no more 15 nismo tech, looking at M235I

indyn

The new M3 is not well recieved in the Bmmer world, most of them are still sticking to the NA V8 M3.
M235i is not bad, have my eye on it too. I would say the reliability has gone up since the introduction of N55 engine.

What about the Audi S3?

Magic Bus

Interesting, is there one, two or a whole bunch of reasons for this?

m4a1mustang

It's important to understand that the BMW purists are not very receptive to change. Diehard fans of the earlier generations tend to hate whatever the current generation is. When the E9x M3 came about it was not well received by the purists, but now it is looked upon fondly. The same thing is going to happen with the F80/F82. It's just the way the BMW world tends to work, I think.

The main gripe about the F8x M3/4 is the engine. The S55 is a twin turbo take on the N55. While it has been heavily modified, in the purists eyes it isn't a "bespoke" engine like the S65 from the E9x.

They also feel like it has abandoned the M3 formula of a small, nimble, and balanced racing car for the street like the E30. It's too much of a brute. But the truth is the M3 abandoned its E30 formula several generations ago. The E46 was more of a brute than the E36, and the E9x took that a step further. The F8x just continues the trend.

Most of the criticism comes from people that don't own the F8x series. I think as time goes by more of the purists will warm up to it like they did with the E9x. Then when the next generation comes out they can all hate on it.

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m4a1mustang

The N55 is a fantastic engine! It's not as mod-friendly as the N54, but I think it makes up for it in other ways. Stock for stock it is a better engine, and the efficiency is ridiculous. We averaged almost 37 mpg in our '13 335i M-Sport on the way back from picking it up in North Carolina. Incredible.

I think most of the reliability issues with the N54 were related to the HPFP and the turbos, but BMW took care of those issues.

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