You can thank me later, but I've tested the 2024 BMW M3 Touring in detail...including drift analyser and variable traction control!! And I won't lie - it was a stack of fun experimenting with the technology. Join Paul Maric for a detailed review of BMW's latest missile.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More BMW content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/bmw
More BMW 3 Series content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/bmw/m3
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 00:44
Interior 04:55
Infotainment 06:08
Safety tech 08:00
Practicality 09:00
On the road 12:52
Driver aids 20:36
Performance 21:46
Drift modes 26:01
Verdict 32:04
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#bmw #m3 #touring #review
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More BMW content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/bmw
More BMW 3 Series content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/bmw/m3
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 00:44
Interior 04:55
Infotainment 06:08
Safety tech 08:00
Practicality 09:00
On the road 12:52
Driver aids 20:36
Performance 21:46
Drift modes 26:01
Verdict 32:04
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
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#bmw #m3 #touring #review
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So, today's gonna be fun because that is the new BMW M3 Touring.
00:05 I had a chance to check out a static display of this car a little while back in matte black and it looks seriously unreal.
00:10 Looks so good out here in person as well. So, this is priced from
00:14 $180,000, so a good alternative to a performance SUV.
00:21 This competes with things like Mercedes-AMG C63 S and also the Audi RS4.
00:28 Today we're gonna do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review,
00:32 you can use the time codes on the screen, or if you're on YouTube,
00:34 you can scroll down and use the chapters below.
00:36 If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon.
00:39 That way you can find out every single time we drive a performance wagon.
00:43 Okay, so let's talk exterior design and actually weight.
00:47 So, this is just under a hundred kilos heavier than the sedan version of this,
00:52 so you are paying a bit of a penalty there for having a wagon, but ultimately it really isn't the end of the world.
00:57 This purple color is interesting.
00:59 I really love the matte black that we saw, the frozen black color that we saw at BMW when we first checked this out.
01:05 Purple looks okay. I don't know if it does it justice, but the black looked unreal.
01:09 So, if you have ordered a black one, it's gonna look really good in person.
01:12 Down the front here, so obviously the big old grille there from the new M-series cars.
01:18 You know, you can take it or leave it, but with a big registration plate,
01:21 it kind of covers it up a little bit.
01:23 And I have to apologize for how dirty the car is. It was bucketing down this morning on the way here.
01:27 So, it is a little bit filthy, but not much we can do about it.
01:30 M3 competition badge there.
01:31 This only comes in competition trim, which means this is also all-wheel drive as well, but has rear-wheel drive selectable.
01:37 This is the anniversary logo, the anniversary M logo rather, that you can option on these cars.
01:43 And these will come standard on the Australian delivered cars, and I think that looks really cool.
01:47 Laser LED headlights. You have carbon ducting for the brakes.
01:51 Really is quite an impressive setup beneath the skin here to keep everything nice and cool.
01:56 Little divots there as well for that aggressive front that it has on it. Come around to the side here.
02:01 So, you have a set of 19-inch alloy wheels down the front here.
02:05 It's a machined finish and it looks really cool. Black on the inside there. Low profile tyre,
02:10 so it's a 35 profile tyre, but I think that this should ride okay.
02:14 The BMW M cars can be a little firm, but this has adaptive damping and I'm hoping they have sorted that out.
02:20 I love that little bit of aero off to the side there as well. Big old brakes too.
02:25 180mm rotor, cross drilled, six-piston caliper on the back there.
02:29 They're slightly smaller, but for all intents and purposes, that is an enormous brake for a car like this.
02:35 The rear tyres are also slightly bigger too.
02:37 They're on a 285/20, so you will get a little bit more traction there because this is a rear bias car.
02:43 M3 competition badge there on the side as well with some functional venting there too.
02:49 Up the top here, I love these BMW wing mirrors.
02:53 Look at that little divot just there, the sliced out section for aero.
