2023 BMW M3 Touring review: First Australian drive
It seems almost inconceivable it’s been 37 years in the making, but has BMW M’s first-ever M3 station wagon been worth the wait?
2023 BMW M3 Touring
It’s taken 37 years, but BMW has finally given us what we’ve long wanted – a station wagon variant of its heroic M3.
It seems almost unthinkable that the 2023 BMW M3 Touring (BMW-speak for station wagon) is the first-ever in the M3 range from the brand’s M skunkworks.
Sure, there was a one-off concept back in 2000 based on the then current-generation E46 M3. But it was never intended for production and, in fact, BMW kept the M3 Touring Concept shrouded in secrecy until finally admitting to its existence in 2016.
Now, though, the M3 Touring is the real deal, and not hidden away in some secret underground lair in Munich. And it’s here in Australia, looking to tempt buyers who might previously have considered an Audi RS4 Avant or Mercedes-AMG C63 Estate.
Interestingly, the M3 Touring seems to be doing exactly that with BMW M CEO Frank van Meel telling Drive that “The customers for the M3 Touring are not jumping out of the M3 [sedan]. They are coming from other car brands because they say, ‘we’ve been waiting for a long time’.” And they’re not wrong.
So, what is it exactly then? Glad you asked. In short, the M3 Touring takes all the performance goodness found in the M3 sedan and the M4 coupe and plonks it inside a station wagon body. It’s a high-performance car by stealth, taking the unawares and leaving them wide-eyed and gob-smacked.
How much does the BMW M3 Touring cost in Australia?
The 2023 BMW M3 Touring Competition xDrive, to give it its full title, gets underway at $180,100 plus on-road costs. That represents a marginal $2300 premium over the comparable all-wheel-drive M3 sedan and an $8500 impost over the rear-wheel-drive M3 Competition sedan.
While the M3 sedan is available in several variants, with either a manual or automatic transmission, rear- or all-wheel drive, the M3 Touring is sold exclusively as a highly specified Competition xDrive variant that packs the ‘S58’ 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline six-cylinder petrol engine paired with an all-wheel-drive system and eight-speed automatic transmission.
Its most obvious rival hails from Audi, the RS4 Avant at $157,600 the template for long-roofed performance cars (the first RS4 Avant rolled out of Neckarsulm, Germany in 1999).
Once upon a time, buyers could have considered the Mercedes-AMG C63 Estate. But Australia won’t be on the receiving end of Merc’s take on the hot wagon, leaving this pretty much a two-way battle between the newcomer and the old stager.
The M3 Touring certainly packs plenty of punch for its hefty performance-focussed sticker price, detailed here in our comprehensive pricing and specification story – though keep in mind that BMW has pushed prices up since pricing was first announced.
Things can add up pretty quickly with a few options selected. Our test car came with the $17,500 Carbon Experience pack that adds, among other things, some pretty firm and pretty snug carbon-fibre race seats (more on these later), and a smattering of exterior garnishes finished in that oh-so-race-car honeycomb weave.
Our tester’s massive 400mm front and 380mm rear carbon-ceramic brake rotors add another $16,500 to the bottom line, while the Frozen Black paint is a $5000 option. It’s one of several exy hues that add anywhere from $2500 to $7000 depending on the colour chosen.
Inside, our M3 Touring was finished in regular full Merino leather in black.
With options, our $180,100 BMW M3 Touring ran to $219,000 before on-road costs, or around $235,000 drive-away, give or take depending on your location.
| Key details | 2023 BMW M3 Touring |
| Price | $181,100 plus on-road costs |
| Colour of test car | Frozen Black |
| Options | Carbon Experience Pack – $17,500 – Carbon-fibre front seats – Carbon-fibre exterior elements – Voucher for BMW M Driving Experience Advance 1 – Voucher for BMW M Driving Experience Advance 2 – Maximum speed increased from 250km/h to 280km/h Carbon-ceramic brakes – $16,500 Metallic paint – $5000 |
| Price as tested | $219,000 plus on-road costs |
| Drive-away price | $235,000 (approx.NSW) |
| Rivals | Audi RS4 Avant |
How much space does the BMW M3 Touring have inside?
