Driving BMW M3
Driving Rating
The heart of the BMW M3 is its engine, but its character is defined by what you are able to do with the performance on offer.
BMW M3 2024: Handling and ride quality
The engineers have created a multitude of systems, including different levels of power, adjustable suspension, an adjustable gearbox, 10 stages of traction control, a drift analyser, launch control and a gear shift assistant that tells you when to change up or down.
To some it might sound gimmicky, but the BMW M3 has the ability to change its personality to suit your needs. You can set it up to be comfortable for the commute, provide superb grip on a country road or drift to your heart's content before recording your lap time on a track.
We’ve said that one of the great things about the BMW M3 is its everyday usability. However, the ride is still very much on the firm side, and you feel it even more in the optional carbon fibre sports seats.
It won’t bother you on smooth tarmac, but there seems to be less of that around these days. So you are going to feel the bumps a bit, although no more so than you would in most sports cars, and the adaptive M Suspension uses active dampers to iron them out as best as possible.
There’s a choice of a rear-wheel-drive model or you can have M xDrive all-wheel drive, which still has a rearward bias.
The BMW M3 CS is only available with M xDrive. An Active M Differential splits power between the two rear wheels and there are plenty of settings to choose where you want the power to go, plus how much control you want the electronics to have over the way the car handles.
The most useful of these is the Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) with M Dynamic Mode. It has a range of assistance functions including integrated wheel-slip limitation for slippery conditions. It’s also connected to the M Dynamic Mode, allowing for 10 levels of traction control.
Whatever you want the BMW M3 to do, it responds eagerly. The steering is precise, the acceleration a contrast between docile and ferocious, and it is easy to pilot it through corners with accuracy. You can be wild with it in the right situation, but most of the time it delivers a performance car drive that is engaging in every moment.
BMW M3 2024: Engines
BMW hasn’t yet added any electrification to the BMW M3 (yet), so it’s all about raw petrol power. That comes from a 3.0-litre TwinPower Turbo engine that delivers 517PS all the way to the 7,200rpm redline.
Peak torque is 650Nm between 2700-5500rpm, and the combination enables a rapid launch to 62mph in just 3.9 seconds. It will continue to a top speed of 155mph, but if you opt for the M Pro Package then that lifts to 180mph.
Lots of the engineering work on the engine is focused on track use, so there's extra cooling for the engine block and intercoolers, and the oil sump has been redesigned to cope with dynamic track driving.
It’s all linked to an eight-speed M Steptronic gearbox with carbon fibre paddle shifters on the steering wheel.
There are three transmission settings to alter the response time: Comfort, Sports and Track. More settings adjust the sound from the twin exhaust. Sport and Sport+ modes increase the noise and there’s an additional M Sound button on the centre console to alter it further to suit your mood.
The M3 CS gets a power boost to 558PS, enough to see it reduce the 0-62mph time to just 3.4 seconds. The CS also isn’t reined in, and will therefore keep going to 188mph.
It’s not perfect, as the engine lacks the emotive sound of previous generation M3s. We haven’t driven the new BMW M3 CS yet, but believe the noise is markedly improved. Its ride can be overly firm at times, but the BMW M3 is still very much the benchmark executive performance saloon that others have to match.
BMW M3 2024: Safety
Safety is well taken care of in the BMW M3, with all the equipment from the related BMW 3 Series. This includes multiple airbags, Isofix child seat anchor points, autonomous emergency braking, traction control and ABS. All models also have parking sensors front and rear, along with a reversing camera.
BMW M3 2024: Towing
There's a towbar on the options list for £1100, but BMW doesn’t provide any figures for towing capacity on the BMW M3. That can only mean it’s not really suitable to tow, so the towbar is really meant for fitting a cycle carrier.