Exciting Weekend...

[FTS]

After my car got totaled at the track, we have been in the market for a new car. I decided that the new car would be one the whole family can drive both on the street and track, not just one that I personally indulge in and leave everyone else in the dry.

After lurking over this board for a while, learning about M cars, last week we, as a family, decided to get the new a Porsche; we could not put our trust in BMW after the last fiasco with the 645. Porsche, the tried and true platform, familiar surroundings, good dealership connections, etc. My son pressured me for the Cayman, dear wife wanted the new GT3, I just could not get too excited with either, but still went down to the dealership to place the order and it just did not work out. I just could not get excited about a Cayman or the GT3. The prices seemed too high, nothing really drew me into driving one, no tingling sensations... nothing. I just could not write the check without reservations.

In the mean time, my son's car was making weird noises and we took it to service on Saturday and while out we thought about stopping by a BMW dealership to look around. As soon as we entered, we were greeted by an MG M4 on the showroom floor, and we both got really taken away. The color fit the car well, the overall stance was superb. My son sat in it and loved it, I had a smile on my face and and I truly felt the excitement. We both said to one another "why don't we just take this one home?" Unfortunately it did not have the options we really wanted, was missing the ceramic brakes!!!

Called my wife and she told me just order something and be done with it, so after couple of hours we had our order in for an ED in November. Singed my son up for the 1-day M school in October, I am going to make a Bimmer enthusiast out of him

Unexpectedly and pleasantly, we'll be first time M-owners soon (the waiting process will be trying, particularly for my son I think), hope you don't all mind, we'll watch our language as we move forward.

Here is a terrible picture of the car that made us order, it really is gorgeous in person.

Cheers to all,

[parky1215]

Cool wife!

[solstice]

Please lord, never ever let me feel blaze over the prospect of ordering a GT3...
Congrats on your M4 order!

[IMrMark]

Congrats!!! MG is top notch on this car for sure!

[kinimod]

Cool family dude! Congrats and enjoy. Good choice

[MaX PL]

good thing you skipped the GT3 for the M4. the GT3 is not an exciting car.

/sarcasm.

[GOLFFRR]

awesome!

[damnitBobby]

a wife that actually wanted you to get the GT3... she's a keeper

[FTS]

Originally Posted by parky1215

Cool wife!

Thank you, she is very special for sure

Originally Posted by solstice

Please lord, never ever let me feel blaze over the prospect of ordering a GT3...
Congrats on your M4 order!

Originally Posted by MaX PL

good thing you skipped the GT3 for the M4. the GT3 is not an exciting car.

/sarcasm.

Now that I re-read what I wrote, I do sound like a prick, sorry about that.

Truth is that once you get it out of your system, it is hard to dish out another $150-160K for it. Superb car, I really enjoyed it, but you can get 80-85% of the fun with something else. Now that I think about it, in my circles all but one person sold their GTs and switched to either race-prep'd Caymans or 997s and 996s. And all have different daily drivers, mostly SUVs for comfort and utility. In my case a tire wall ate mine. I cannot afford to have a trailer life, so a single car to do track events and use as a daily is what I need, I am hoping the M4 will be good enough for that purpose.

Originally Posted by IMrMark

Congrats!!! MG is top notch on this car for sure!

I really like it both on the M3 and M4, thank you.

Originally Posted by damnitBobby

a wife that actually wanted you to get the GT3... she's a keeper

She surprised me too, she never drove the previous one, probably because it was a manual. And we just celebrated our 24th anniversary, but I'd say she is keeping me, more than the other way around

Originally Posted by kinimod

Cool family dude! Congrats and enjoy. Good choice

Thank you, we are having a lot of fun, I hope it never ends.

Originally Posted by GOLFFRR

awesome!

Thank you!

[Never Convicted]

Just curious. Care to enlighten on the fiasco with the 645?

I've been staying away from seeing the M4 in person, planned on ordering in the Fall, when performance parts are available. But my wife wants out of her 535i so we went on Saturday. They had a Batmobile M4, black on black with black 19's. I agree with you 100%. No matter how good picture quality is, the car is so much more striking in person. Muscular as hell. The MG is a great color, too. Best of luck with it.

[karussell]

what car you had at the track that you totalled and the whole family could not drive it but a gt3 or cayman s would work?

[Andrew115]

Did insurance pay for the track crash? Just curious how that worked out.

[Black Gold]

Originally Posted by solstice

Please lord, never ever let me feel blaze over the prospect of ordering a GT3...
Congrats on your M4 order!

haha, true

congrats OP, Euro Delivery will be an awesome experience for you

[FTS]

Originally Posted by Never Convicted

Just curious. Care to enlighten on the fiasco with the 645?
Best of luck with it.

We had a number of issues the first month, so it was at the dealer for several weeks. We only were driving it 5-6K mi. a year, so the battery drained rapidly, and once while on the road the car just died, unbelievably true, and dealer did not cover it under 'free' maintenance because we were not driving it often enough. But most of all, I think the dealers' attitudes just turned turned us off, so switched to Porsche and Lexus for the past 8-9 years. It took about 3 years to iron out all the issues, now the car runs 99% fine with 48K miles. I hope things have gotten better, or this is the last BMW ever.

Originally Posted by karussell

what car you had at the track that you totalled and the whole family could not drive it but a gt3 or cayman s would work?