The cabin of the M3 Touring bewilders. Before sliding in, the first thing that hits you are those optional carbon-fibre seats. But the aesthetic gloss of all that exposed honeycomb wears off pretty quickly.
The seats themselves are as hard as, well, carbon fibre, and with large bolsters to clamber over, require a modicum of care when entering the cabin. You sort of lift yourself over the high and hard side protuberances, and plonk down into the firm base. Once inside, there’s no question those seats are snug, something we’d venture you will become grateful for on, say, a racetrack.
But for everyday use, the front seats are hard, tight and a little uncomfortable, exacerbated by a large carbon-fibre and M-badged section that thrusts itself out of the seat base and between your legs.
The real challenge with those seats, though, is extricating yourself from the M3 Touring. There’s no easy way out. Instead, you need to swing your legs over the bolsters, leaving your feet dangling above the footpath or road surface, and then slide your butt over those bolsters with a certain indignity until your feet touch the ground. It’s ungainly, it’s indignant, and for most people it’s pointless.
Unless you plan to hustle your fast estate on the racetrack, you probably don’t need the carbon buckets.
Things improve in row two. Here the Touring starts to shine with plenty of space in all key areas. Better still, the seats are of the regular variety, comfortable and supportive and affording an exit that leaves your dignity intact.
The upside of those carbon seats is that they’re noticeably thinner in their construction and that means more knee room for second-row passengers, while the long roof of the M3 Touring means more head room when compared against the sedan.
Amenities for second-row passengers include separate climate controls and air vents, as well as two USB plugs helping to keep devices charged. The door pockets can take bottles, while a fold-down armrest reveals a pair of cupholders.
Our test car came fitted with standard black Merino leather upholstery, lending the cabin a dark air to complement the semi-matte Frozen Black exterior paint. You can, if you’re the adventurous type, opt for several eye-catching colour combinations for the interior, including red and black, ivory and black, orange and black, blue and black… you get the picture.
Coloured trim options add either $1000 or, if you’ve optioned the carbon seats, $3000 to the bottom line. While garish colour combinations are not usually my bag, I was quite taken with the Ivory White and Black combination fitted to another M3 Touring at the car’s launch in South Australia earlier this month.
The M3 Touring’s biggest asset over the regular M3 sedan or M4 coupe is, of course, out back. It’s here where the estate version of BMW’s performance hero stands tall and begs to be considered. Opening the tailgate reveals a very usable 500L of cargo space, up 20L on the M3 sedan’s boot capacity. Fold the rear seats down in 40:20:40 split fashion and 1510L of storage capacity awaits.
One more party trick awaits M3 Touring owners out back. Press a button discreetly tucked away under the rear windscreen wiper and the rear window will pop upwards and open, making for an easy time if you just want to stash a bag or smaller items back there without opening the entire tailgate. It’s carried over from the regular 3 Series Touring and remains a practical and clever feature.
| 2023 BMW M3 Touring | |
| Seats | Five |
| Boot volume | 500L seats up 1510L seats folded |
| Length | 4801mm |
| Width | 1903mm |
| Height | 1446mm |
| Wheelbase | 2857mm |
Does the BMW M3 Touring have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto?
BMW has upped the ante in terms of infotainment in recent times, and this M3 Touring is no different. It wears the BMW brand’s new 14.9-inch curved touchscreen that flows neatly into an equally as impressive 12.3-inch digital driver display.
Running BMW’s latest ‘Operating System 8’, the ultra-wide and gently curved screen looks a million bucks.
BMW has made some strides with its latest operating system and the screen itself is responsive to touch inputs. Inputs and selections can also be effected via a rotary dialler nestled in the centre console, buttons on the steering wheel or via a ‘Hey BMW’ voice command. It’s a slick-looking set-up made all the better for a beautifully crisp display.
But, the reliance on the screen can also be annoying, with the 14.9-inch display serving as the M3 Touring’s nerve centre. Everything, from temperature to fan speed, to drive modes, is selected and toggled by pressing, scrolling, swiping and clicking. It’s not the most intuitive level of accessibility.
Certainly, we’d love some physical dials and switches for climate functions, and helpfully there is a knob to control volume, but with modern designers eschewing functionality over style, the user experience does suffer a little.
Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, both wireless and wired, are standard, as is BMW’s proprietary satellite navigation system. We tend to favour CarPlay, and in that regard the system proved faultless, quick to pair, and rock solid and reliable once connected.
The 12.3-inch driver display is configurable to taste and includes some M-specific screens. But in terms of regular driving, the set-up works, and works well, with clear driving data that can be configured in a number of ways.
M-specific features can also be found by digging through the infotainment screen. Here you’ll find a lap timer (handy on the track) as well as a Drift Analyser that measures things like duration and angle before giving a rating out of five stars. Not for public roads, we’d caution, but handy should you ever find yourself, legally, on a skidpan.
Is the BMW M3 Touring a safe car?
The BMW M3 Touring, like its sedan counterpart, remains untested by Australia’s safety body, ANCAP. Nor has it been crash-tested by ANCAP’s European counterpart, Euro NCAP. The BMW 3 Series range, which forms the basis for the M3, has been rated as a five-star vehicle from 2019, hinting at a decent basis for the M3.
| 2023 BMW M3 Touring | |
| ANCAP rating | Unrated |
What safety technology does the BMW M3 Touring have?
A full suite of advanced safety systems underpins the M3 Touring.
It’s carried over from the regular 3 Series and includes autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning with pedestrian detection, lane-keeping assist and lane-changing assist, adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go function, front and rear cross-traffic alerts, and blind-spot monitoring.
A suite of airbags covers both rows of occupants, although this model does not feature a centre airbag that’s increasingly common in today’s cars. Centre airbags deploy between the front seats to mitigate head clashes between occupants in the event of a collision.
How much does the BMW M3 Touring cost to maintain?
The M3 Touring is covered by BMW’s standard five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty.
Service intervals are condition-based, meaning the car will alert you when it’s time to visit the BMW workshop. A five-year/80,000km service plan can be bought at the time of purchase and will set you back $4436.
A year of comprehensive insurance coverage costs approximately $4301 from one leading insurer based on a comparative quote for a 35-year-old male driver living in Chatswood, NSW. Insurance estimates may vary based on your location, driving history, and personal circumstances.
| At a glance | 2023 BMW M3 Touring |
| Warranty | Five years, unlimited km |
| Service intervals | Condition-based |
| Servicing costs | $4436 (5 years/80,000km) |
Is the BMW M3 Touring fuel-efficient?
BMW claims the M3 Touring will use 10.4L per 100km of premium 98-octane unleaded.
Our week with the hot wagon returned an indicated 11.0L/100km, which is excellent considering we spent a lot of time in traffic, a fair bit of time in touring mode on Sydney’s motorways, and squeezed in some adventurous driving on rural back roads.
The fuel tank measures in at 59L.
Fuel Consumption – brought to you by bp
| Fuel Useage | Fuel Stats |
| Fuel cons. (claimed) | 10.4L/100km |
| Fuel cons. (on test) | 11.0L/100km |
| Fuel type | 98-octane premium unleaded |
| Fuel tank size | 59L |
What is the BMW M3 Touring like to drive?
If you think the M3 Touring is set up to feel exactly like its sedan and coupe siblings, then think again.
BMW has gone to some lengths to ensure the experience behind the wheel accommodates the extra weight from that longer roof and the idea the cargo area could be loaded with stuff.
To that end, M’s engineers have gone to town, adding extra stiffening struts to the underbody at the rear axle, as well as a new spring, damper and anti-roll bar set both front and rear.
Further, the suspension has been tuned, according to BMW, to carter for “multiple driving scenarios”, specifically designed for this Touring variant.
Certainly, on the road, the M3 Touring feels more compliant than either its sedan or coupe garage mate, with a level of road comfort not always associated with high-performance cars of this nature.
To be clear, there remains an element of firmness to the way the Touring handles the road, but it feels a smidge softer than what we’ve come to expect of late. This is a good thing.
Adaptive dampers can soften the ride when needed, or firm it up confidently when you want, such as when hustling some corners or on the track. And despite its family wagon pretensions, you will want to take it on the track.
We did. And the result is nothing short of stunning.
And it starts with that twin-turbo 3.0-litre inline six under the bulging snout.
