The 2021 BMW M3 Is a Fantastic Sport Sedan

this is the new 2021 bmw m3 and it's the latest version of a car i have admired since i was a kid a new bmw m3 only comes around once every six or seven years and for the first time since 2015 a new m3 has arrived and today i'm going to review it [Music] before i get started be sure to check out cars and bins which is my enthusiast car auction website we've had some amazing sales recently on cars and bids including this bmw m2 competition which sold for just under 50 000 this beautiful lexus lx 470 which sold for 62 500 setting a recent record price for this model and this gorgeous porsche 997 carrera s which sold for just under 50 000. if you're looking to sell your cool car from the 1980s and up cars and bids is the place to do it and if you're looking to buy a cool modern enthusiast car check out cars and bids with an amazing selection in daily auctions at carsandbids.com i've borrowed this new m3 from crevier bmw which is a bmw dealership here in orange county in southern california crevier bmw is huge they sell more bmws than any bmw dealership in north america and they have an amazing selection of just about any bmw you could want crevier bmw also has some of the first new m3 and m4 models in the country currently available you can check out crevier bmw by clicking the link in the description below so let's talk m3 as you probably know the m3 is now only made as a sedan the two-door version is called the m4 and i will be reviewing that very soon on my second channel more doug d miura now you can get an m3 in two ways there's the base model this car which has 475 horsepower rear wheel drive and a six-speed manual transmission or you can upgrade to the m3 competition which has 500 horsepower and automatic transmission and available all-wheel drive and today i'm going to show you everything first i'm going to take you on a tour of the new m3 and show you all the quirks and features of the most hotly anticipated sport sedan of the year then i'm going to get it out on the road and drive it and then i'll give it a dug score all right i'm going to start the quirks and features of the new m3 with the color bmw calls this isle of man green named after the isle of man in the uk which is known for being kind of lush and also there's a famous car race there this is a weird color but frankly i like it there are a lot of weird colors offered for the new m3 they've definitely got a little out there with some of their color choices and this is one of the stranger ones but i think it's kind of neat if you're willing to do a little departure from the normal silver gray black that most people do and next up you knew it was coming we have to talk grill bmw's kidney grill has grown considerably since the last model the kidneys have become lungs they are absolutely huge now i have not minded bmw's new grill on a lot of other models i think it actually looks good on the x7 because it's a larger vehicle it's fine on the seven series but here it's just too big like cartoonishly so these giant nostrils in the front of this car now recently i read an interview with bmw's design boss and he defended the grill he said you know one in five people actually like the girl design and i'm thinking one in five that is not the mark i'd be going for if i was a designer you try to shoot for five in five or maybe four and five you can't please everybody but come on you know there was a time when bmw made cars so beautiful that six in five people liked them like the z8 this is definitely not that anymore and i thought that was a strange defense of the grill saying 20 of people actually like it that probably tells you you've gone a little too big with your grill which is a shame because aside from the grill this car is gorgeous in fact dare i say this is controversial i think this might be the most attractive m3 ever if it wasn't for this grill you look at it from the other angles and it's just cool it's an amazing combination of both muscular and subtle which is really difficult to pull off well there are some sharp creases around the car they look fantastic i think this is a great looking 3 series in general and a really great looking evolution to become the m3 i think they did a fantastic job this car from every other angle aside from this one where it just kind of all goes away which is just too bad it's the only bad element on an otherwise gorgeous car although there is one other rather interesting thing i noticed around back the rear wheel arches are flared of course to accommodate the larger tires in the m3 and because it just looks cool but you can see the flare only goes as far as the door which isn't flared at all so this cool flared fender has to stop very abruptly and it looks kind of strange what bmw should have done probably was flare out the door a little bit but i suspect that would have cost more money you would have had to make a special door just for the m3s so they didn't bother doing it and it looks a little weird back there if you notice and now since i pointed it out every time you see one of these you will also worth pointing out the mirrors still use that weird bmw design where they look like two posts connect the mirrors to the car but when you get closer actually only one post connects it and the other one is there for style i guess i'm not really sure why they do that like faux two post mirror thing it's a little bit of a quirk but this car has it too you also have massive exhausts around back four different exhaust pipes with huge exhaust outlets they are absolutely gigantic and frankly this car sounds pretty good because of them take a listen [Music] [Applause] [Music] now i admit that doesn't sound quite as good as the old v8 and v10 bmw m cars but mercedes-benz recently announced the next amg c63 is going to have a 2-liter turbo 4-cylinder with a hybrid component and that car will not sound as good as this one does i haven't heard it yet but i'm willing to bet that this thing sounds better so maybe this isn't perfect but it's better than other performance cars especially when you consider the trend of smaller engines now the reason for that sound is of course this engine turbocharged six cylinder and it makes 473 horsepower in this model