I sold my beloved and verbosely-named Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX MR and replaced it with a much more terse BMW M3. The M3 is a 2011 sedan (E90) and it is optioned with DCT so my wife will enjoy driving it too; she never was comfortable driving my manual shift cars. While Evo was always my car in her eyes, we purchased the M3 as our family vehicle and she is really excited to have a car again. (I’ll see if I can harness this enthusiasm and get her onto the track!)
The M3 arrived on Friday, so I don’t yet have a holistic opinion on the vehicle. My first and main impression is a feeling of massive solidity to the M3. A metaphor: if you wanted to break a window, you could pick up a stone and fling it through the glass and achieve your aim. Flinging a pebble at the glass is the Evo. It is light, easily chucked and will result is a satisfying tinkle of glass. Heaving a softball-sized rock at the window is the M3; a much more forceful approach with the same smashing result (pun intended!). That additional weight and heft comes through all the interactions with the M3: heavier steering and thick wheel, planted/hunkered down stance, beefier engine with much more aggressive accelerative (and especially decelerative) response, the quality cabin interfaces, the low and deep seating position framed by with thick, high-shouldered doors.
During the first two days I really only did cruising rather than sporty driving. The M3 cruises very comfortably; I would even say luxuriously except that there is significant tire noise and the ride more sporty/firm than smooth. My wife and I are enjoying being able to hold a conversation with only slightly raised voices, while in the Evo we were yelling at each other at highway speeds. We are also pleased to be able to play Pandora via Bluetooth over the stereo and get traffic data on the built-in navigation. These and all the other creature comforts are quite a change of pace.
Today I got to take the M3 out to Napa and drove Hwy 121 and Hwy 128 (Sage Canyon Rd). I did everything with stability control on, the DCT in manual mode (S4 and S5), and the suspension in Sport, and I was really very pleased with the result. Contrasting to the Evo, the M3’s chassis shows a very neutral poise. The M3 has almost no body roll, it swallows the bumps well, it turns-in without understeer or other resistance, and when you roll on the throttle after the apex the rear squats, digs into the pavement, and pushes you out of the corner so smoothly. In the Evo when exiting a corner there was always some front-end scramble as the boost hit and you ripped forward. This four-cornered, claws-in-the-earth feeling combined with the lightness of controls and ability to bound over bumps means the Evo scampers down a twisty road like a squirrel scampers up a tree. The M3 on the other hand has the smoothness and sinewy strength of a larger animal. It bolts like a pouncing cat, or maybe like a striking snake.
What I do miss from the Evo is the lightness, quickness and communication from the steering. Only once during the whole day did the M3 inform me of its impending limits, with a slight chatter in the steering as I encountered a touch of understeer. The Evo would let me know what is happening with the road surface at all times, whether I was driving at 5/10ths or 11/10ths. I expect the M3 will become more talkative as I approach its limits, but seeing as those limits are so high as to be generally out of reach on the street, this means I won’t be hearing much from the car day to day.
(Interestingly, the manual shifting of the Evo IX is not something I missed under full chat in the M3 on Hwy 121 today.)
The engine note on the M3 is a real pleasure. It makes good sounds all the way from 2k up to 8k. I am actually a bit surprised by how vocal and loud my M3 is—when I rode in an E92 coupe a few months ago I thought that the exhaust needed to be turned up a notch—but in my car it is the perfect loudness and I would not want it any shoutier. The M3 produces plenty of usable torque (from my lowly perspective) throughout its full rev range, and I am doing most of my “sporty” driving (as the owner’s manual puts it) in the 3k to 6k range. Clearly, I am going to need some retraining so that I use the full potential of the 8,300 rpm red line.
Another aspect which will require some retraining is the sensitivity and smoothness of my throttle foot. I could be a bit sloppy and aggressive with the throttle in the Evo and the lag in the turbo would smooth out the delivery. Now in the M3 I need to be much smoother again as the car pitches fore and aft with every slight lift (and press) of my foot.
Speaking of smoothness, my main quibble with the DCT so far is that it makes it hard for me to brake with consistent force. During aggressive braking while approaching a corner, the braking force changes during downshifts because the DCT declutches and blips the throttle on the way into the lower gear. During this process I lose the engine-braking effect on my overall retardation and so the car surges forward a bit while declutched. A similar thing occurs in stop-and-go traffic when coming to a complete stop. The M3 has a traffic mode where the DCT will slip the clutch while the engine is idling to keep the car creeping forward between at 3 or 4 mph. The problem comes when I add light braking on top of this mode; once the speed slows to the point that DCT realizes I’m coming to a complete stop, it will declutch and then the M3 will abruptly come to a halt as my braking is no longer being counteracted by the engine. The result is a less than limo smooth halt.
Driving down Hwy 121 in the M3 vs the other key vehicles I’ve driven (Evo IX, GT-R, CTS-V), I was definitely having more fun in the new-to-me M3 than I would be having in my super-familiar Evo. Much of this comes from my delight in the super-neutral, resistance-free handling of the M3 and its flat, imperturbable, stuck-to-the-road stance on the pavement. Had I been in the GT-R, I probably would have been having an even more exciting time, as the GT-R is wickedly frightening when under full power with the tires breaking loose. The M3’s power (in MDM) never threatened to light-up the tires, so it was never frightening to roll into full power. The GT-R also has a super rigid chassis which pleasurably accentuates all of the swoops and whoops in a twisty, undulating road. Roads which the blisteringly fast GT-R experiences as pavement-falling way, jumpy pleasures and is less exciting in the Evo due to its softer, long-travel suspension and less stiff chassis hiding the rollercoaster whoops and swoops. The M3’s structure is pretty stiff too, but its more compliant suspension swallows some of the elevation changes. Probably, the CTS-V would have the most similar road experience to the M3, as the Cadillac is also glued to the road and sharp in the turns. I would expect the CTS-V would corner even flatter, while riding a bit harder in the process. Summary—the M3 is smooth, resistance-free bliss, GT-R terrifyingly fast and edgy, Evo joyous, light and jumpy, and the CTS-V flat, planted and torquey. They are all great cars!
Mike's Steering Column 