02:56 You've got an indicator built into there with a camera on the side there as well.
03:00 Black around the edges here.
03:03 So, I don't know, the reason I thought the black looked better
03:06 when we saw it in person was that it kind of did black on the sides.
03:10 It also did a black roof as well because this doesn't have the carbon roof,
03:14 so it kind of looked just slightly better with that sort of colour combo.
03:17 And it also doesn't have privacy glass for some reason.
03:19 That must be an option because it looks kind of strange without it, in my opinion.
03:23 Now, around the back here, these are your 20s.
03:24 I should also point out as well that it's sitting on a set of Pilot Sport 4S tyres.
03:28 I think if you're going to run this as a family car, you don't want the semis on it
03:31 because it will be sketchy AF, whereas a Pilot Sport 4S will give you a good balance
03:36 between traction in the wet and also decent performance when it is dry as well.
03:40 So, you're kind of balancing those two things.
03:42 I love how flared all of this looks like.
03:45 When you look at this from front on and from the back here,
03:48 it just has these enormous hips down the back and it looks seriously, seriously cool.
03:52 Come around to the back with me.
03:54 So, the back is kind of special because you've got this gurney here
03:57 that's designed to create a little bit of extra downforce.
03:59 This can be felt from 120 k's an hour.
04:02 You've got a shark fin aerial up the top there.
04:04 The only downside, and I don't know whether this is the case
04:07 on other 3 Series Touring as well, let me know in the comments section below,
04:10 but this seems to get really dirty with this gurney here.
04:13 It just picks up so much debris and it just collects there on the window.
04:17 So, you constantly have to be wiping it and cleaning it.
04:20 So, I think that is a side effect of this aero element.
04:22 M3 competition badge down there, the BMW anniversary logo.
04:26 Love these tailpipes. Have a look at that.
04:29 They are enormous cannons and they look really cool.
04:32 So, part titanium exhaust.
04:34 And I'm hoping when we go for a drive, this actually sounds good
04:37 because it looks like a very fast car and I want to make sure I can hear that.
04:41 LED taillights there as well.
04:43 And of course, this section that opens to which I am a very big fan of.
04:47 So, let me know in the comments section below, would you buy the M3 Touring?
04:51 Would you get the AMG instead or the RS4?
04:53 Let me know down there in the comments section.
04:55 So, we are inside the M3 Touring.
04:57 We'll start off with the key.
04:59 You've got unlock, lock, boot,
05:02 and then the little diamond there to turn lights on.
05:04 You have M logo on the side there and then a little bit of
05:08 sort of, I don't know, cold to the touch, sort of aluminiumy style stuff.
05:13 It's a proximity sensor key, so you can leave that in your pocket.
05:16 Once you're inside, you have a red push button to start here.
05:19 Yeah, I love the interior here. This looks sensational.
05:22 It just has so many go fast vibes, a lot of carbon all over the place here.
05:27 And I love the tech here.
05:29 So, this is part of the new iDrive 8 setup.
05:31 And yeah, we'll go through that in a second.
05:33 But I think this is really nicely presented.
05:35 These seats look absolutely unreal as well.
05:37 So, I'm very impressed with all of that.
05:39 Also love these M buttons on the steering wheel.
05:43 A lot to like about this interior.
05:45 Now, what about your touch points?
05:46 So, that is soft.
05:48 The door is on the firmer side.
05:50 How soft are they?
05:51 We've got our durometer.
05:52 We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin.
05:55 If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before,
05:58 have a look at the link in the description below.
05:59 Now, build quality.
06:00 It feels very nice and solid.
06:04 Door slam.
06:05 That's good.
06:09 So, let's talk infotainment.
06:10 I love where they've gone here with iDrive 8.
06:12 It is a big step up from iDrive 7.
06:15 So, this is your home screen.
06:16 You've basically got the ability to swipe between these widgets.
06:19 And you can add or remove these as you go.
