BMW M3 Touring Review & Prices

The new BMW M3 Touring is here, and it’s a bit like Usain Bolt with a backpack on. It’s properly quick, but it also has the practicality to haul loads of stuff around, and that's a combination that's bound to get a lot of family-bound petrolheads grinning from ear to ear.

You’ll probably be looking at the M3 Touring if you're considering other practical performance cars like the Audi RS4 Avant and Mercedes-AMG C63 estate.

If you view the M3 Touring from the front, you won’t notice any changes over the saloon model. You still get the same huge grilles and aggressive-looking bumper, but the boxy rear end is the obvious difference.

Compared to the standard BMW 3 Series Touring, the M3 gets flared wheel arches and a big rear diffuser with quad tailpipes. You can also have plenty of carbon fibre trim if you’re willing to dive deeper into your wallet.

This estate is based on the BMW M3 Competition saloon, so it gets the same 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged engine with 510hp and 650Nm of torque. That’s enough oomph to go from 0-60mph in 3.6 seconds.

Watch: BMW M3 Touring v Audi RS6 drag race

Unlike the Competition saloon, the M3 Touring is only available with all-wheel drive. It does have a rear-wheel-drive mode though, so you can still drive like a hooligan on track if you fancy shredding your tyres. You can’t do that in an Audi RS4.

While it’s a bit jigglier over bumps than a regular 3 Series Touring, the M3 wagon is liveable in its comfort-oriented modes. It gets slightly tweaked suspension to cope with some extra weight, visibility is decent, and a suite of sensors and a reversing camera coming as standard all make it a bit easier to drive in town.

Stepping inside the M3 Touring, it’s exactly the same as the saloon. This means quality is exceptional and the overall design looks really modern, although a Mercedes-AMG C63 Estate has a more interesting-looking interior.

The M3 Touring is available with the same optional carbon fibre bucket seats as the saloon, which look fantastic and hold you in place really well. They’re also really comfortable for long drives.

Rear seat space is similar to the standard 3 Series Touring, meaning head and legroom are plentiful. The real reason you’ll want this Touring model, though, will be boot space. It gets the same capacity as the standard 3 Series Touring at 500 litres, which is 20 litres more than you get in the saloon (as well as a more practical loading entry than the saloon’s narrower access) and five litres more than the Audi RS4 Avant.

You also get the same infotainment system as the saloon model, meaning a huge, curved display which spans the whole dashboard. This comprises a 12.3-inch digital drivers display and a 14.9-inch infotainment screen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

You can control the system in a variety of ways including using the touchscreen, the swivel wheel in the centre console or the ‘Hey BMW’ voice commands.

You can check out the latest deals on a new BMW M3 Touring now, or have a look at used M3 Tourings – or other used BMW stock – from our network of trusted dealers. And don't forget you can sell you car online through Carwow too.

The BMW M3 Touring is not a cheap car. It starts at about £85,000, which is over £15,000 more than the RS4’s starting price. Once you delve into the optional extras that quickly increases, too. Our test car had a few choice options that took it to more than £100,000. For an estate. A fast estate, but still. That’s a lot for a car that’s based on a comfortable executive wagon that starts at around £40,000.

If you can’t quite justify that, the M340i Touring starts at £60,000 and is a decent alternative. It’s by no means as sharp to drive as the M3 Touring but it’s about 80% of that car’s greatness – fast, comfortable and well-equipped.

At these prices, a lightly used Audi RS6 could even be a temptation. It has more power and space than the BMW, but prioritises comfort over corner carving ability.

The stiffer suspension is surprisingly comfortable around town, but tyre noise at 70mph could become annoying over long distances

In town

With a practical performance car, you want it to be relatively easy to live with in day-to-day driving to make the most of what it offers. What’s the point in a fast estate if the ride is so bone-shakingly stiff you can’t bear to take it to the local IKEA.

Fortunately, the M3 Touring does a good job of smoothing out bumps in the road. Sure, it’s not as comfortable as the regular model, but nor does it skip across the surface like a stone on water. There are different suspension modes, and we’d recommend sticking to comfort, otherwise every speed bump and pothole will make you wince.

You can raise the seat high, even with the figure-hugging carbon bucket seat, so visibility is good looking forward. It’s pretty clear out the back, too, even if the rear window looks like it’s in a different postcode.

The M3 Touring’s wide body kit makes it a little more intimidating to drive in narrow spaces, and those 20-inch front, 19-inch rear, alloy wheels are a constant source of kerb-strike anxiety. However, the suite of sensors will warn you if you’re getting too close, making busy streets easier to navigate.

On the motorway

It's on the motorway where the M3 Touring loses a few marks. Tyre noise is pretty intrusive in the M3 saloon, but it’s worse still in the Touring. Perhaps it’s because there’s more space for it to echo around?

Both the Audi RS4 and RS6 are a much better option for those who will do a lot of long distance driving as they’re a bit more comfort-focused. If you’re committed to a fast BMW estate, the aforementioned 340i Touring will also appeal thanks to its increased refinement.