the base model m3 473 horses now if you upgrade to the m3 competition you get 503 horses so an extra 30 horsepower in the competition model and over 500 horsepower and a bmw m3 which is pretty crazy but even this base model is pretty powerful in fact this has 50 more horsepower than the outgoing m3 although this has the same torque figure as the old m3 406 pound-feet of torque in the base model m3 if you upgrade to the competition you get 480 pound-feet of torque so the comp definitely adds more power and more torque bmw says 0 to 60 and like the high three second range for the competition or the low 4 second range if you get the base model like this car and next up we move inside the new m3 to cover in my opinion the biggest difference between the regular m3 and the competition and that would be right here the manual transmission in 2021 with all the electronics and technology and fuel efficiency standards the m3 still comes with a manual transmission but here's the kicker you can't get a manual if you get the competition the way bmw has structured this is only the base model comes with the manual transmission and the competition is only offered with an automatic transmission so if you upgrade to the competition you get extra power extra torque but you also get it automatic and just as important to note if you want an automatic you have to get a competition because the base model will only be offered with a manual transmission and the competition will only be offered with an automatic transmission so the only way to get a competition is an automatic and the only way to get an automatic is with a competition and by the way the base model m3 is rear-wheel drive the competition will offer all-wheel drive although it comes standard with rear-wheel drive as well now since i'm touching on the equipment differences between the m3s i should note this car has a pretty cool spec not only is it a manual transmission rear wheel drive car but it also is a slick top meaning it has no sunroof you can see instead it has this carbon fiber roof panel which looks very cool but this is like the enthusiast spec for a sedan slick top manual transmission rear wheel drive and frankly i really like that i think it's cool but anyway next up let's move on to the quirks and features of this interior you have these sort of sporty seats in the car which look nice and they say m3 on the headrest and when you first unlock the doors m3 on the headrest lights up which looks really cool it's sort of a nice little touch confirming that you have your special m3 with that said to my great sadness the gear pattern on the shift lever no longer lights up this was a hallmark of bmw manual cars the gear pattern would light up at night when you had your lights on no longer true very sad but hey at least they still offer the manual even if the shift lever doesn't light up i can live with that one other cool thing in this interior around the shift lever you can see all this carbon fiber trim in the center that looks really good same deal over on the dashboard you have a little extra carbon fiber trim contributes to a very enthusiastic looking interior in addition to the manual transmission rear wheel drive no sunroof build next up we move on to the steering wheel which also has some carbon fiber trim and that looks pretty cool and the steering wheel has m stitching you can see inside the rim you have this stitching in the m colors which all m models have and i've always thought is a really cool little touch when you notice it it's a nice thing it'll make you smile on the steering wheel you also have these two red buttons sort of thumb buttons on either side of the horn these are configurable drive modes you have m1 and m2 as you can see and you can set these to be exactly what you want for like the steering feel the braking the acceleration the chassis all that stuff and that way when you want to go into your favorite road you don't have to set each individual little setting you can just tap your thumb button go to your saved configuration and then you're ready to drive it's kind of cool to have two saved driver configurations right there at your literal fingertips also speaking of drive modes in the center console here you have a button that says m mode if you press that you can go into sort of a sporty racy m mode which will instantly turn off all your driving assistant features and that way again you don't have to go in and turn them all off manually just press m mode and then it's easy to disable them pretty quickly now a quirky thing of m mode when you press it it reconfigures your gauge cluster and it gets rid of any excess stuff and only shows you the most important items you would need to focus on on a race track the quirky part is that it's clearly been designed for an automatic transmission car because one of the largest items displayed here is the gear you're in which would matter if you're in an automatic you can't always tell which gear you're in but in a manual you can you don't really need it to tell you but as you can see i'm shifting and it's telling me which gear i'm in despite the fact that the lever is literally in each gear again clearly designed with the automatic in mind we're lucky we got a manual with this car bmw definitely wasn't thinking manual when they made it but here it is next up another important button in the center console you can see a button with an exhaust on it that turns on or off your m sound control so you can adjust whether your exhaust is loud or quieter in case you want to start your car and not wake up the neighbors or a sleeping baby now also in the center console here you have a camera button you press that and you can see this car offers a lot of different camera angles including my very favorite this 3d camera view which basically lets you see all around the car and it is a tremendously excellent helpful feature when you're parking or navigating in tight spots this is really really cool technology it's like there's a little drone flying around your car showing you exactly where you are and one cool thing you can see the picture of the car in this screen is the same color and wheels as the actual car i'm sitting in i haven't been in any other new m3s to know if they're