06:22 You can also move them around if you don't like the order of things.
06:24 And then they just get locked into position.
06:28 So, big fan of that.
06:29 A lot of connectivity as well.
06:30 So, you can see here with our weather.
06:32 It's telling us what the weather is at the moment.
06:34 How much rain we've got, how cold it is, all that sort of stuff.
06:38 So, yeah, it's a really good setup and I'm a big fan of what they've done there.
06:41 So, in terms of your voice recognition, that's also been stepped forward as well.
06:46 So, you can now tell it to do virtually anything.
06:49 And if you don't have the phone paired, you can still get it to run through commands that you speak to the car.
06:54 If you do have a phone paired, you can long hold the button to actually send commands through to your phone's voice recognition system as well.
07:01 On the radio front, you have AM/FM/DAB digital radio.
07:06 And that's all plumbed through a 16-speaker Harman Kardon branded sound system.
07:10 Sound system is a cracker, so very impressed with that.
07:13 And then, in addition to that, you also have smartphone mirroring in the form of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
07:18 Both of those are wireless.
07:20 So, you click here for Apple CarPlay.
07:23 So, full screen integration, really nice and high resolution there, which is great.
07:28 And this is what Android Auto looks like.
07:30 So, again, wireless, no dramas there at all, high resolution, quick to flick through the screens and all that sort of stuff as well.
07:37 So, very happy with that.
07:39 Now, the screen ahead of the driver.
07:40 Normally, this is actually quite good in BMWs, but there is very, as far as I can tell, very limited configurability here.
07:47 You can customise stuff in the centre of the screen there, but I don't know, there's not really a great deal of sort of customisation you can actually do outside of the centre section, which is a little bit disappointing, I reckon.
07:57 I wanted to have a bit more of a play with that.
08:00 Now, let's talk about safety tech.
08:01 So, you have autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection that works both in forwards and reverse as well.
08:09 You have an auto-dimming rear vision mirror, blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror.
08:13 You have front and rear parking sensors and rear cross traffic alert.
08:16 You have a lane departure warning with a lane keeping assistant and a lane centring assistant, which we'll test a little bit later on.
08:22 I'll show you what the reverse view or the 360 camera looks like.
08:26 So, there it is there, 360 camera.
08:29 So, that's looking out the rear, you can clearly see what's on the suitcase there.
08:32 You can also then select different angles as well if you want a change of scenery, which is good.
08:38 I love this feature too, it's the reverse assistant.
08:40 So, when you enable this, it will reverse up to 50 metres, remembering your exact path, which I think is fantastic.
08:47 You can also play around with some of these views as well if you do want to change the angle that you're looking at.
08:53 And then there's also a car wash view as well, so you don't scratch your precious wheels.
08:57 And this is what the horn sounds like.
08:59 [HONKING]
09:00 Now, moving on to practicality and we'll start off with connectivity.
09:03 So, you have a USB-A outlet here, 12-volt outlet just behind it, USB-C here in the centre console, wireless phone charger.
09:12 Just on storing your phone, you can whack it down there on the wireless phone charger or you can pop it in the cup holders if you want.
09:18 Now, cup holders, how are they going?
09:20 So, we'll start off with our coffee.
09:23 Had a coffee in there this morning, it all worked nicely, no risk of de-lidding, which is great.
09:27 You've got little teeth in there as well to hold everything together.
09:30 Put our water bottle in there, it's held in very nicely.
09:34 What about our big bottle?
09:36 Doesn't fit in there, but the big bottle does fit in the side there just.
09:42 In terms of other storage, you have this little hole here just next to the driver's knee where you can put keys and coins and that kind of stuff.
09:50 Centre console is actually pretty reasonably sized as well.
09:53 And finally, we have a glove box down here that is positively small.
09:57 Now, moving on to your comfort, you've got dual zone automatic climate control, but bit of a bugbear of mine.