That being said, the M3 Touring’s seats are very comfortable. Even the optional carbon bucket seats we tested should keep you free of back pain and a numb backside, even if their primary purpose is gripping your sides in corners.

On a twisty road

Despite being a heavy old beast – at 1,825kg it’s only a little bit lighter than the larger M5 saloon – the M3 Touring is at home on a twisty road. It hides its heft incredibly well, with the direct steering making it easy to place in a turn. It genuinely feels like a sports car. Just one you could move house in.

Don’t be tempted to switch to the sport/sport+ suspension settings here, though. Comfort mode is firm enough to offer that sports car feel on UK roads while also having enough slack to deal with bumps in the road. The Tarmac needs to be race track smooth to take advantage of the stiffer settings.

If you can stump up for the carbon pack – a £7,000 extra, see what we mean about options driving the price up? – then those bucket seats are a boon when in maximum attack mode. You can adjust the side bolsters until they give you a metaphorical bear hug during hard cornering, so you have confidence to make the most of the M3 Touring’s performance.

The rear seats are more spacious than those in the saloon, but the boot doesn’t have the jump in capacity you might hope for over the saloon

There’s plenty of adjustability for the driver, with the seats and steering wheel offering lots of movement so you can find a great driving position. The steering wheel gets two M mode switches that allow you to load two different setups, for example one for fast road driving and another for the track.

As standard you get carbon fibre lashed all over the place to give off a proper race car feel, while M logos are dotted around to remind you you’re in something a bit special, just in case all that carbon hadn’t caught your eye.

Space in the back seats

The rear seats are comfortable to sit in and there’s loads of room for adults. There’s more headroom than the saloon, so if you regularly carry passengers that could be another tick in the Touring’s box.

Legroom is also decent, but if you get the carbon bucket seats it’s even more spacious, which is a good head-over-heart excuse to go for that option. They’re also lovely to look at, making long journeys in the back a bit more bearable.

Boot space

The key selling point for the M3 Touring is its extra load-lugging ability. Truth be told, the 500-litre boot capacity is maybe not as much of a jump as you might expect from the saloon’s 480 litres, but the opening is much more square, making it easier to load large items.

The rear seats can be dropped using handy electric switches, opening the boot to reveal 1,510 litres of space – identical to that found in the Audi RS4 (which has 495 litres with the seats up, by the way).

With the seats folded down there’s no lip, so if you’re loading flat pack furniture in the back it’s easy to push it through to the front seats. Careful if you’ve got the carbon buckets, though, as they could be easy to damage if heavy items bang up against them while you’re driving around.

The large, curved screens looks fantastic, but the system isn’t as easy to use as that in the old car

If you're sat in the front, the M3 Touring is no different to the saloon. That means you get the huge, curving infotainment and instrument displays with their extra M-specific screens and settings.

These screens are made up of a 14.9-inch infotainment screen and a 12.3-inch driver’s display. The screens are crystal clear and the menu design is ultra-modern, but they’re not quite as intuitive to use as the old system. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included as standard, so they’re your best bet for audio and navigation.

The M Drive Professional apps are a neat addition. They allow you to record lap times and compare them with previous efforts. There’s also a drift analyser that scores your sideways efforts out of five stars.

The 3.0-litre petrol engine has an official fuel economy figure of 28mpg, which is actually pretty respectable for a big, heavy car with over 500hp. During testing we saw about 21mpg, which isn’t quite as good, but then it is hard to resist being heavy with the throttle pedal in a car that goes this well. CO2 emissions sit at up to 235g/km.

The M3 Touring falls into one of the higher first-year Vehicle Excise Duty bands because of its high emissions, while its purchase price means it also faces the over-£40,000 premium between years two and six after registration.

There’s the usual suite of driver assistance systems present and correct here, such as lane departure warning, lane change warning and rear collision prevention, which use cameras around the car to spot trouble and avoid or mitigate any incidents.

Disappointingly, although this is an £85,000 car to start with, you only get regular cruise control as standard. Adaptive cruise is an optional extra that comes as part of the £1,750 Technology Plus Pack, which also brings a dashcam and parking assistant.

The M3 Touring nor regular 3 Series Touring have been crash tested by Euro NCAP, but the saloon version scored five-out-of-five with a huge 97% rating for adult occupants. Its 87% score for both child occupant protection and vulnerable road users is also impressive.

There are no common reliability issues with the BMW M3, with most owners noting that recurring problems with the previous generation’s engine appear to have largely been addressed for the latest model.

However, it’s worth noting that although it’s based on a popular, more affordable model, the M3 Touring is a performance car, so if anything goes wrong it will likely cost a good chunk more to replace than your average 3 Series.

The M3 Touring comes with a three-year, unlimited mileage new car warranty that includes roadside assistance. For an extra £2,289 you can get BMW Service Inclusive, which covers your servicing for the first four years. This uses BMW technicians and genuine parts that are (mostly) covered for two years. BMW will also cover the cost of any MOT failures during the term of the agreement.