Early report from M3 ED
 

Highlights from day 1 (delivery day):

1) Love the color. Sometimes it looks almost red, sometimes a deep burnt orange (almost brown), and other times just awesome shades of orange. Love it. Some pulls off elegant and sporty. Strange. Love the black wheels.
2) shifter action is pretty great, clutch is soft but has good, predictable engagement, making shifting easy. I still prefer to rev match myself but the auto rev match is flawless - annoyingly so.
3) so far I’ve driven only in comfort and it is still pretty good. Firm but still responsive ride. Sounds surprisingly good as well.
4) hood bulge makes it tough to gauge corners but I’m quickly figuring it out.
5) límited to 105mph & 5500rpm but still moves along with authority and 5500 is enough to engage the engine.
6) the car has a lot of tech. Frankly too much, but still pretty cool. I’ll take it.
7) I don't care what you haters think, I love my moonroof. :p
8) Good trip so far and I (and the family) love the car even if a bit flashy. Went to the Eagle's Nest to day and then to Salzburg.

Pics will follow at some point.

I didn't realize the trip was happening so quickly. CONGRATS, looking forward to pictures. Enjoy the vacation and the new car. Does BMW do anything special at delivery?

Cool - Look forward to seeing and hearing more about both the ride and the trip.

That’s pretty awesome ... looking forward to some pics.

Congrats, looking forward to pics

Enjoy!

:lol:

All that matters is that you like it.

Glad you love like car so far! Keep us posted.

:cool::cool:

Glad to hear you're enjoying it.

Excellent! Enjoy.

Awesome!!!!

Really cool!

Alex

Pics!!!

Travel safely, mbr

Not true. He has to think of future carmudgeons!

:thumbup:

Congrats!

FYI, still alive.

We managed to do the Großglockner, Stelvio, Gotthard, and Susten passes without freaking out the family too much. Got them all with the GoPro on 4K. We got very lucky with weather. The only thing we had to scrap was a drive through the Dolomites due to clouds & rain.

I’ll post picks as soon as I can.

Still loving the color. Trip is surprisingly on track. Just about at 1k miles now as we just got to the Black Forest. Expect to have the 1200-mile service on Thursday and then will be free to go all-out for the last couple of days including a 150+ mile drive in mostly unrestricted autobahn to to Neueschwanstein. Car is no Boxster or Miata but it it feels surprisingly agile for carrying the whole family and a trunk packed with luggage.

hey you are supposed to be posting updates for us not driving:D

sounds like fun, jealous:cool:

Sounds awesome. Looking forward to hearing more when you have the time.

And... Don't freak out the family on the autobahn. I remember when I was in Germany in 2014, we had some nice drives on the unrestricted roads. Everything was going good when Patty 'woke up' and asked how fast I was driving. I told her. I shouldn't have. LOL.

I would love to see pix! Glad you're enjoying it.

Sorry, tough to find time with the full family.

Had 1200-mile break-in service done this AM so I am good for full rpm driving and unrestricted speeds tomorrow.

Here are a few photos. I've literally taken thousands, and have 200GB of 4k video, so this is a small sampling from the SLR downloads to my external hard drive.

Jebus, that is bad ass... Much want!

I'm not a fan of red cars, but that looks amazing! Stunning scenery, too. :cool::cool:

Awesome

Nice!

How much crap does your family give you for stopping and taking so many pics (while it looks like they wait in the car)? Asking for a friend. :eeps:

Dibs!

Awesome pics ... that road carved in that mountain is insanely beautiful !!

Car looks great :thumbup:

Car looks awesome!

And I think we have a new winner in the category of "Best ways to de-compress between jobs/careers"

Fantastic!

Rad:cool: always been on my bucket list to do this

lol some grief for sure. But they understood it was a bucket list thing.

EDIT: Nearly all of those shots were rushed, in full dumb-ass mode, and then very poorly resized by outlook as I have zero photo editing tools on the PC I brought.

It’s actually orange. ;)

Thanks!

Well, got a chance to open it up - I hit 140 3 or 4 times and had one good straight with little traffic where I went just over 160mph (indicated).

A couple of comments, particularly compared to the 235hp ZHP and the 230hp E91...

Those cars definitely made it known you were going fast at 120. 130+ was decidedly uncomfortable - which is why I only managed 137 & about 130 respectively. The M3 started feeling that way at over 150, which brings me to my second point...

No news here, but horsepower matters. The car just climbed steadily to 160 much faster than I remember the other 3ers climb through the 120’s.

That also made the event less dramatic - I was able to climb tot those speeds quickly without needing miles of runway.

Anyway, super solid at high speeds, but frankly it’s kinda dumb to cruise at above 100-110. It’s just too stressfull. Better off staying at those speeds with short bursts to 120-140.

It’s still unnerving passing a truck at 140 when it’s doing 70. I rather not.

I have a final 1 hour drive to Munich tomorrow to return the car.

Congrats. The car looks wunderbar! Now comes the excruciating part of waiting for re-delivery back to the States. Is it still approximately 4 weeks, as well as a crap shoot as to when it gets loaded onto a vessel in Bremerhaven?

Yeah, basically. It’s 6 weeks to the northeast. The wait will suck for sure.

Great looking car.

Very nice, enjoy!

Especially since you have to keep making payments and paying for insurance as well. (At least thai is the way it was in 1994 for my folks when they got their E32 on ED)

Payments yes, although they start after a decent delay (haven’t made a payment yet). But insurance starts with registration, which happens when the car arrives.