10:03 I'm going to go through this menu here to work all of it, including the fan speeds and all that sort of stuff.
10:09 Your heated seats are in here as well, so a little bit fiddly in my opinion.
10:14 Heated steering wheel button is here on the steering wheel.
10:17 Seats, what about comfort on the seats?
10:19 They are comfortable, but they are firm.
10:21 So, if you are doing a longer drive, you will notice that they are firm, but they are seriously stunning to look at.
10:26 So, perforations there to keep you nice and cool, a little bit of Alcantara there.
10:30 This lights up too, which I love.
10:32 In terms of the seat adjustment, it's electric for driver and front passenger.
10:35 You can go forwards, backwards, backrest can go forwards and backwards.
10:39 You can lift front of the seat, you can lift the back of the seat.
10:43 You also have lumbar adjustment on the side and on the back.
10:47 And then this section down here manually extends as well.
10:50 Driver also gets memory too, which is good.
10:52 Steering offers both manual tilt and reach adjustment and on our reach test, all of that stuff is easy to reach,
10:59 but you do have to lean in a little bit to catch the edges of this screen.
11:02 Okay, so second row.
11:04 It is pretty tight back here, so my knees are pretty much up against that seat there,
11:09 but it is worth keeping in mind, this actually protrudes quite a lot from the back there
11:13 and it is what it is, I guess.
11:16 It's a performance car.
11:17 You do have decent toe room and headroom isn't too bad either, which is fine.
11:22 No map pockets though, but you do have an extra zone of climate control back here,
11:26 two USB-C outlets, air vents.
11:28 You have centre armrest here with two cup holders that are a bit sticky.
11:33 You do have as well rubber teeth in there to keep everything in check.
11:39 Also have storage inside the door for a bottle as well if you need it.
11:41 ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with three top tether points.
11:45 And finally, our window test.
11:47 It's auto up and down, boom, all the way down.
11:50 Nice one.
11:52 Okay, let's talk cargo capacity.
11:54 So you have a power tailgate, you've got that split window as well that I showed you earlier.
12:00 Just 500 litres of cargo capacity here, which isn't a huge amount, but you are making a
12:05 slight compromise by not having an SUV, but I think this is actually pretty good.
12:08 12 volt outlet off to the side with a hook there as well.
12:12 Under here you've got basically a storage spot plus your first aid kit.
12:17 Then in this front section here you've got the tyre repair kit, because there is no spare
12:22 tyre.
12:23 And then these little grippy sections as well to stop your things moving around, which is
12:27 very handy because if you do go for a spirited drive, you don't want your stuff flying all
12:30 over the place.
12:31 So I'll show you how that works.
12:32 Slide this on and you can see there that doesn't really move anywhere, which is pretty impressive.
12:38 All right, now if you do want a little bit more space, you can flick these little switches
12:43 off to the side here.
12:44 That'll drop your second row and it gives you just over 1500 litres of cargo space.
12:50 Okay, we've just hit the road in the M3 Touring.
12:56 Now this is a pretty exciting package because you're basically getting a sports car crammed
13:01 into a family car.
13:03 So for those of you who are allergic to SUVs, it seems like the ultimate way to go.
13:07 My 3.0-litre turbocharged six-cylinder petrol engine makes 375 kilowatts of power and 650
13:15 newton metres of torque.
13:16 And this is of course mated with that competition package, which means it's 22 kilowatts and
13:21 100 newton metres up on a regular M3.
13:25 Now if you do get the M Drivers package, it has a top speed of 280 kilometres an hour,
13:29 which is pretty awesome when you consider just blasting down an autobahn with this thing
13:34 just hammering along.
13:35 It'd be seriously cool.
13:38 What does it all feel like?
13:39 So I'm going to turn the exhaust off just so everything is just nice and quiet.
13:43 Look when you are driving sort of in and around the city, it's actually not that bad.
13:47 I thought it was going to be significantly worse in terms of the ride.
