, we decided this was the perfect spec for the M3. Our staff drove this car across the country twice. It went down to Virginia International Raceway twice. And it went on countless road trips in between. And the thing that everybody kept coming back to was this powertrain. This 3-liter twin-turbo straight-six just rips. It makes a ton of power, and it pulls delightfully to redline. And what makes it so much more enjoyable is that it's paired with a six-speed manual transmission. This transmission is a really nice way to interact with this engine. The shifter feel is good. It's a traditional BMW shifter, which feels a little rubbery and has that very, I don't know, I guess, BMW-unique fingerprint to it. And when it's paired to this monster of an engine, it's so, so satisfying. This thing makes only 473 horsepower, which in today's world of 700-horsepower Dodge Challengers and Chargers or even more powerful EVs, it doesn't seem like a lot. But this experience altogether is still very enjoyable because of this link to the manual. Now, certainly, an automatic transmission is going to make for faster acceleration and quicker lap times. But when you're off the racetrack, where most of us drive every day, the manual makes for a far more engaging driving experience more frequently, like when you forgot to plan dinner and have to run over to the grocery store at 8 o'clock at night. You're still going to find driving engagement out of this transmission. And if you still need the bragging rights, this M3 reached 60 miles an hour in 3.9 seconds and the quarter mile in 12.2 seconds at 117 miles an hour when we tested it. Now, that's a little over a second slower than the results that we got from a Competition X Drive. But those are figures we can certainly live with happily. Another thing people on staff kept coming back to was how short the gearing was, especially in 6. We'd often find ourselves turning like 3,000 RPM on the freeway. And that's maybe why this car was so enjoyable, because the rated torque peak of 406 pound feet is at 2650 RPM. So when you're on the freeway, you're right at that torque peak. So when you roll on, you get addicting acceleration constantly. And yet, despite that, we averaged 22 MPG over the course of 40,000 miles. And compare that to the EPA's combined rating of 19 MPG, and that's pretty good. No matter what you or I might think about how this grille looks, we have to point out that this car received a lot of positive attention from the general public. Whether it was at a car wash, at a parking lot, or even when you're stuck in stop and go traffic, this thing got lots of thumbs ups. We think that one of the reasons for that is this color. I'm partial to green already. But this aisle of green metallic paint job, which costs $550, was worth every penny, because it just looks fabulous. Also, during ownership, we replaced the BMW badges with these ones that celebrate 50 years of BMW's Motorsports division. That's really of no significance to the ownership process. I just think they're neat. What didn't we like? Well, comparisons to our long-term 2022 Cadillac CT4V Blackwing were inevitable and uniform in the BMW's powertrain superiority. The steering was another matter. The logbook was full of criticisms of the steering, specifically for it lacking damping, which made it too easy to fling the car around when you didn't want to. One editor said that they got used to it, like any owner would, but that a quick spin in an E90 or earlier generation M3 would leave any owner pretty disappointed. Largely, though, the criticisms end there. Most of them were centered on small things, like the counterclockwise and non-circular tachometer, occasionally fiddly infotainment menu controls, and the lack of a button, a physical switch at least, that would sync the dual zone climate controls. That's just annoying. My biggest frustration was the gesture control system, which allows you to control the infotainment system by moving your hand around. The problem is it frequently gave me false positives, mistaking a harmless hand gesture that wasn't intended to do anything as me requesting the system to change the volume or the climate controls. Fortunately, though, you could just turn it off, which I did. Where many people shelter their fun cars, we drive them year round, which brings us to winter. I found it amusing to drive this nearly 500 horsepower rear-wheel drive sedan that has a California license plate on it in Michigan winter. It was challenging, though, to find a good set of winter tires. We, frankly, couldn't find tires to fit our wheel setup, which is 18-inch front, 19-inch rear. So through BMW, we bought a set of 19-inch wheels and Michelin Pilot Alpine 5 tires, and that set us back $3,700. That winter wheel and tire combination gave us great traction, at least for the first winter. But after we installed it, there was an increase in complaints about ride quality. One particularly spicy note highlighted how a staffer's spouse refused to take a return road trip after they got to their destination but were somewhat suspicious of the M3's culpability in that specific instance. When the summer wheel and tire package went back on, the complaints in the logbook largely disappeared. But during our second winter, the Pilot Alpine started showing signs of wear. One editor noted a lack of traction during even light acceleration. We rotated the tires to finish the test, but we'd replace them if we were keeping the car. And that brings us to wear. Look, this is a powerful rear-drive sedan that, let's say, encourages dynamic driving behavior. After all, it came equipped with a 10-stage traction control system and a feature that literally scores your drifting with a star rating. Try as we might, we never got five stars, but we tried. I say all this because it shouldn't be surprising that we only got roughly 11,000 miles out of our first set of rear summer tires. The second set fared slightly better, showing their wear bars after roughly 13,000 miles. Now, you could drive more reasonably to reduce tire wear. You could also drive a Prius. So there's that. Tire wear wasn't too surprising, but there was something that was. So the tire wear shouldn't be too surprising, but we did find something that was. During our end-of-test measurements, we pulled off the wheels and noticed this rash on both front brake calipers. This appears to be the result of the tight clearance between the front 18-inch wheels and these brake calipers. And that tight space means it's more likely that debris will get stuck in there and cause the wear that we see right here. Now, this could be the result of winding up in a gravel trap on a track day. But we think it's more likely that it's the result of the number of unpaved roads that some of us here commute on regularly in Michigan. So what's the takeaway? Well, if you happen to get an M3 with the 18-inch wheels, maybe avoid driving on gravel roads if you can. While replacing the tires and getting winter wheels was expensive, the other maintenance wasn't, thanks to BMW's three-year 36,000-mile maintenance program, which meant our four scheduled services cost us nothing. We did have a few unscheduled repairs, though, which were a little bit more expensive. At some point during our ownership, the front parking sensor got cracked, which cost us about $800. And the front bumper got misaligned at some point, too. We think that was the result of a careless encounter with a parking curb. Realigning the bumper and replacing a couple of rubber trim pieces cost us about $150. Despite the wear, tire and otherwise, we deeply enjoyed covering miles with our M3. Our own Rich Seppos called it an everyday drivable car with a lion's heart. Whatever it lacked in steering feel versus competitors or acceleration times versus other M3s, it made up for with constant driving pleasure. Our experience confirmed that the manual M3 remains the best M3.