RX-8 R3 to E90 M3

Cliff’s:  Had an RX-8 R3.  Totaled. Got an E90 M3.  Now trying to figure out who the hell I even am any more.

I initially wrote this for a very different audience, but decided to try it here and see what y’all think.

Fair warning:  This is long.
 

Necessary Background:

I had a 2011 RX-8 R3 as an only-car for over four years because that’s how important handling is to me.  I’m sure I don’t have to explain that too much in this crowd.

I almost DGAF about straight-line speed or most kinds of comfort.  I enjoy them when I have them, but I don’t pursue them.  What I want is low, light, agile, responsive, feelsome. But my car is also my family’s only car, so it has to have back seats.  When the R3 came out, there was nothing with equal-or-bigger back seats that handled better in stock form or mod-for-mod -- at any price, ever.  As far as I can tell, that was still true when I bought it in 2014, and it might still be true now.  It fed that hunger while providing just enough space for a rear-facing child seat behind my 5' 6" wife and a stroller in the trunk.  Perfect.

I also kind of hate how car buyers drive the industry toward cars that are all about how little they hurt rather than how much joy they bring.  Everything is about how high can I sit, how little fuel do I need, how much neglect can I get away with, how much can I be shielded and distracted from what the car is doing, how little can I possibly do behind the wheel and still get where I'm going.  The RX-8 is 180 degrees from that.  I almost felt like I had to drive one just to plant a flag for what I value.

Of course I also found the car frustrating in a lot of ways, many of them obvious -- though I was hard pressed to admit it, because I had convinced myself that the auto industry never produced anything that suited me better.

Then I lost it in an accident, and figured maybe it was time to test that assumption.

I’ve had this E90 M3 for a little more than a month now.  MT, slicktop, no iDrive, no EDC, 18s. With the crash still fresh in my mind, a bunch of drama around the purchase (dealership incompetence), and having to swap to winter tires almost immediately afterward, it's been hard to come to grips with this car.  But I think I'm slowly forming some opinions I can trust.

Below: bad news first, then good.

On One Hand...

This really isn't the kind of car I thought I'd be driving.  Too heavy, too serious all the time. I don't particularly like the sound of a cross-plane crank V8; the S65’s sound is one of my faves, but I’d prefer a 6.  The car is informative enough to the driver, and fairly agile, but not really alive-feeling in the way I'd prefer.

It's not all that great at just loafing around, either.  The suspension is firm, the engine is constantly growling at you, and there's no escaping the heavy-machinery feeling.  It kind of feels like a very agile freight train.

The gauge cluster sucks compared to the R3's -- by which I mean it's decent whereas the R3's is basically perfect.  The voice commands and stereo are also downgrades from the R3's. Especially the stereo. The R3’s Bose system isn’t very good, but it’s almost hi-fi compared to the base BMW Professional crap.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but feel like many of the M3’s talents are at least somewhat wasted on me.  I like the power, the interior, and the status, but I'd rather have the RX-8's responsiveness and exploitability, which can't really be replicated with this kind of power and weight.

 

On The Other Hand...

I know this isn’t going to sound like much of a surprise, but the extent to which it’s true is kind of amazing:  the M3 evinces a depth of engineering that the RX-8 could barely gesture at. And most importantly, I don't think there's a stock 4-door car out there that I'd rather have.

One of the things I struggled to admit to myself about the R3 was how stressful it was to drive.  The M3 isn’t. The NVH is so much more tolerable, and the power makes it less annoying to lose ground in traffic because there’s no doubt you’ll be able to make up ground when things open up.

At the same time, there’s an oddly good sensation of speed in the M3.  That’s one of the things I had thought I’d lose along with the NVH. I’m not quite sure how the M3 retains it, but it does, and I love it for that.  I know a lot of people like it when 100 mph feels like 50; I can’t stand that (why on earth would you not want to feel speed??), and I’m really glad this car isn’t like that.

As far as I've pushed it, the M3 handles a lot like a really grown-up and much heavier RX-8.  It's less eager-feeling but its behavior and responses are surprisingly similar in most situations.  As little as I've driven it near its limits, I suspect that's where the biggest differences are. The M3 seems to have a lot more traction, and doesn't seem to want to yaw as much with wheelspin.  It also seems less surgical, less delicately precise. The wider tires don’t help, and I think the diff is slower to react, too. Overall, though, it's almost more impressive in a way. I think the RX-8 owes its talents mainly to the soundness of its fundamentals: low, light, rigid, compact powertrain, really nice suspension setup and geometry.  The M3 feels like its handling engineers started with a worse foundation but did a better job. I get the impression that both cars are comparably forgiving and flexible, just in different ways. And stock vs. stock, they're definitely comparably capable.