997.2 GT3. Going down the front straight into the braking zone, rear brakes locked up unevenly and sent us to the wall. Porsche field tech looked at it and concluded that "PSM must have been confused." I had a student (an e92 M driver ironically) with me, so I had left PSM on, which I never do otherwise, and was driving quite modestly. Of course I don't believe their assessment, but that is all I got out of them, and the ECU download does not show anything. So, I am guessing it was the rear brake caliper/pistons failing, although there is no conclusive physical evidence of it.



I would not let my son drive the GT3, and now he cannot, so this time around he will have the M4 after getting educated more seriously, M school is just a start.

Originally Posted by Andrew115

Did insurance pay for the track crash? Just curious how that worked out.

Yes luckily they covered all damages.

Originally Posted by KennyPowers

haha, true

congrats OP, Euro Delivery will be an awesome experience for you

Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I won't be visiting, just picking up the car, driving around for couple hours and returning it back; I will be on travel in the area for other purposes

[JoshuaKM]

Awesome color choice? What color interior & options did you get for your M4?

[RocketBoots]

OP, I'm guessing yes, but did you test drive the M3/M4?? Not sure how much you can really tell with a 20 min test drive in a car that can't be pushed... Or was you decision to buy based solely on looks?

BTW, good thing you and the passenger are OK.

[JoeFromPA]

FTS,

Wow, that video is unreal. I was expecting you to at least be in some sort of manuever when the car went sideways but that video is a blessing of evidence that, hey, the car lost control in a straightaway with no visible steering wheel movement.

I couldn't quite tell, but I'm guessing you had just begun braking when this happened and that's why the rear end swung around like that/

[Black Gold]

Originally Posted by FTS

We had a number of issues the first month, so it was at the dealer for several weeks. We only were driving it 5-6K mi. a year, so the battery drained rapidly, and once while on the road the car just died, unbelievably true, and dealer did not cover it under 'free' maintenance because we were not driving it often enough. But most of all, I think the dealers' attitudes just turned turned us off, so switched to Porsche and Lexus for the past 8-9 years. It took about 3 years to iron out all the issues, now the car runs 99% fine with 48K miles. I hope things have gotten better, or this is the last BMW ever.


997.2 GT3. Going down the front straight into the braking zone, rear brakes locked up unevenly and sent us to the wall. Porsche field tech looked at it and concluded that "PSM must have been confused." I had a student (an e92 M driver ironically) with me, so I had left PSM on, which I never do otherwise, and was driving quite modestly. Of course I don't believe their assessment, but that is all I got out of them, and the ECU download does not show anything. So, I am guessing it was the rear brake caliper/pistons failing, although there is no conclusive physical evidence of it.



I would not let my son drive the GT3, and now he cannot, so this time around he will have the M4 after getting educated more seriously, M school is just a start.


Yes luckily they covered all damages.



Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I won't be visiting, just picking up the car, driving around for couple hours and returning it back; I will be on travel in the area for other purposes

holy sh*t

absolutely nothing you could do about that, ive never seen anything like that before....

[Black Gold]

Originally Posted by JoeFromPA

I couldn't quite tell, but I'm guessing you had just begun braking when this happened and that's why the rear end swung around like that/

yes. sounds like he hit the brakes and one side was braking and the other locked up / didn't brake and therefore the car got unbalanced and lost control. or the traction control freaked out, but it still would have been related to the brakes since that's how the PTM system works, by modulating the brakes and cutting power IIRC

[RPiM5]

Originally Posted by FTS

We had a number of issues the first month, so it was at the dealer for several weeks. We only were driving it 5-6K mi. a year, so the battery drained rapidly, and once while on the road the car just died, unbelievably true, and dealer did not cover it under 'free' maintenance because we were not driving it often enough. But most of all, I think the dealers' attitudes just turned turned us off, so switched to Porsche and Lexus for the past 8-9 years. It took about 3 years to iron out all the issues, now the car runs 99% fine with 48K miles. I hope things have gotten better, or this is the last BMW ever.


997.2 GT3. Going down the front straight into the braking zone, rear brakes locked up unevenly and sent us to the wall. Porsche field tech looked at it and concluded that "PSM must have been confused." I had a student (an e92 M driver ironically) with me, so I had left PSM on, which I never do otherwise, and was driving quite modestly. Of course I don't believe their assessment, but that is all I got out of them, and the ECU download does not show anything. So, I am guessing it was the rear brake caliper/pistons failing, although there is no conclusive physical evidence of it.



I would not let my son drive the GT3, and now he cannot, so this time around he will have the M4 after getting educated more seriously, M school is just a start.


Yes luckily they covered all damages.



Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I won't be visiting, just picking up the car, driving around for couple hours and returning it back; I will be on travel in the area for other purposes

FTS, wow what a journey you have been on. I think the M4 with the CCB's will be an excellent car for what it sounds like you have planned for it. I too, have the itch to head to the track more often. The M4 will make an excellent track car and daily driver in one package. Good luck.

[Money2536]

Watching that video sterilizes my desire to head back out to the track. Congrats on the M3 order!

I do have a question, since you are seem to be a "real" car guy by heading to the track often. Why all this talk of getting CCBs for the track? Aren't the rotors going to crack due to overheating and be rendered useless after a few days at the track? Don't most all of the P-car track cars' CCBs get swapped out for steel?

[Caelric]

Huh. What insurance company did you have that covered the damage? If you don't mind me asking, of course.