13:50 It is firm, like there's no denying that, but it's not anywhere near as firm as it could
13:55 be and that's all thanks to the adaptive damping.
13:57 So in comfort mode, they've really just dialled in comfort and then as you work your way through
14:02 the suspension settings to sport and then sport plus, it does get noticeably firmer.
14:07 In fact, you have a litany of configurations here.
14:10 You can do steering between comfort and sport, so that gets heavier as you move through those.
14:14 You can even adjust the brake pedal feel between comfort and sport.
14:18 That's a clever setup because it's a brake by wire system and it effectively allows it
14:22 to adjust what the brake pedal actually feels like.
14:25 Then we can also adjust whether we're in four-wheel drive, four-wheel drive sport, which sends
14:30 most of the torque to the rear or two-wheel drive.
14:32 It is funny though, in four-wheel drive sport and two-wheel drive, you have to have stability
14:35 control switched off, so it is all up to you to catch that thing when it goes out of control.
14:41 And then the final one is M traction control, which allows you to go from zero to 10 in
14:45 terms of variability and we'll actually have a play with some of this stuff a little bit
14:49 later on.
14:50 So, when you are just driving normally, how responsive is it?
14:53 Well, gearbox is great, so it's made into an eight-speed torque converter automatic,
14:58 which I love and that means you can come to a stop and it has a stop-start system as well,
15:05 so as you come to a stop, switch is off, roll out of the brake, onto the throttle and everything
15:10 is nice and smooth and easy going.
15:12 All the gear shifts are nice and smooth, so everything is done nicely in check, there's
15:16 no sort of surprises there.
15:18 And then when you do want to get up, it pins you back in the seat nicely as well and everything
15:23 happens.
15:24 You can also change the ferocity of the gear shifts too, so just in normal drive mode you
15:27 can go one, two, three, so it'll hold gears for longer, it'll snap through those gear
15:33 shifts faster and then you can also go over to S, which allows you to manually shift and
15:37 again you can adjust the ferocity of those gear shifts just by using this little button
15:41 here on the gear stick.
15:42 So, what's it like on our sine waves?
15:44 Let's dial up speed to 130, that's the maximum speed in Australia, it's a bit sunny there,
15:50 maximum speed in Australia and this kind of gives us an idea of what the body control
15:55 is like when the speed is dialed up, I suspect this will be great given the ride is so firm.
16:01 No dramas there at all, so big tick there for body control.
16:05 OK, wouldn't be a proper review without hitting Australia's dodgiest road.
16:12 Do this at 90km/h, pop this down again quickly.
16:16 So this is basically a very shonky road, it gives us an idea of what this would be like
16:21 if you drove it through the middle of Australia on some other corrugations, not that you ever
16:26 would, but here comes our condensed sine wave as well.
16:31 It is remarkably good.
16:32 I don't know, like 10 years ago you would have thought a proper fast sports car like
16:37 this should not be riding as well as it is now on something so corrugated and choppy,
16:42 so yeah, pretty damn impressed with that.
16:46 OK, so fuel economy, we are sitting on 11.7 from the factory and then just over 12 there
16:55 for individual which is pretty unreal when you consider that today we have been hammering
17:00 the crap out of this car and this is the last thing that we have filmed, so in theory it
17:03 should have used most of its fuel so far.
17:06 I'm actually really happy with that given how much performance you are getting out of
17:09 this package and BMW's claim is a little over 10 litres per 100km, so we really aren't too
17:13 far off that.
17:15 OK, let's go for a sportier lap.
17:18 So what we're going to do, I've got all this set up, so we'll go sport plus for engine,
17:23 sport for chassis, sport for brakes, we'll leave it in four wheel drive and I'll go manual
17:29 shifting as well, so let's see how this goes.
17:33 It's so good.
17:35 Oh, exhaust open as well, thank you very much.
17:38 Alright.