For how firm the M3’s ride is, the way it soaks up small irregularities is incredible.  It’s only a bit more compliant than the R3 over medium and large bumps, but it’s far more compliant over cobblestones and the like.  Maybe that’s one reason why it has so much more traction.

Seems to have a lot less wheel hop, too.  Like, a lot less.  Even at 80k miles with (AFAICT) all original suspension bushings, all I ever get is a little tap-tap-tap in situations where the R3 would have felt like a jackhammer.

At first, I felt like the M3 lacked a bit of steering feedback vs. the RX-8’s overall.  Now, I'm pretty convinced that a lot of the feedback in the RX-8 was artificially exaggerated or just straight-up fake.  The RX-8's EPS does a really good impression of cornering loads -- until you push it into understeer, where you notice it doesn't lighten up quite as much as it should.  The M3's steering doesn't feel quite as alive overall, but its feedback seems a bit more authentic and its gain curve feels more natural.  Where it really crushes the RX-8 is just off center.  Both cars have a lot of initial gain, but the M3 somehow achieves that without feeling nervous.  It just seems to self-center and communicate better in that region.  That difference does a lot to make the M3 much less tiring to drive.

The engine is WAY better to use than the RX-8’s, and not just because of the power.  The throttle response is much faster (ITBs vs. the RX-8's long intake tract I'm guessing) and infinitely smoother.  The RX-8 liked to jerk and buck with throttle modulation, especially at low throttle. The M3's throttle is almost electric-motor linear by comparison.

No point belaboring how much faster the M3 is than the RX-8.  The main thing I like about the power is its delivery: a flat torque curve with all the power way up top, safely tucked away for when I want to commit.  I didn't ask for this much speed, but if I'm going to have it, this is how I want it: sufficient torque, stratospheric redline, short gearing.

Fuel economy should be worse per the EPA numbers, but it's about the same with my usage.  Being able to drive mildly without wringing my hands about carbon buildup is a game changer.

Shift feel isn't as nice as the RX-8's, but it's somehow much easier to downshift into 2nd without grinding.  Not sure how that works, but I'll take it.

Clutch feel is way better -- by which I mean there is some, whereas the RX-8 bafflingly had none whatsoever.

Holy flippin’ hell do I like having a reasonable oil temp gauge instead of a coolant temp dummy gauge.

The community support for the M3 is night-and-day vs. the RX-8.  R3s are basically nonexistent, and RX-8 owners with both money and discernment are a rare breed -- with obvious implications for the quality of aftermarket parts and info.  The M3 community is a revelation by comparison.

At the same time, because this car is a slicktop sedan with a manual transmission and no iDrive or electronic dampers, I still get to feel like I’m driving something unique even though the community is so much bigger.

Having FCP Euro as a parts source is a quality-of-life upgrade for obvious reasons.

Another quality-of-life upgrade:  not having to explain my car choice to anyone.  I was getting really tired of dealing with people thinking I drove an unreliable E36 M3box.

And of course being an E90, the M3 has more than a semblance of practicality.  With a growing toddler and one more kid on the way, this is going to make a bigger and bigger difference with time.
 

Verdict (For Now)

I miss driving a car that always felt like it had a goofy E36 M3-eating grin on its face.  I do not miss feeling like I had survived long drives rather than enjoyed them.

I miss being able to go WOT to 9000 RPM at will without committing a felony.  I do not miss having the torque of an econobox and the throttle response of a slack-filled powertrain.

I miss that extra bit of handling and feel.  I do not miss the fact that those were my car’s only real talents, such as they were.

So yeah, I'd prefer something a lot lighter, and I'd prefer 6 cylinders to 8.  But that car doesn’t exist in stock 4-door form, barring big compromises. So I think overall, it’s safe to say this is the right car for me now -- just as the R3 was when I got it.  The more I drive the M3, the more upsides I find, and the less strongly I feel about the downsides.

Looking forward to seeing how I feel in a year or two.  Hopefully there'll be some weight reduction between now and then!

Agile freight train is a great description of the E90 M3s. Briefly got to drive a buddy’s after we supercharged it. Faster than hell but felt big and dope-y (unsure if that is the right word here). It would handle but almost felt like it didn’t want to.

Just as aside some money for the inevitable repairs. And make sure to do an oil analysis with changes to keep an eye on the bearings.

z31maniac said:

And make sure to do an oil analysis with changes to keep an eye on the bearings.

They changed bearing material in 2011, so when you do the oil analysis you need to know what to look for based on the year. I believe the later ones are aluminum but check. If it was me I would save proactively and plan to do them at 100k. If you are mechanically inclined its not a difficult job, just tedious. 

Already sending her in for rod bearings over the holidays.  Figured I'd do it preventatively.  Thought about pulling an oil sample for testing beforehand, but I have no oil analysis history on this engine; contrary to widespread assumptions, oil analysis is unreliable without historical trending.  The car has a little over 80k miles on it and I figure I'll probably have to do the rod bearings at least once while I own it, so it might as well be now.