In angry mode, BMW’s hero engine roars with that gruffness only a straight six can seem to muster. The sound in the cabin is simply intoxicating.
It’s a drunkenness matched only by the Touring’s unquestionable performance. BMW says 3.6 seconds is all it takes to dispatch the benchmark 0–100km/h sprint, only 0.1sec slower than the M3 xDrive sedan. But that’s just one measure of performance.
Where the Touring shines, really shines, is in just how fast it feels pulling out of corners, how quickly it piles on speed, how agile and lithe it feels under wheel when pushed, and then how emphatically it stops.
It is, in short, stunning.
Putting the Touring through its paces at South Australia’s The Bend racetrack served to highlight the M3’s abilities. Yes, there’s plenty of straight-line speed, but the real hero of the show is in just how competent the long-roof version is as a track day star.
With its all-wheel-drive platform offering the nut behind the wheel plenty of confidence, the M3 estate can be flung with abandon. The grip is out of this world, the M3 true to its line every single time. BMW’s M differential at the rear helps keep things nice and tidy, apportioning grip to the rear wheel that needs it most in any situation. That allows for plenty of playful exploration of its dynamic abilities, and it’s fair to say its abilities far outshine the average driver like you and me.
The eight-speed automatic transmission is so good you can leave it to its own devices, even on a racetrack. Shifts are intuitive and slick, whether up or down, and you’re never left wanting for the right gear. Of course, using the paddle shifters and controlling your own destiny brings its own rewards, allowing that glorious inline six to redline on the rev band before shifting up a ratio, a special moment. It’s engineering at its most bedeviling.
On the track, and at full song, the M3 Touring’s concert is mind-boggling. Every element you want or need from a track weapon works – from the prodigious acceleration and grip, the intuitive nature of the automatic transmission, to the precise and accurate steering. The confidence of the suspension and the ability of those big 380mm rotors front and back (in standard trim) to pull the 1865kg family hauler up in a predictable and precise manner mean the M3 Touring as a track day weapon works, and works well.
That it can also be driven leisurely in day-to-day scenarios is icing on the cake. But, the things that make the Touring such a competent car on the track can also grate just a little on the open road.
The suspension, even in its softest setting, can still feel a little sharp, particularly over rougher surfaces. It isn’t a deal-breaker, not by a long stretch, but it does make for some teeth-gritting moments.
The compromise is worth making, however, the M3 Touring rewarding its driver with an experience from behind the wheel that simply leaves you grinning, even in sedate traffic.
The thrum of that straight six, the way it urgently moves away from standstill, the sheer presence of its wide and low stance, and that bulging bonnet all add up to making the Touring the car to have if you could only have a single car in your garage to meet all of your needs and desires.
It is, in short, a compelling performance car with all the characteristics that the word ‘performance’ implies.
| Key details | 2023 BMW M3 Touring |
| Engine | 3.0-litre twin-turbo inline six-cylinder petrol |
| Power | 375kW @ 6250rpm |
| Torque | 650Nm @ 2750–5500rpm |
| Drive type | All-wheel drive |
| Transmission | Eight-speed torque converter automatic |
| Power-to-weight ratio | 201.1kW/t |
| Weight (kerb) | 1865kg |
| Spare tyre type | Tyre repair kit |
| Turning circle | 12.6m |
Should I buy a BMW M3 Touring?
For my money, this is the M car to have. From its bulging body that oozes kerb appeal to the inherent performance of the total engineering package, the M3 Touring sparkles brightly in an M sky already filled with shining stars.
That it can be driven like a sports car, and yet carry small items of furniture (if that’s your thing) in its capacious cargo area is just icing on the cake.
Don’t be fooled by its family wagon profile. The M3 Touring is in every single way an out-and-out and hardcore performance car.
On the track, it howls and it growls, and it surges and urges the driver on to greater feats.
Yes, the ride can be a bit brittle out on the open road. And yes, those silly carbon seats are a nuisance to get in and out of. But you can soften the suspension and you can opt for regular seats that are more comfortable, if not quite as supportive.
But whichever way you go, the 2023 BMW M3 Touring offers a rewarding experience that leaves you grinning long after the lap timer has stopped and the exhaust tips have cooled. It’s worthy of wearing the M tricolour.
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