Quote:
Originally Posted by pbonsalb
I had an 08 E90 M3 for 10 years. Really liked it. Fantastic driver's car -- good feedback, modern enough for some comfort and convenience, fun to rev it to 8400. The exciting power is 5500-8400, but it is perfectly adequate to drive gently at lower rpm. The stories that it does not have torque are not fair -- it has more than an older M54 equipped E90 at really low rpm like 2000, and it has really short gearing from the factory. My 6 speed has a 3.85 diff, which means great torque multiplication. If you are not used to a high rpm motor, though, it will take some getting used to. You have to keep the rpm up to keep it at maximum performance and that means a lot of rowing gears if you have the 6 speed. You may not enjoy that work. And the pulls can be really long if you don't row the gears -- you might run 4000 to 8400, for example and since the torque curve is pretty flat, the car does not seem that fast.
With a few mods, they wake up. I ran an X pipe with resonators in place of the cats, air filters, Bilstein with H&R springs, a tune, and water/meth injection. The 12.5 CR port injection S65 likes octane. 91 is not great. 93 is good, but more is better. Vishnu used to make a piggyback that raised timing while the meth was flowing, but it is NLA.
The DCT might be the better match for the motor. Certainly easier to drive and it will do shifts that you probably would not do, and do them better and faster than you. It is also closer ratio with 7 speeds.
Maintenance takes some care and patience. I had nothing expensive fail in 10 years and the car has 110k when I sold it. I did replace throttle actuators, valve cover gaskets, starter, alternator, ground cables, injectors, etc. I also did rod bearings, a known weak point that can ruin the motor. It took me a long day. I recommend using the ARP 2000 material bolts -- the torque sequence is much easier than with new factory bolts. Cost me about $600 in parts back then. Maybe twice that today. There are DIY guides.
If you are a lazy driver, a turbo motor or larger displacement V8 might be the better choice. For most of the time I had the E90 M3, my wife had an E61 535xi with N54 and I also had my turbo E36 M3. I love turbos. Replaced the E90 M3 with an F90 M5.
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So all the options I have to look at are going to be DCT as the wife refuses to learn to drive a stick, and if I need to drive the mom-mobile with the kids and she has places to go I need her to have a car she can drive.
I love turbos too and enjoy the quick acceleration and the better power curve for when I am lazy. The only thing I don't enjoy about the turbos are all the owner induced issues that happen when I end up mod and trying to push more power than I should. I use to have a F80 335 that had a catastrophic engine failure due to irresponsible modding. Learned my lesson but I know myself too well and will end up pushing the limits again...