The new BMW bearings are supposedly tin/aluminum.  Those are the ones I'm going for.

The idea that the new bearings are harder to track with oil analysis is only true for a one-off analysis with no historical trend.  Basically, that method is unreliable no matter what bearings you have; it's just slightly less unreliable with leaded bearings just because they are the only significant source of lead in this engine.  You still have some chance of a false positive and a massive chance of a false negative regardless of bearing material.  With frequent sampling and historical trending, that problem goes away no matter what your bearings are made of.

We are on the same script. My cars have always been small light jack Russell terriers. The last one was an awd protege with a full GTR drivetrain swap boosted to the moon and was a laugh riot penalty box. When it got totalled by the shiny happy person who hit me, I got a other one and started in on the needed mods. Drove it a few times and all it did was remind me of what I'd lost. So I tried something different and an E55 is about as different as it gets. Here it is 4 years in and I am still enjoying the hell outta this car. I have decided it's OK to change things up every now and again. RX8 or M3, you're still you...

There's definitely a big difference in feeling between a small, nimble car and a bigger car, even if both handle well.  The bigger, heavier car will be less at home with being tossed around violently or in really tight corners, but in slightly faster, more open situations it'll tend to be more stable and planted feeling as you push it through the corners. 

As far as comfort vs firmness, that's one of the keys to a well designed car / suspension package.  Low center of gravity, wide enough stance, enough wheelbase and good suspension geometry all lead to a better comfort / handling tradeoff, as you can make the car planted, grippy, not rolly/sloppy, etc. without having to make the suspension stupidly stiff. 

My experience - 1x 2004 M3 + 1x 2009 M3 + 1x 2011 M3 - is that at 80k you are changing them very prematurely. 

The worst one I had was on my S54 which I changed at 100k. This one had a lot of track miles, high RPM + race tires. This is what they looked like:

I changed all myself using WPC coated factory bearings  

I dont want you to not do them and then have the engine fail on you, but I would hold and start getting the oil analyzed. 

Nice write up 

any concerns on how much maintenance will be on a 80k m3 versus the R3? 

How expensive is the rod bearing repair ? 

Given handling is such a priority, did you look at the civic type r ? 

Around here I see a lot of orange/smurf blue/yellow new m3 Sedans - I am always tempted with family to get one - but German pricey maintenance scare me. I had a 2016 WRX but got rid of it - terrible build quality couldn’t stand it anymore . 

I often think of a AMg e class, but head bolt issue has kept me away 

A competent Indy shop in OKC wants about $3k for the bearings. There is also the plastic gears in the throttle body motors, there was 1-2 more pricey common repairs that steere d me away when looking last year.

Good read.  I went from an AP2 S2000 to an F80 M3, so even more of a difference (F80 turbo I6 has a ton of low end torque).  I agree on many points.  I prefer small nimble cars but the F80 is badass and works great in winter with snows, transporting my son, pampering me on my commute, rocking out on track...  M3s are such great compromise cars.  Interestingly, there are several guys in Chicago/Milwaukee area who track their RX-8s. Some are R3s, all are red.  

F80 vs e90 m3? What are your thoughts ?

Several times you mention how the RX8 is super light and the E90 is a freight train. The E90 should be 3400 lbs, which is fairly light for a modern car. 

I wasn’t sure what an RX8 weighed. Just checked and it’s about 3050. Don’t get me wrong, 350 lbs is significant ... but is it really a night-and-day kind of difference? Especially with so much more torque and power under the hood?

One more thing: BMW factory wheel alignments tend to be pretty conservative. A good BMW race shop should be able to give you a more performance-oriented alignment that should really wake things up.

Also, I don’t know about the M3 model in particular, but E90 are generally too soft in bump and to hard in rebound ... which makes for a bumpy/wooden ride. A switch to Koni SA dampers really wakes them up. 

Slippery said:

My experience - 1x 2004 M3 + 1x 2009 M3 + 1x 2011 M3 - is that at 80k you are changing them very prematurely. 

...

I dont want you to not do them and then have the engine fail on you, but I would hold and start getting the oil analyzed. 

 

Nice.  Always good to hear confirmation that the Internet hype is overblown.  :]

Besides what I wrote above, the main reason I'm worried is that I have no idea how the car was driven before I got it.  Its maintenance records suggest a responsible owner, but it seems to burn a quart of oil every ~1500 miles so I can't be sure.  The risk of a false negative on the oil analysis is too high for my comfort.

mr2s2000elise said:

Nice write up 

Thanks.  :]

any concerns on how much maintenance will be on a 80k m3 versus the R3? 

Oh yes.