actually changing that color to correspond with each car color but if they are that is a really neat touch and i like to see that little attention to detail next up two other neat features in the camera system one i love how the top-down camera shows you how far your doors would swing open where you're currently parked i guess this is to let you know if your doors would hit something or if there's enough room to get out of the car that is a pretty cool feature makes life a little bit easier since you know how far your doors can open before you even open them i also like the fact that you can set an activation point in the camera system what this does is allows you to set a point like on your commute where the camera system will automatically turn on so if you have a spot that you're always driving past it's like a steep driveway you don't always clear you want the camera system to turn on you can set that point to automatically happen and then when you approach it the cameras turn on automatically so you just look over and see how your car is positioned without having to find the camera system or press the buttons to activate it pretty cool idea and next up speaking of the infotainment system let's go into the m menu which offers some cool treats for one thing you can see right here this is where you configure m1 and m2 those little thumb steering wheel buttons i showed you before you go in there you can see you can save a configuration of a lot of different car functions and that way you just press the thumb button and you're in that configuration pretty cool you can also use the m menu to change the heads-up display and configure it between like a more road friendly display and a more sport friendly display that emphasizes your current revs your speed and what gear you're in which is also a nice touch you can also do the same thing with the gauge cluster configure it for like normal road driving or sport although if you put it in sport nothing really changes with the gauge cluster except you now have the ability to select a widget over on the left that will show you like g-forces or your tire status that sort of thing you can also show at converted speed and if you select this it will show your speed in kilometers per hour and miles per hour next to each other or if you turn that off you can just see it in the default speed that you have set also in this m menu you can configure it so the car will show you additional information you can check this box although it doesn't explain what the additional information is you can just select it or not select it and roll the dice on what kind of additional information you will be given next up another notable quirk you can use the infotainment system to configure the ambient lighting color in this interior you can choose from a lot of different ambient lighting colors like in a lot of cars ambient lighting is really big in this interior though it's pretty much placed everywhere so when you change the color it really does change the mood inside the car now one interesting quirk of the ambient lighting if you have the car running and you open the door the ambient lighting color on the door changes from what you've selected to this blinking red light to provide caution to oncoming drivers or cyclists that a door is open and it's supposed to increase the visibility so they don't crash into your door when you close the door the red blinking light of course goes away and that light again becomes the ambient lighting in the color that you have selected so it has kind of an interesting dual purpose as ambient lighting and as a safety feature when the door is open but anyway back to the infotainment system i have to say this is a good system but it's not as good as it could be it's not as good for instance as mercedes-benz and audi for one thing it's a pretty small screen here in the center it's very responsive and pretty intuitive but it's not quite as easy to move between different things you want to control as it is in mercedes-benz and audi models they just have slightly better systems that are a little bit more intuitive and a little bit more user friendly with a little bit larger screen the same is true with navigation destination entry in an audi you can use your finger to write on the screen an entire word telling it where you want to go a city or a street name in this you can also use your finger to write but it's confined to this little pad this circular pad in the center console and you have to go letter by letter so you write an r the system recognizes that you write an s the system recognizes etc etc letter by letter not quite as easy or as convenient in rival models and frankly the same is true for the gauge cluster this car has a full screen gauge cluster just like audi mercedes-benz and most other luxury vehicles but the problem with this one is it's just really not all that configurable even though they're using a screen you can't do that much with it for instance you can press this little button at the end of the turn signal stock to scroll through a few menus on this little right widget in the screen but that's about all you can easily control everything else has to be controlled through the infotainment system going through different menus and it's just kind of annoying to do that other cars let you control the screen in the gauge cluster right on the steering wheel which would make more sense and even when you've configured it to display exactly what you want you can't go full screen with the items you want to see for instance no full screen map in this gauge cluster which basically everyone else offers at this price point bmw doesn't the whole tech is just a little bit behind some of the luxury brand rivals with that said even though some of the tech in here lags a little bit behind rivals you do have some interesting quirks and features for instance you have gesture control take a look at this i'm moving my finger in this weird way well i can turn up the volume on the stereo by doing that and i don't have to like press a button or turn a dial i just hover in front of the screen and move my finger and the volume goes up and there are several different gestures you can choose to adjust various different things throughout