17:39 Oh my god, it has so much traction.
17:48 So last time we drove here was in the M4.
17:59 That was quick but rear wheel drive, this is on another level altogether.
18:07 That all wheel drive system gives this so much traction.
18:11 Oh my goodness, we are...
18:16 The sound is unreal inside the car too, I'm hoping it sounds this good outside.
18:25 Alright, here's our back straight, roll onto that.
18:34 Oh man, this thing is a missile.
18:38 Holy moly, that is unreal.
18:41 I could barely talk then, this is just ridiculous, it is hauling ass.
18:47 The amount of pace it picks up is out of this world, those tyres are great, these aren't
18:51 even semis, it's just on a Pilot Sport 4S, so the amount of traction it has is just next
18:58 level, it sits really nice and flat through corners, the steering feels great, the brakes
19:02 feel excellent.
19:03 Like you can just imagine if you did want to hit up a track day, you would just turn
19:07 up and do it and then drive home, like this is the entire package and then you can carry
19:12 your family around as well.
19:13 So yeah, BMW has done a sensational job with this and I just love these paddle shifters
19:19 here with carbon on them, they are just ridiculous.
19:22 Then of course you can configure all your drive modes here on these M buttons, so earlier
19:27 today I was having a sort of play around with two wheel drive and just used the M2 button
19:30 to configure that and if I want to activate it, you press it once and then press it again
19:34 to confirm and then bang away it goes, that's now active.
19:37 So yeah, it is a pretty unreal driver's car and one that doesn't feel all that compromised
19:43 as a family car as well, bizarrely.
19:46 A couple of other things I thought I'd just mention here on the fly as well, it weighs
19:51 just over 1700 kilos and you saw there when we were fanging it, like it holds on for dear
19:56 life, it is a really good setup.
19:58 Part of that is thanks to the all-wheel drive system, so it's able to vary torque splits
20:02 as required but it also has an M differential on the rear axle and it means that you are
20:07 getting limited slip there, it really is just all configured for optimum pace and acceleration
20:14 and just getting as much as you can out of the package, so they really have thought of
20:18 everything when it comes to just extracting as much as they can out of a station wagon.
20:22 Let's talk road noise, so look there is a fair bit of tyre noise coming into the cabin,
20:25 especially on course chip roads and that is just due to the sportier tyre that they have
20:30 fitted to this and that's a given in this type of vehicle to be honest.
20:37 OK, time to test the semi-autonomous systems here, so I'm going to set cruise control at
20:45 70km/h, there it is just there.
20:51 So it's currently in assisted driving mode, you can see the little steering wheel has
20:54 gone green there, so we are going to test in the three outer lanes here to see how well
20:58 it holds itself there and how much torque it's willing to apply to the steering wheel
21:03 which is generally a pretty good gauge of how it performs out on regular roads, so let's
21:08 pass in lane one, we'll jump over to lane two.
21:11 OK, wait for that to activate, there it is, slightly let go of the steering wheel, that's
21:21 doing a really nice job there as well, keeping us dead centre to that lane which is good.
21:25 Alright, we'll jump up to lane three.
21:29 OK, wait for it to activate, there it is there, let go of the steering wheel, that is unreal,
21:39 it is keeping us dead centre in this top lane as well.
21:42 Fantastic job BMW, top notch, very good, love it.
21:46 Alrighty, time to do a little bit of performance testing and that means launch control, so
21:52 the official 0-100 time is 3.6 seconds.
21:57 Yes it has been damp here today, so I'm going to see if we can figure out how best to do
22:01 this.
22:02 So to engage launch control you have to put stability control off, so go into the menu
22:05 there and switch that off, put it into Sport Plus, Sport Plus and then you have to put
22:11 gear shift mode into S3 which is where it is now, then it's brake and throttle and then
22:18 it will come up with a little flag saying launch ready and then we'll see how it goes.
22:23 So here it is.