Owning a Series 2 (2009+) RX-8 means budgeting around $4k-$5k for an engine and $1k-$2k for a cat every 70k miles to be safe, and you have to do ignition coils and wires every 30k-35k miles.  But beyond that, it's like any other well-built economy car.  Failures are rare, parts costs are manageable, things generally don't break unless you break them.

For the M3, FCP Euro will take a lot of the sting out of consumables, and oddly tires cost about the same.  Other than that... yeah, it's probably going to be more expensive.  More failures, more expensive parts.  And if the engine needs service... Man, I don't even want to think about it, lol.

How expensive is the rod bearing repair ? 

There's only one shop in my area that I'd trust with a job like this, and they want a little over $3k.  There are plenty of other shops that'll do it for less, but... no thanks.

Given handling is such a priority, did you look at the civic type r ? 

Absolutely.  Great car -- almost worth buying for the brake pedal feel alone.  Not kidding.  Holy crap is it good.  But with dealer markup, it's twice as expensive as this car was, and by no stretch of the imagination is it twice the car.

Turbo-induced throttle lag and wrong-wheel drive don't help its case for me.  I'm a snob about that stuff, for better and for worse.

IamFODI said

 but it seems to burn a quart of oil every ~1500 miles so I can't be sure.  

Thats not normal is it ?! 

In reply to IamFODI :

I had no idea CTR cost twice as E90M3. Wow. 

LanEvo said:

Several times you mention how the RX8 is super light and the E90 is a freight train. The E90 should be 3400 lbs, which is fairly light for a modern car. 

I wasn’t sure what an RX8 weighed. Just checked and it’s about 3050. Don’t get me wrong, 350 lbs is significant ... but is it really a night-and-day kind of difference? Especially with so much more torque and power under the hood?

I actually had my M3 on a friend's scales a couple of weeks ago.  ~3650 lbs with half a tank of gas and no driver.  So it's more like 600 lbs difference.  On top of that, the RX-8 has a lower CoG and a much lower polar moment of inertia.  So yeah, pretty significant!

Yes, in a straight line, the power vaporizes that weight difference.  But in a corner, it's almost the other way around.  In stock form, the R3 and M3 perform comparably by the numbers -- but that's with 225-square tires on the R3 and 245 F / 265 R on the M3.  Match the tire sizes up and it'd be no contest.  And no matter what you do, the R3 is going to feel a lot more responsive and agile subjectively.

I can see how a reader might come away with the impression that I'm calling the R3 a featherweight.  It's actually a little heavier than I'd prefer.  That's why the E90 M3 feels so porky to me.

mr2s2000elise said:

In reply to IamFODI :

I had no idea CTR cost twice as E90M3. Wow. 

It's not supposed to -- not by a long shot.  Dealers are just marking them up like crazy.

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

And yeah, 1 qt of oil in 1500 miles is on the high side -- though still within BMW M's very generous limits.  Hoping it was just a fluke of some kind....

RIn reply to IamFODI :

I think you’ll be surprised by how much faster the M3 will prove to be on track.

When I got my E90 335xi a couple of years ago, I put it on track one weekend just to see how it would do. Completely stock ... including puny (225/50/17) run-flat tires. Automatic transmission and AWD. Very much a “commuter special.”

There was a guy I used to race with who had just stripped out and caged his RX8 to run with either AER or NASA (I can’t remember which). This was some special edition RX8 with Bilstein dampers. He was on one of the modern summer tires (Dunlops, I think).

We we’re at NJMP Lightning, which is a short track that favors handling over horsepower. I was several seconds per lap faster than him and passed him in corners (including the banked right-hander) without much trouble at all. We were laughing about it because I had zero tire wear even though I was sliding the thing around all day ... those Continental all-season tires were hockey pucks!

I’m just thinking about how much faster an M3 is compared to my grocery-getter 335xi. Especially with proper tires, brake pads, and manual transmission. I think you’re going to be in for a treat!

Dealers must be crazy 

plenty of CTR forum I saw dealers doing msrp deals 

anyways that’s moot - this is the big boy M3 thread :) 

IamFODI said:

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

And yeah, 1 qt of oil in 1500 miles is on the high side -- though still within BMW M's very generous limits.  Hoping it was just a fluke of some kind....

Do keep in mind, high strung European performance engines tend to be a little thirsty in the oil department.  Audis with an S badge commonly drink a quart in 2 - 3k if driven hard, for example.  

rslifkin said:

IamFODI said:

In reply to mr2s2000elise :

And yeah, 1 qt of oil in 1500 miles is on the high side -- though still within BMW M's very generous limits.  Hoping it was just a fluke of some kind....

Do keep in mind, high strung European performance engines tend to be a little thirsty in the oil department.  Audis with an S badge commonly drink a quart in 2 - 3k if driven hard, for example.  

For sure.  But I get the impression that oil consumption this high isn't typical for the S65.  Have you heard differently?