the car and that is a pretty cool quirk you also have an m lap timer feature that you can use go into your apps and you can select this although it only works with an iphone but if you hook up your iphone i guess there's some app with your phone you can use to time your laps for all of your race track driving which is a neat little integration another cool app is the drive recorder feature which basically uses the front camera that this car has and turns it into a dash cam that can record as you drive along this is a great idea so many modern cars have all these cameras they're not really used while you're driving it only makes sense to have built-in dash cams which can help assign fault in an accident prove that you didn't run a red light whatever i think all modern cars should come standard with dash cams and it's nice to see more and more cars offering it tesla general motors and bmw all have this feature i hope it's in every brand before too long also worth noting this car has some great driver assist technology as you'd expect at this price point it does not have adaptive cruise control i suspect because of the manual transmission i don't think bmw mates adaptive crews and a manual which is too bad but you do have automatic forward collision braking so the car will stop if you're about to hit something and you have lane keep assist so it'll keep you in your lane those are nice features to have of course and next up we move on to the back seat in the new m3 which is not really very big the back seat and the three series always been kind of an afterthought these cars are getting bigger and so the back seat is also getting bigger but it's still not huge back here big enough for an adult to sit back here but not in an enormous amount of comfort if you really want to carry four adults all the time you're probably gonna want a five series and you can kind of tell bmw sort of deprioritizes rear seat passengers in the m3 for instance there's no storage pocket on the back of the front seats so many cars have that this car doesn't now you often see that with sport seats but these seats aren't really that sporty they definitely could have put a storage packet here you also do not have a center armrest in this car like you do in so many others no center armrest at all instead you can fold down the middle seat but that's your trunk pass-through meaning if you fold down the middle seat for an armrest you're hanging out with whatever you have rolling around in the trunk they're really not a big emphasis on the back seat in this car with that said you do have your own climate zone back here you can see the temperature is adjustable back here where the air comes out that sort of thing so that'll help you be more comfortable in back and you also have two separate usb c ports back here for charging devices which is also pretty useful and next up i'm going to move around to the back of the new m3 i'm going to go into the cargo area where you can see this has a power trunk if you want to know why this m3 is so much heavier than previous models it's stuff like that this car is objectively better than older m3s in pretty much every way but let's just say the e36 m3 didn't have a power trunk and let's leave it at that anyway the cargo area in here you can see is pretty large actually it's pretty big for a vehicle this size and frankly i would give up a little bit of this cargo space for a little more rear seat room but this is how they've packaged it now as for the cargo area itself nothing particularly unusual back here looks pretty standard except you have two nice little netted areas over off to the side where you can put smaller items if you don't want them rolling around in the trunk for instance if you have a gt3 rs watering can as i do these little netted areas would be a perfect place for such a watering can to hang out one other interesting item here on the inside of the trunk lady you can see this little plastic flap which gives you the phone number for bmw roadside assistance you can just take this off and then you have this plastic roadside assistance flap which is weird i think that flap holds on the warning triangle in other markets where a warning triangle is required but here in north america you don't have to have a warning triangle when you sell a car new so instead you just get the flap and no triangle kind of strange but that's what you have and finally we move on to the window sticker you can see the total sticker price of this car is just under 80 000 this m3 does not have a lot of options on it the base price of a new m3 is around 70 000 so this one has a sticker price only about ten thousand dollars higher and a thousand of that is the destination charge so there's not really that many features or options but i must say this is about exactly how i would equip mine if i got one of these you have all the good options that you would want and nothing too crazy or excessive and i love the fact that this car has a manual transmission and rear wheel drive but it still has some great features like apple carplay lane keep assist automatic forward collision braking a great center touchscreen system it's really rare these days to find rear-wheel drive powerful expensive luxury cars with a lot of great modern tech and a manual transmission and it's really crazy to see like that old school transmission meeting all these cool new modern tech features not too many cars are gonna offer that for very long this is pretty special for having that combination and so those are the quirks and features of the new bmw m3 now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the new m3 this is so exciting for me i've loved the m3 since i was a kid i've done videos on almost every other version of the m3 already and it's just amazing the new one has finally arrived and here it is sitting in here feels great looks great a lot of great materials in here um ergonomically this car is good i've already reviewed the regular 3 series of this generation and i liked a lot of this stuff a lot of the materials everything's pretty nice but obviously i've not driven one with a manual so this will be interesting just sitting at a stop light here a fairly loud busy intersection highway next door uh quiet