22:24 Oh my god, that is unreal.
22:25 Oh my god, I wasn't even ready for that, I don't even think the car was ready, it was
22:39 saying preparing launch control.
22:42 Let's have a look at our time anyway, I'm happy to go back and do that again because
22:45 that was pretty awesome.
22:47 0-100, 3.47 seconds, that is unreal, that is seriously impressive and then 80-120 took
22:55 2.12 seconds which is crazy as well, two seconds to get from 80-120, that is unbelievable,
23:03 that is impressive.
23:04 Alright, let's do a stop from 100km/h.
23:06 You know what, there is one other feature here as well in two-wheel drive mode, with
23:10 stability control off, if you load up the throttle you can actually get it to do a little
23:15 burnout as well which I think is pretty cool, so we'll give that a crack now, here we go.
23:27 That is unreal.
23:30 This is like the ultimate machine, there is nothing this won't do.
23:35 I genuinely bloody love it.
23:38 Okay, enough being silly, let's see how quickly this stops from 100.
23:44 We have a fair bit of rubber on the road so it should mean that we can actually pull up
23:49 in a decent amount of time.
23:50 So there's 100 there and, oh, not on the anchors.
24:04 So let's have a look, stop from 100 took 3.1 seconds and 36.79 metres, that is bloody
24:13 impressive, so very, very happy with that.
24:16 Okay, and last but not least, our reverse acceleration test.
24:20 Let's see how quickly it will go in reverse.
24:23 Stopped okay, 40km/h.
24:27 Now, there is another feature I wanted to test out here.
24:32 It will drive sport, so what it basically does is it sends all the torque to the rear
24:38 axle but engages the front axle as required.
24:41 So to use it you have to turn stability control off which I've just done there.
24:45 Put the engine in sport plus, I'm in sport plus.
24:49 We'll see how it feels just around our cone here, I'll just stand on the throttle, step
24:54 it out sideways and see what happens.
25:00 Yeah, so look, it actually, it's interesting, I'm going to give that one more crack.
25:09 Here's our cone, turn in.
25:16 So yeah, it does actually step out the back a bit.
25:21 I could feel there that it was biting at the front and pulling it back into line, so it
25:26 actually feels very much like the M340i when it does it.
25:29 So in the M340i it lets you step it out sideways but then it starts pulling in at the front
25:35 a little inorganically.
25:37 So yeah, look, I think it's good that it allows you to do that, you've got that sort of setting
25:41 there to play with, but for me I think it's all about two-wheel drive mode.
25:46 So what we're going to do now, this is going to be a bit weird, we're going to step back
25:49 in time to this morning when it was wet here and I realised it was a perfect opportunity
25:54 not to kill tyres and we had a little play around with two-wheel drive mode and also
25:58 the drift analyser and M traction control.
26:01 OK, so being a BMW M product, it wouldn't be totally complete without the ability to
26:07 do some silly stuff, so now that it's actually wet out here I thought now's the perfect time
26:12 to demonstrate M traction control and the drift analyser because I can be silly and
26:16 not destroy the tyres which is what always gets me into trouble.
26:19 So I want to show you how it all works.
26:21 We'll start off with variable traction control.
26:23 So if I go here to the menu to drive settings to setup, what you can do is actually set
26:29 the variable traction control from all the way on to all the way off and I'll just run
26:33 you through a couple of these settings so you can see how it works.
26:36 So with the engine we'll pop that into Sport Plus and then I'll go down to M drive, so
26:42 we have four-wheel drive, four-wheel drive sport and two-wheel drive.
26:45 So you're going to go all the way to two-wheel drive, you can only access that by switching
26:49 stability control off entirely.
26:51 So there it is there and then we'll switch that over to two-wheel drive and traction
26:58 control, stick it all the way to 10 for the moment just so I can show you how that works.
27:02 So according to the car, DSC is totally off but traction control is fully on.
