M3 - was Re: good bye and good ridence!

[Ivan Chou]

George Roffe <geo3@earthlink.net> wrote:

> It's amazing how many people have gone from SE-Rs to M3s.  I agree with
> Ivan (I think it was Ivan), the M3 is a rich man's SE-R. :-)

That was me who said that, as I'm sure others have too.  :)  Funny, just
before this thread I picked up a '95 E36 M3 with 106k miles for a chunk
less than a Spec V.  Yes, it's got that many miles on it, but it's about
the only way I could get into one and keep the SE-R at the same time.

To address the M3 criticism, stock 95 M3s are not speed demons.  A lot of
modded SE-Rs here could take a stockish M3 in a drag race.  There's
nothing particularly special about the US-spec S50B30 engine - redline is
only 6500 RPM for example.  My B13 with basic mods feels faster and
probably is.  That's one of the reasons why we love our cars.  But, an
unplanned DE at Summit Point with the M3 brought out its shining points -
I'd never driven any RWD on track before, and yet I felt right at home.
The thing is so easy to drive and goes where you want, with great feel and
balance.  That's not to say you can't have this with a nicely set-up SE-R,
but this obviously takes some work.

Another possible misconception is with maintenance costs.  If you are a
weekend mechanic it can definitely be affordable, as long as you don't
need to replace engines, transmissions, electronics - I picked up the
equivalent of our FSM new for $44, the recomm. oil filters for about $4.50
each, complete foglight assy for $40 each side.  OTOH, a used engine+trans
combo AFAIK goes for $5000+ versus $250 for a Soko SR20DE!

Ivan - '93 SE-R 110k, '95 M3 107k
http://ichou.freeshell.org/se-r.html