People love to laud the BMW M3 for its excellent balance of refinement and rawness. Their connection to the road. Its poise, feedback, and compliance. But more often than not, even the most die-hard enthusiasts aren’t pushing the car to its limits. And, among them, an even smaller percentage are truly capable of exploring the car’s true boundaries. Luckily — particularly in later M3 generations — there’s a suite of traction and stability control features to help bridge the gap between driver ego and actual ability. And the hot shoes over at Road and Track have taken it upon themselves to see exactly how far these systems have come over the last 20 years of M3 development. Even better, the test takes place in the perfect setting: BMW’s Performance Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
A Real Look at Traction Control: Three Different M3s Across Two Decades
In the test, R&T features three distinctly different generations of the BMW M3. The oldest is the E46 M3, which features a rudimentary stability control system (DSC). It hasn’t aged well, and with the nannies off, the testing editor quickly sets a lap nearly a full second faster than with DSC engaged. Naturally, there’s lots of good to say about the car’s linear powerband and predictable oversteer. Next up is a Lime Rock Park Edition E92 M3, which uses a drastically improved version of the DSC. Notably, it’s also sans manual transmission, touting the quick-shifting dual-clutch auto instead. The testing editor makes a handful of passes; one each with DSC on, MDM (the in-between mode), and fully disengaged. MDM shaves six-tenths of a second off the pass that had DSC fully engaged. Taking the training wheels off completely trimmed another quarter of a second.
Finally, the G80 M3 enters the field. While the F80 got skipped, it’s for a good reason; it didn’t really introduce any steps forward for DSC. The G80, on the other hand, introduced highly customizable and progressive traction control modes. It’s a true step forward in stability control tech — a sentiment echoed by the experts at R&T. Even with DSC fully engaged, the G80 is almost half a second quicker around the circuit than the E92 M3. Switching to MDM nets three tenths of a second, and after toying with the progressive traction control system, which ranges from zero (off) to ten (essentially, regular MDM), R&T finds another tenth of a second.
The Gains Stop Here
Unfortunately, R&T can’t outdrive the nannies forever. Thanks to a combination of factors — the torquey S58 engine, a tight track, perhaps a car with cooked brakes and tires — they can’t set a quicker lap time with DSC fully disengaged on the G80 M3. It’s a testament to both how good the systems are getting and how wickedly powerful the G80 M3 is. Anyway, we highly recommend you check out the original article here for the most complete picture.