2025 BMW M3 Competition Review
MSRP: $80,200
3.0 Liter Inline 6 Twin Turbo
503 HP / 479 TQ (feels like a crapton more)
0-60: 3.0 seconds
MPG: 20 on average with nearly 30 on the highway!!
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Guy who did stuff: Yousef Alvi
I fought this feeling for years now. It’s antithetical to my being. It goes against everything I have believed in for that past 20 or so years. It crashes my reality.
“I have turned into a complete BMW fan”
Let me explain:
I have said this before but i’ll say it again, the car I loved and miss the most was my old MKV GTI. That thing did EVERYTHING so well. It was fast, comfortable, pratical, roomy, quiet, handled amazing, looked great and felt like it was worth twice as much as it cost. I loved that thing so hard that I drove it into the ground. I loved it so much that it rewired my brain into becoming a VAG (Volkswagen Audi Group) fan 4lyfe y0. Seriously, since the GTI, I have owned literally 5 other VAG products. So drinking that schweet VAG kool-aid, it’s pretty much obligatory to have a unnatural hatred toward BMWs. Think of it like Ford fans hate Chevy’s and vice versa.
So I hated on BMWs I did. For 20 years. Then, I started to review cars…then my eyes were forced open. It started off as a slow realization. I reviewed a plane jane X3 and thought ‘hmm this is pretty damn good’. Then I had a X3 M35i and went ‘wow, this is like really good’. Then came a slew of other BMW vehicles over the years and EVERY SINGLE ONE I have liked, admired or at the very least went ‘damn, this isn’t bad’.
“I cannot say the same for any other manufacturer I have reviewed, only BM damn W. I have enjoyed, respected, admired and genuinely liked everyone I have reviewed. ”
This M3 Competition is no different and it’s so good that solidified my BMW love into directly and permanently into my synapses.
It has won me over completely, utterly and convingly.
It is everything you want in a sports sedan. It’s hilariously, stupidly fast. It handles unlike anything else on the road. It can fit 4 people comfortably. It can ride down the road comfortably and queitly…then it can brake with such ferocity that your sinuses will get unclogged. I even liked the way it looked! Yes, even with the Bugs Bunny inspired grill, I didn’t really notice or cared. The flared wheel arches, the aggresive sculpting of the body, the golden calipers…I would swoon every time I looked at it.
Let me further explain:
Let’s start off with engine…
“The engine is a masterpiece. MIT, Georgia Tech and CalTech should have the S58 on display at their campuses. Then they should have an entire curriculum devoted to the S58 powerplant and hand out doctorates in S58 studies. Then they should have their football team called the ‘S58s’ and their logo would be the M-Motorsport badge. ”
Why? Because this is peak internal combustion. It produces power in such immediacy that even shod with PS4S tires, the rear tires will break loose instantly if you happen sneeze anywhere close to the throttle. If you happen to have a sneezing fit, well hold on, because those rear tires will keep spinning through third gear! The throttle response is instant, so much in fact, that it feels like it’s an old school naturally aspirated engine with a throttle cable! Just a direct mechanical connection from your right foot to that wonderful engine.
The power doesn’t end when the revs climb either. It will stalk you all the way to redline, no matter the scenario. From a stop. From a roll. On the highway. Everywhere and anywhere. That acceleration doesn’t end. It’s so quick that it feels just as fast as my tuned S8! Which mind you, is making mid 600s to the ground! But it’s not all power, torque and tire smoke.
It’s frankly hard to believe but on the highway, I got 28.8 MPG! That’s at 80 MPH in Sport Plus Mode. I pretty sure if I dropped down to 75, put it in Efficiency, the M3 Competition would be knocking on the door of 32 MPG or higher!
Name another car that can deliver this type of power, responsiveness and efficiency? You can’t. it doesn’t exist.
It’s not all power sans control. This M3 Competition is one of the best handling vehicles I have ever driven. It’s feel like the entire car pirouettes around your hips everytime you turn the wheel. It just responds with a laser focused precision that you smile everytime you turn the steering wheel. Speaking of steering wheel, I even like the feel! Yes its classically BMW numb but that actually helps it’s on road demeanor. It makes it easy to drive quickly or sanely. You don’t have to have Herculean strength to steer it nor do you do it with one finger, it’s the perfect middle ground.
Once you turn the wheel, the grip from the chassis is race car levels of stick. Finding the limits of this chassis on public roads is not possible. Finding the limits of this chassis on a racetrack would take professional racing driver levels of talent. It’s not all grip and no fun though. The beauty of the M3 Competition is that with a mere squeeze of your right foot, you can drift in such a controllable fashion that you’ll run out of tire before you run out of opposite lock!
To stop you from drifting you way off the road are a set brakes that are the best you can find today. Even beating most ceramic setups I have reviewed. The brake pedal feel needs to bottled and sent to every automaker to copy. It’s the perfect amount of give, resistance, effort and pedal distance. It takes only one stop to get them up to temperature and when you do they’ll stay with from track day to stoplight with the added benefit of no noise! The cherry on top is the gleaming, beautiful, exquisite looking golden calipers.
Speaking of exquisite…look at these seats!
They are full carbon hardback seats with gigantic racing bolsters. They are more race seat and actual passenger car seat but are somehow still streetable and livable everyday. Yes, even with the groin busting looking like centerpiece, it’s so perfectly engineered that you actually don’t bust anything. What it does is help place your legs and feet in the proper driving position. Name another car company with that attention to detail on a street car?
The uber high side and thigh bolsters keep you in place that nothing short of a Kirby aluminum racing seat could afford. But these are not just for quick jaunts on the track. Commuting in them is surprisingly comfortable, supportive and feels like a big constant hug…frankly reassuring is what they feel like. Reassuring.
Oh, the M3 logo on the seatbacks lights up at night and since I’m a child it makes me giggle everything I see it. Since it’s a M3, the rear seating are actual real seats not just a mere suggestion for luggage. So that means you fit real live humans in them and have them be comfortable with plenty of legroom.
Now with all of this performance, the racing bucket-esque seats and the flared up body, you would assume M3 Competition would ride like it’s suspension was made out concrete, you would be wrong. For what this car can do around corners, the way this M3 Competition rides around town is absolutely jaw dropping. It’s the ideal combination of track day stiff but everyday cushion. The bsst way I can describe is the following:
“It rides like it has on a set of KW V3 coilovers, which if you’re not aware, are the best riding and performing coilovers on the market”
In other words, it soaks up imperfections like a luxury car but somehow is always on a razor’s edge for all out performance. It’s brilliant.
It’s not all perfect but these are more nitpicking if anything and don’t take away from the true mechanical brilliance that is this car:
Completely illegible gauges.
It’s so cluttered and confusing looking that if it weren’t for the HUD, you would have to use The Force to figure out what the frack was going on with the car.
My now standard argument for every new car now of ‘why in the actual hell are the seat heating controls on the infotainment screen!?!?"
The steering wheel needs to be powered telescoping and tilt WITH ‘easy exit’ mode.
Trying to lift yourself out of these seats, with the steering in the way, is about as graceful looking as it sounds.
So how do I sum up the 2025 BMW M3 Competition? One of the best cars I have ever driven. If you can afford one get it. If you can’t afford one, wait until it hits the pre-owned market and get it. Just get it…somehow…someway…make it happen. You will never regret a single moment in it.
Yousef Alvi
