Matth5

As an upfront cost it may look high, but a few years of tracking and trying to upgrade+maintain the 135i, + the depreciation, and you'll lose the same if not more. The M cars hold value well too. I don't see any E46 M3s up for sale currently, maybe wait for some to pop up and they might be cheaper. There are a lot of E90s atm, might be able to negotiate their prices down... Get it on finance Just consider it for your long term planning, and don't blow the budget too much on the 135i. Just saying this as I would have been better off if I just got a bigger loan and bought an E92 M3 instead of my 335i in the first place back in 2015 lol. I went pretty far with mods and ended up seizing the engine on a track day. Sold the car for only a little more than what I spent on the engine replacement... With the M4, all I do it swap the brake pads, absolutely nothing else, thrash it all day on the track with no issues. 3 track days so far.

If you really want to do regular track sessions, you can either pour away money to make a street car survive the track.... or you can get a car that's track capable in the first place. E46 M3 or E90 if the budget allows... all they need is track brake pads and you're set. 135is and 335is are awesome fun cars but aren't really built for abuse on the track, and tuning them just increases the issues. Jake1829 here has made his into a good track toy but at a very high cost

Nice choice. One of BMWs best designs ever Don't see too many other M's around Christchurch. Only F series M6 I recall was a gran coupe I saw taking a drive through the bays

I usually stick a wheel or something extra under the car, not trusting my life on any single point of failure!

First upgrade these cars benefit from is the intercooler. There's a cheap Chinese Ebay/Aliexpress one sold under various brands that does pretty well. Will not give a magic performance boost itself but will prevent performance degrading from the intercooler (and this intake temps) getting hotter after consecutive pulls. I'd say oil and cooloant temps should ideally stay around the regular operating temp range but maybe you'll get better info by searching around. Intake temps are worth watching too, as they go up your car starts pulling timing and performance slows down, that might be the stutters you feel but I'm not sure.

I'd also suggest setting up a phone or tablet with MHD with logging and live data. keep an eye on temps and oil pressure. i think you can set it to flash the screen or something if some values go too high. Should give you enough warning so you don't end up needing a new engine

Hard to say, but could be. Maybe intake temps are too high? Do you have an upgraded intercooler? A tune that copes fine on the street is not necessarily going to do well on track. I guess Eurosurgeon don't provide the option of giving you the tune in a file that you can flash yourself with MHD?

Don't know what the DSG's are like, but the BMW ones have no issues in daily use. Drove my 335i in Auckland traffic pretty comfortably and my M4 works just as well in town. They make some more noises and you can feel them shift at times, but they're in M cars or options in sporty cars (335i/135i coupes) where you expect to have a little bit of character to it as part of the fun.There is the minor annoyance that it switches between forward and reverse slowly though, like half a second. For a regular daily though where you just want comfort and practicality, yes an auto makes more sense

Disagree. Have you spent much time with these kinds of transmissions? They're so much more fun, the direct feedback from the shifts is more engaging. I have driven the new M3/4 on track and it has lost some character and fun factor with the auto. For a daily yes, but for a sports car, especially one you'd want to take to a track, the fun factor is much higher with a sequential/DCT type transmission. I've grown to love the DCT since having it in my E92 335i and now my M4. The auto... maybe I'll accept it one day but it puts me off the new ones even more than the big grill.

Custom tune? Can you easily flash the stock map? With a tune the car is creating even more heat than normal, and on a track you are pushing it very hard to it's limit unlike what it sees on street. Probably too much for the stock cooling system to handle. Seen a few cases of these engines having rod bearing failure on track from other forums, and had the same in my own N55. Would recommend to stick to stock or a mild tune without some additional oil cooling. Suggest having a read: https://www.spoolstreet.com/threads/addressing-n5x-oiling-and-spun-rod-bearings-accusump-installed.4034/ Also check your oil level is right at max to minimize any oil flow issues under high Gs. Tracked my 335i on a stage 2+ tune, no oil/cooling upgrades, and a possibility the oil was not at max. 25 mins of track time before it seized lol.

If there is ethanol in there and it can be proven they should be called out because they market it as being ethanol-free... This is starting to put me off using it...

Interesting. NMA... N-Methylaniline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-Methylaniline A quick Google does lead to some comments against it. It is banned in Russia and China. https://vuvanalytics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Final_PEFTEC-2019-Presentation-NTGAs_2.pdf Not great. https://www.tropicd.com.au/tropic-fuels-nma-free/ From Wikipedia: "N-Methylaniline is a principal component of NMA (monomethylaniline), a non-traditional antiknock agent increasingly used by petroleum refiners and fuel distributors around the world to increase the octane number of gasoline petrol. It is usually added to gasoline in concentration of around 1.3% volume to avoid high gum levels that can cause increased carbon deposits in engine parts[citation needed]. Higher concentrations are permitted by most regulatory agencies if a detergent and a fuel combustion modifier are added to the component to keep gum formation from happening. NMA blended in those concentrations to gasoline / petrol is not more toxic than the hundreds of chemicals that compose this fuel. " Not necessarily bad I guess... depending on how much is added and what else is in there,? I dunno, not my area of expertise, I just know how to use Google a bit... Can confirm you're right, it's listed in the safety sheet https://www.npd.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NPD-100-PLUS-SDS-2020.pdf

Where do you get this info? Their website claims there is no ethanol in it. https://www.npd.co.nz/100plus-high-octane-petrol/ Ran it in my 335i with the off-the-shelf 98RON stage 2+ tune, seemed to run great with no sign of knock/timing pulls. Use it in my M4 now (stock tune). Down here it's cheaper than BP's 98.

