BMW E30 M3 Driving Impressions
Nov 3rd, 2007 by Tim Skipper
In my previous journal I told you the story of how I came to purchase my E30 M3, and the joys of de-muppeting the car back to something BMWs M Division engineers might be happier being associated with. I really do look upon this car as having been rescued from its previous owner!
With it finally producing full power again I started to use it more as a daily driver. So what is life like sitting on the wrong side of the car?
Well let me tell you, it’s pretty much of no consequence. Sure, you hang back a little further than you might otherwise when looking for overtaking opportunities (good practice anyway) and the occasional angled junction is a little more difficult to get a clear view of, but really the only hardship is leaning across the car at ticket barriers.
I didn’t find the transition from right to left hand drive much of a problem. At first I found myself sometimes drifting towards the centre of the road, and I think I only attempted to change gear with the door handle a couple of times, but after a week of daily use it was all second nature.
Slightly trickier to get used to was the back to front dog-leg gearbox. With 1st being backwards and out on its own, it makes for a quick change between 2nd and 3rd gear as you don’t have to cross the gate.
It doesn’t help though when slightly flustered having spun it on a wet roundabout in front of a looming HGV (another story), you grab reverse in a hurry and let the clutch out to find you’re not in reverse at all and are now rubbing all the paint off the bottom of the front spoiler on the roundabout kerbing…
Anyway, a temporary lack of grip over available talent aside, never have I owned a car that so badly wants you to treat every journey like a qualifying session in the German DTM championships. It’s really quite alarming – especially for unsuspecting passengers.
My past history of cars & bikes comprises of a fair wedge of fast metal and plastic; several Porsches, Lotus Sport Elise 190, a tuned Impreza Turbo, several (ok, 17) various Super Bikes, not to mention the other car currently in my garage - a Caterham 7 race car I built and successfully campaigned to runner-up spot in the 2004 Caterham Academy championships. So, I’m no stranger to high performance good handling cars.
But the M3 is somehow different from anything I’ve owned before – even the Caterham – maybe it’s the passion of M Division rubbing off on me, or the spirit surfacing of all those races I watched as a goggle-eyed kid as race after race the M3s opened up yet another can of Cosworth-Kick-Ass.
I can’t explain it, all I know is when I get in that car I AM Joachim Winkelhock and Waitrose car park IS the paddock at the Nurburgring.
By modern standards, and certainly compared to my old 911 and various bikes, it’s not even that fast. 200 bhp and mid 6s to 60 isn’t much to write home about these days, and it’ll do exactly 142 mph and not a single 10th more (the geek inside me can confirm this via a GPS data log).
But it’s the way it goes about producing its performance that is so seductive, from turning the key and having to blip the throttle to kick the alternator into life and make the warning lights go out - they all do this, I thought it was a fault at first – to the grumpy way it chugs along at low speed, to the hardening of it’s engine note as you pile on some throttle, to the banshee wail as it screams around to the 7,400 rpm redline, and then, if conditions are right, if it feels like you have done it justice today, it throws a 2’ flame out of the exhaust on the up-change… magic.
As previously mentioned, my car has lower & stiffer suspension than the standard car so I can’t comment on how a regular M3 handles, but as it is it is certainly the equal of my Caterham on the point-and-go front. It’s a very “pointy” car; I’ve yet to find a situation where it’s been unable to respond quickly enough to my command of the steering wheel, and there is only the merest hint of under-steer. It makes for a wonderful b-road weapon, if a little crashy in places.
If you want to play at the drift-hero though, this is not the car for you, at least not with 9” rims wearing Eagle F1s it isn’t. On a dry surface I have yet to make it break traction – trust me I’ve tried – short of dumping the clutch with a boot full of revs it’s not going anywhere.
In the wet it’s a little easier but even then it hangs on with the tenacity of a pit-bull – only inappropriate use of the throttle and/or odd road camber (a combination of both at the root of my earlier roundabout incident) will have it stepping sideways. It all adds up to one of, if not the, most involving best handling cars I’ve had the pleasure of owning.
I found the brakes to be a bit disappointing initially. They were very spongy and didn’t seem powerful enough. This was largely rectified by replacing the tired old fluid with fresh dot 5.1 from AP Racing, new OEM brake discs all round and swapping the indeterminate make (that damned previous owner again no doubt) brake pads for the fantastic Ferrodo DS2500s.
The front nearside calliper has a slight weep through the piston seal, so it does need regular bleeding to keep the firm pedal pressure until such time as I deal with that. I have a kit from BMW to replace the seals but it looks an arse of a job so I keep putting it off.
Finally, I decided to replace the steering wheel with a much smaller leather MOMO item. Even with the quicker steering rack I found the standard wheel a bit too cumbersome for spirited driving. It won’t suit the shuffle-the-wheel string backed driving glove brigade, but a day spent lapping Snetterton more than proved its worth for me.
More about that next time.