I love it quite frankly. I always had to pull out the rally car driver reflexes when shifting the z on an uphill with a car on my rear bumper. :icon14:

Great minds think alike! I too just bought an 08 e90 m3 today to replace my Z that was wrecked last fall. fully loaded with edc, idrive/nav/mdrive, executive package, extended novillo leather, gray paint, black interior, 18 inch wheels.


I'll post a more detailed comparison later, but I agree with a lot of your points. Seats are terrific and offer tons of lateral support. brakes are actually better on the Z. Can you believe it, bmw still uses archaic single piston sliding calipers on their M models? :icon14:

The engine is terrific! Have you tried taking it over 8000 rpm yet? Note though that neither sport nor sport plus throttle modes affect the engine tuning in any way. These are just throttle maps. These are just throttle maps that affect the ratio of pedal displacement to butterfly valve angle. You can get the same response in normal mode, but you just have to push the throttle a bit more. This isn't like the M5 where the power button actually did produce more power. In the M5 full throttle pedal only gives about 80% throttle valve opening, releasing about 400hp or so. The power button allows 100% throttle valve opening and releases the whole 500 hp.

Personally I found sport to be good for fun drives, and normal to be good for tame cruising, and also probably for adverse weather conditions with low traction. Haven't yet tried sport plus but i read it's very twitchy and makes the car undriveable.


I'll trade you a gas gauge for a dipstick. the M's analog gauge is way better than the Z's stupid LED gauge, but the Z had that magical mysterious device called the dipstick. None of that stupid digital gauge crap.

The iDrive is appalling!!!!!!!!! Whoever the hell came up with this stupid nonsense?!?!?!?!?! I love all the adjustability and customization you can do with it, but you need a computer engineering degree just to figure out how to navigate those endless lists of menus, submenus, inframenus, etc........... Can you imagine operating that damn knob scrolling through menus while going down the highway surrounded by speeding cars????????? Apparently 09 and newer cars have an updated system that is a bit simpler and more user friendly. Oh, you also forgot to mention that 08 nav is dvd based. There is no hard drive, so you can't store music and stuff like that.

Nevertheless, getting idrive is very important because it gives you Mdrive which enables access to sport steering, sport plus throttle, and the programmable M button.

Nice! I want to see pics!! :tup:


I too will post up a more specific comparo soon as I've had a chance to drive it a bit now (about 500 miles). And yes, I have to say that braking on the Z was fantastic. The M3 is sticky though especially at lower speeds. In fact, it's a little too grabby at low speeds coming up to a red light. Oh well... nothing a new Brembo big brake kit won't solve right? ;)

Holy crap no! Hahahaha I was just fooling around yesterday and stomped the throttle in 3rd gear. The RPM's were climbing, the car was absolutely moving but I had a LONG way to go on the tach and I was already close to 90mph and running out of road! I will test this out under better circumstances though :D

Noted. I have found this to be case through normal driving.

I have my M mode settings set to all sport I think. I haven't tried the sport + either and it's probably better utilized under track conditions. Especially with the stiff sidewall of those run-flats! Wait, did you say you had 18's? I have the 19's with the Michellin Pilot Sports. Stiff.... very stiff.


Agreed again but I digress... I am actually not going to do my own oil changes if you can believe that! I know but I think with the M3 I'll just take it in. I just took it in for brake fluid and filters etc. and the tech told me I still had 10k miles before I was due!

Ok.. I was with you on this at first BUT you actually do get used to it rather quickly and learn the lay of the land so to speak and it IS very handy. I actually find it to be much better than my old touchscreens that I've used on both my old vehicles. Certain things take longer but it's decisive and clear.

A quick note on the shifter... Yesterday I finally had the misfortune of sitting in bumper to bumper traffic for awhile and I have to say WOW.. it almost feels like an auto. I'm serious here. Where my 6MT Z fell down completely was in godamn bumper to bumper traffic. Ugh! But the M? I left it in second and almost came to a complete stop on several occassions and it didn't even start to shudder or stall. I was so amazed that after awhile I started laughing about it because I couldn't believe it.

Now the gas mileage... err... :ugh2:

Correction: tires on the M are not runflats. neither the 18 nor 19 inch are. if yours are runflats then you've been scammed. only the 328 and 335i have runflats from the factory. that's why in the trunk of your car you will find an air pump and a bottle of Gooey Sh!t. So, when you get a puncture, you use Gooey Sh!t to seal the tire and the pump to inflate it, and off you go to your friendly BMW dealer to get your car fixed (and your wallet put on a diet).

No idea whether I'll do a BBK on the M or not. I'll try just good pads and fluid and see what happens when I go to the track. Though I'm not too optimistic. Sliding monopiston calipers are fine on a featherweight Lotus, but on a 3700 lb sedan I have my doubts.

I felt brave enough to try sport plus throttle today via the idrive. It does sharpen throttle response significantly at a cost of making throttle modulation very difficult. The car just picks up too much speed and too much acceleration at light throttle applications. Sport should be more than enough for a spirited drive. Sport plus is probably not very safe unless you have a wide open road.

How do you find the pedal placement? I actually give a thumbs down to bmw for this. Despite the gazillion adjustable parameters of the driver seat and steering wheel, i felt far more comfortable in the z than the m. The clutch is too recessed into the fire wall for a short guy like myself, so to reach it i have the seat quite a bit forward. And because of the transmission tunnel, the pedals are located a bit to the left of what you'd expect. So when I sit, the throttle is directly ahead of my right foot but the brake is between my legs. Most other cars I have driven have the brake directly ahead and the throttle slightly to the right of my right leg. Nothing too serious and I wont be dumping the M just because of that, but it does make heel and toe downshifts a bit more challenging. SynchroRev would have been an excellent idea on this car.

Nice car mate. My brother had an M5 V10 and my god did I love that car, they are so powerful. I used to borrow it all the the time lol. All I have to say is when BMW comes to their M models, they are badasss. They are perfectly done in every aspect while still being a luxury comfortable car. Congrats and enjoy.