Just checked again. It's significantly out of the way given our tentative itinerary. Plus my wife loves Rothenburg so I cannot strike out altogether. I may decrease time there to spend more time in Interlaken.

Bah

Hey, I'll still ask. If it were up to me, I'd spend the extra $500(?) and extend insurance/registration for a whole month and spend a 3rd week there. After all, camp is costing me nearly $1k a week for both kids, so I'd save that, but my wife is already annoyed at taking two straight weeks off at work.

Yeah, 3 wks is a long time to be away.

OTOH, so much can be done remotely these days, and you know what they say about never thinking "man, I wish I'd spent more time at work."

This is the third(?) time you've been there and haven't done it? Your first M car? I get it's not in the same direction as everything else on your itinerary, but it's not that far out of the way.

Well and also there's a balance between old favorites and new experiences, but seriously how many times can you go to Rothenberg?

You could blow up the whole itinerary and just drive to Paris instead.

We've been to Rothenburg once. Wife wants the kids to see it.

If on January 1, 2007 you told me that I would have gone to Disney World eight times between then and now, Disneyland twice and taken a Disney cruise, I would have laughed you silly. Yet...

Independent of wives not letting us do things we want to do...

There's a black M3 in my work parking lot and I have to say, it's a great looking car. It made me want to test drive one. I'm sure that will quell any delusions I have :lol:

FC, what did you say about them updating the handling?

IIRC, one of the early beefs with the F8X when it came out was the inability to put the power down. This was pretty scary, not confidence-inspiring, and against the BMW tradition of being at the limit handling and balance. The steering was also less than great and the ride was super harsh with no commensurable benefit in trade.

The competition package has basically addressed all of those (less so the steering). The ride (in part thanks to sportier setup and 20" wheels) is not exactly comfier (although surprisingly many claim so) but definitely far batter handling irregularities mid corner. The dIff has also been tweaked. It's a combination of hardware and mapping tweaks.

Then there is the sound, which still a turd compared to the E90 M3 to many the exhaust alone is worth the price of admission compared to the vanilla exhaust.

Someone went through the trouble of cataloging all F8X comparisons. The later ones tend to talk about the improvements.

http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho....php?t=1067504

From EVO:

BMW M4 CP

So where does that leave the M4? Way out in front is the short answer. It’s taken BMW a while, but this 2018MY Competition Package version is the car the M4 should have been from the start. From its near-perfect weight distribution to its pared-back kerb weight, the fast and fun BMW feels like a car that’s been developed with the driver’s best interests at heart. ‘It has an authenticity to it that cuts through the challenge of the other two,’ says Towler. ‘It shines brightly pretty much all the time. Whatever the mood, whatever the journey, the M4 feels like an event, like a real performance car, like a car to covet and treasure.’ Like a winner.

The bolded sentence is a common theme.