surprisingly quiet even just short bursts already driving i can already tell that the shift action and gear lever are great i've criticized a lot of bmws throughout the 2000s and early 2010s for their shifter being kind of rubbery and the clutch feeling a little vague this does not feel like that this has great shift action the throws are short you just notch it into gear and it feels so rewarding it is so nice to be driving a three pedal bmw once again you know modern automakers aren't putting that much development into manual transmissions anymore so it's nice to see one that's really nice oh man two interesting things very fast very fast man downshifts are so easy rev matches are so easy it's very very very easy to put yourself in i think this car has like an auto rev match it does which can be turned off but even if you do it yourself it's just easy it's a quick revving engine the clutch is very easy to operate it's nice to drive a really nice manual transmission which this is it feels like it's got great torque a biggest thing i was nervous about looking at the numbers thinking about the old one i was a little nervous that it would just feel a little too peaky and you wouldn't be able to access power that well that is not true power is available and you can go get it at pretty much any speed but the thing to me right now that i'm seeing that's really impressive the car just feels very immediate the steering and handling just feels fantastic not only does it feel very stable but it feels immediate like you go to turn and instantly they have a great steering ratio and string rank you know this three series in general i felt is a little bit more athletic than the outgoing one um and i think that that's definitely true of the m3 also you know i gotta tell you i know i've only been driving my car for a couple of minutes but people are gonna get the competition oh it's faster it's got more power you know i don't care about that this car is plenty fast but what it really has is a manual transmission and a modern bmw and that's just the coolest thing in the world to be able to have all this incredibly good modern tech and have three pedals and a stick shift oh yeah this car is quick this car does not feel at all slow i know people are gonna get the comp and they're gonna want the fastest thing and whatever but i wouldn't even think about it it wouldn't even be a thought in my mind um i would want to have just a little bit less performance if it meant that i got to drive this sweet sweet shifter and yes steering and handling is fantastic it is amazing to me how immediate the steering is big criticism to me of a lot of bmw models recently they have not felt like bmw models in the past if you drive an x5 and x6 the bigger ones 5 series they feel big they feel a little bloated not this car this car does not feel bloated at all it feels and it is actually if you look on paper it's a it's a heavy car it doesn't feel like that when you're behind the wheel the steering ratio oh god it's just so quick the immediacy of the steering is unbelievable i gotta tell you this is the most fun i've had at a new bmw in a long time i can't think of the last i mean i wasn't reviewing cars when bmws were this fun before you know and i know there's going to be complaints about the cost the styling the front end and the size how big it's gotten but i don't know you give me a manual and a really potent engine and i kind of start to forget some of that stuff you know and that's what they've done here and i'm thrilled this car still has the manual and i got to tell you this engine enter in transmission combination is fantastic you add in all this modern tech this is going to go down as one of the great m3s because i wouldn't be surprised if the next one loses the manual smaller engine plug-in hybrid type thing this might be the very last of these cars will be able to experience it really is a special car and it drives great and if you're nervous about the new m3 you shouldn't be and so that's the 2021 bmw m3 grill aside this is an exceptional car and this is exactly how i would order mine forget the automatic the competition all-wheel drive i want a manual transmission and rear wheel drive just like the old days this is a fantastic car in a fantastic configuration and now it's time to give the new m3 a doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling this is a nice looking car except for the obvious it would definitely get a higher score if it wasn't for the grill but because of that huge grille it gets a six out of ten acceleration zero to sixty in the low four second range it gets a seven out of ten handling is excellent way better than i was expecting based on the old one and it gets a 7 out of 10. fun factor is high this is a rear wheel drive manual transmission fast fun sport sedan likely one of the last cars left like this and it gets an 8 out of 10. finally cool factor and this earns a strong 6 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 34 out of 50. next up are the daily categories and features the m3 is well equipped and it gets an 8 out of 10. comfort is normal for a car like this and it gets a 7 out of 10. quality 2 normal for a car like this and it gets a 7 out of 10. same deal with practicality all sedans of this size score a 5 out of 10. value though is an interesting one this car is expensive but it's not as expensive as i'd think given the performance level and the whole manual transmission rear-wheel drive specialness of the whole thing no other automaker really offers this anymore and frankly i think this car will go down as a pretty special one probably the end of the line for the gas-powered manual m3s and it gets a 7 out of 10 for a total daily score of 34 out of 50. added up and the dug score is 68 out of 100 which places the m3 here against relevant cars probably the closest competitor on this list is the audi rs5 sportback the rs5 is better looking than the m3 faster and more practical but the m3 is simply more fun and more engaging the bmw has a better powertrain sharper handling and the thrill of the manual transmission i liked this new m3 a lot more than i expected and that's reflected in the doug score [Music] one gt3rs watering can two gt3rs watering cans