27:06 So we'll come up to our little turn here and I'll just basically turn in, plough the throttle
27:13 and show you what happens, so throttle is ploughed.
27:19 Let's add a little slide because it is wet and stability control is off but ultimately
27:23 it doesn't actually allow you to do anything else because it is biting the entire time.
27:29 So what we'll do now is change traction control through to five and I'll do the same thing.
27:35 I can already feel the wheels slipping a bit at the rear there.
27:39 We'll turn in, stab the throttle, it's actually really nice and progressive because I can
27:49 get it to step out sideways but it's always managing the traction.
27:54 So you can actually feel like a bit of a hero because you just keep your foot in the throttle
28:00 and it just lets it keep sliding sideways without being too out of control even here
28:04 in the wet.
28:05 So number two, I'll try that again, so throttle on.
28:16 Oh that is a lot more tail happy there in number two, that is unreal.
28:20 Number two makes you feel like an absolute hero because you can get it sideways and it's
28:27 happy to play with you.
28:28 Let's go all the way to off.
28:30 Test my skills here.
28:32 Okay here it goes, turn in.
29:00 That is unreal.
29:01 Oh my god this thing is so much fun.
29:05 You should not be able to do this in a family station wagon.
29:11 Oh man I love this car so much.
29:19 I love it so much, that is unreal.
29:20 It also means that when it is totally off you can do donuts as well so maybe we'll just
29:26 get one of those done as well.
29:46 Love it.
29:47 Okay next thing I want to show you is the drift analyzer.
29:50 So let's head to the skid panel and I'll show you how that works.
29:53 Okay as promised, drift analyzer.
29:56 This is the funnest day at work ever.
29:59 So we go into this menu here, we activate drift analyzer.
30:04 So what it's going to do, it's going to look at our drifts.
30:06 Currently there's nothing on there, we're going to activate it.
30:09 It will then measure the drift angle and also how long the drift runs for and we'll see
30:16 how it goes.
30:17 So traction control, leave that off for the moment and I'll try it again with it on as
30:21 well just to see what happens but I see M drift on the screen ahead of me there.
30:26 Alright I'll just use second gear so we don't shag the car.
30:30 But here we go.
30:32 Tip in, throttle.
30:36 Oh it's so easy to have sideways even with traction control fully switched off as well.
30:45 Go for one more lap.
30:52 This is so much fun.
30:53 Alright that is enough.
30:55 So let's see what it's come up with there.
30:59 Okay so last drift, oh three and a half stars.
31:03 Wasn't a fan of that.
31:06 Drift angle 34.2 degrees, drift duration 23 seconds and drift distance of 237 metres.
31:12 I think I'm going to have to try harder than that.
31:16 Tip in, bit of throttle.
31:23 It does feel a little easier but I don't have that sort of granular control over it as I
31:28 did before.
31:29 Let's see how that went.
31:34 Oh that's better, four and a half stars.
31:38 30.1 degree drift angle, 179 metres.
31:42 So there you go.
31:44 I guess my drifting isn't very good.
31:46 But having M traction control available means you can actually do a little bit of novice
31:51 drifting as well without the risk of crashing into anything which is good news I guess.
32:06 So the BMW M3 Touring, this is pretty much as good as I thought it was going to be.
32:10 It's like a, just a honed version of the sedan.
32:13 You've got room in the back there to put, I don't know, kid related things and you can
32:17 put it into two wheel drive and do silly things in it.
32:20 Like there is nothing it won't do so it is cool and I think this is a car that we'll
32:24 appreciate and value because in five, ten years time when something like this doesn't
32:28 exist without hybridisation and you've seen the way that C63 has gone, I think everyone
32:33 is going to want to have one of these.
32:35 BMW has really thought about all the driver customisation stuff as well so it is a complete
32:39 package I love it.
32:40 So if you did enjoy this video please make sure you like it and you share it with your
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32:47 icon but until next time, take it easy.