Living With the G80 M3 Competition: Two Years, 24,000 Miles

Nobody argued about the grille after the first month. What remained was a car that is genuinely faster across a real road than anything BMW sold before it, and a set of compromises worth being honest about.

The good

The S58 is untemperamental in a way the S55 never was. Cooling is enormously overspecified, torque delivery is flat and the xDrive system finds traction in conditions that would leave a rear-drive M3 gesturing at the scenery.

The compromises

Carbon bucket seats look extraordinary and make ingress a small athletic event. The default drive-mode settings are set for shock value rather than usability, and the first hour of ownership should be spent building two sensible M1 and M2 presets.

Costs

Tires are the dominant running cost. Rear rubber lasts around 10,000 miles driven with restraint. Servicing has been unremarkable, and nothing has failed outside of a replaced charging port.