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,276,353

Rating: 4.8589821 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: hucRrlWhWaU

Length: 29min 32sec (1772 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Unspec7]

Guess the review embargo lifted? All of a sudden everyone and their grandkids are releasing M3 reviews.

[u/BABYEATER1012]

It's huge, fast and fugly. It's going to be a sales success.

[u/DaRealFish]

1/5 like the grille. That means 4/5 don't like it? How is that a defense lmao

[u/inter_mittent]

Doug, you've said the M2 Competition is one of your favorite all time BMWs. You sound very enthusiastic about this new M3, so how would it compare to the M2? Would you still chose the M2 over this? (great review BTW).

[u/butermunch]

gonna start selling front grill conversion kits, who wants to invest?

[u/gazorpaglop]

“The kidneys have become lungs” haha love that he started out with the most controversial design element.

Too bad, as Doug points out the rest of the design is amazing, but probably won’t stop buyers from getting something else to avoid the hideous snout

[u/magikarpet_ride]

What a stunning color. I’m so glad this shade of green is making a comeback.

[u/MemioliRavioli]

Chris Harris really nailed it in his review. After a while, you begin to see past the bumper and notice all the other flaws in the design, mostly in the car’s proportions. It’s the front doors that are weirdly long compared to the rears, the weirdly shaped mirrors, the track width that’s too narrow for the bulging fenders.

The proportions bother me a lot more than the grille. The most perfectly proportion 5-door M car really is the M5. And the perfectly proportioned 2-door M car is the M2. The new M3 really awkwardly missed out.

[u/oldknave]

Doug the type of guy to break review embargos by 5 minutes 🤔😉

Honestly I’d do it too, unlikely the manufacturer will care at that point.