Don't worry you'll pay the rest after you by it and take it to a workshop

God they are painful to read. Sometimes I click the 'reply' button, then it prompts me to register and I think, it's probably better if I don't... I'd probably get banned in no time for insulting the fools on there.

E92 M3! Should have some spare change for the bearings and DCT service (if you get a DCT) if you think it needs it. An M car makes a great 'daily' for someone who doesn't actually commute daily. My M4 is my only car, I work from home most days lately. It does just fine for driving into town, food runs, shopping trips ect. Really no different to anything else just a bit more fun

The non-turbo straight 6 engines and very reliable. The N54/55 turbo engines are fun but can give you some grief and high bills. The 4-pots are garbage.

Ah if the tune is done with 98 in mind, then yes definitely stick with 98 otherwise there might be some knock which is not great for the engine I think due to the fact ethanol burns up faster, the cars fuel system does need to work a bit harder to pump more fuel and that is probably increased further by the tune. Probably just means some consumables might wear out a little earlier than they otherwise would have, doubt it'll cause anything disastrous. At lease you don't have the HPFP of the turbo models which is a bigger headache (and bill) when it has issues. When I was using MHD flash tunes on my 335i there would be various maps to choose from based on the octane you wanted to run. I know it's the same with my M4 (though I have yet to tune it, and don't plan to)

Being an E36, the materials in your M3's fuel system were probably not designed with ethanol in mind. I'd say do some research before trying it on that car. The 130i though, I'm sure will be fine. I wonder if it even benefits from 98 over 95? Not much use going for a higher octane than what an engine was tuned for I think.

Used Gull's 98 in my E92 335i for a while along with the Stage 2+ MHD tune, didn't notice any issues from it. Occasionally I'd run BP 98. If yours is stock I'd say you're even less likely to have issues. My 335i was driven hard and saw the redline frequently. Maybe you shorten the life of the HPFP a tad as I think it has to work a little harder. I recall the manual for the E90 series cars even stated up to 10% ethanol was considered fine.

Sorry sir these cars are not supposed to last this long, please chat to our finance dept to buy a new one Checking carjam, my old E46 was still ticking along at over 313 884k kms with it's new owner as it passed a WOF in July last year... but it'll be a few months overdue now, so maybe that's the end of it

We can't even get reasonably priced parts via BMW NZ. Double the price and slower shipping than just ordering yourself from overseas stores. Also they do 1 year oil change intervals in the US, 2 year in NZ and rest of the world. So we'd get one or 2 oil changes out of that . Which is probably still cheaper than what they'd charge here for one.

I wouldn't trust the CBS past warranty regardless. The CBS pushes my M4 to about 25 000km or 2 year oil change intervals. I wonder how the rod bearings would look if it hits 100 000km and has only had 4 oil changes including the running on one at about 2500km? Supposedly it takes into account how you drive and has a sensor that can measure the oil quality... but this is the same company that says transmission oil should never be changed so I can't comfortably trust it. It bothers me that BMW is so shady with maintenance policies.

Very different kinds of cars, but both heaps of fun You'll lose out on that V8 noise and fast acceleration but I imagine the M3 is much more nimble and fun to toss around. Especially if you can take it on track. I see you have a 330i so I imagine you have some idea of what to expect.

I drove it 😁 I was at the same M Town event as the reporter. Done two track days in my own F82 M4 now so I think I have a decent comparison. Couldn't push as hard as I've done in my own M4 in the track, instructor was in the lead car and restricted the pace. I did get to toss it around a bit and power out the corners just enough to get the back end out a little. Handling dynamics felt just as sharp and responsive as the F82. The auto shifts fast but not as instant as the DCT, there's no kick even in the most aggressive setting. I'd say a negligible performance difference but I'd like the DCT just for the fun factor and character it gives the car... not everyone will care for it. The handling hasn't suffered at all from the extra weight and size, I'm seriously impressed with how they managed that. Carbon seats are very comfy and hold you very well on the track, even with regular seat belts. Just need to clamber a bit to get out. Oh and if you're in the back seat of the M3 when the pro driver does the hotlap and drifts it, you'll wish you were in a bucket seat because you get tossed around lol. I really would have loved to take it around the track all day, it was so fun. I drove the M8 and M5 too... amazing cars but so isolated and detached feeling that they're not nearly as fun on a track. The M3/4 is NOTHING like them. Am I going to rush out any buy one? Well... no, the F82 is still heaps of fun