Faults:

Dashboard had to be replaced. some gages ended up loose. front disks were replaced just after 20.000 km. note that the gas gage is not fast enough to keep up with reality, so you will end up siting in the side of the road waiting for assistance (read gas), often. Some problems also occurred with the Bose speakers.

General Comments:

Temperamental and nervous. 323 horsepower waiting to explode in long long controlled slides. amazing performance, seams twice as fast as a Porsche 911 although it's not faster. imagine if you will the cockpit of an airplane about to crash during the night in a storm. that's what you will feel when driving an MCoupe. Very intense very controllable precision circuit vehicle even if you are just going to work. this very very ugly BATMOBILE looks somewhat like a shark and it's as aggressive. unfortunately the brakes are not fade resistant and not that powerful. it's a huge fun automobile and it's probably the best second car you will ever own.

Faults:

The drivers door mirror will not adjust all the way out, apart from that, NOTHING!

General Comments:

Very fast, loads of low down grunt!

You hardly every have to change gear on this car as it has so much power. 5th gear on a motorway is all you need, when you put your foot down at 80mph, you can feel the torque wind in nicely.

Definitely a licence loser of a car, you need to be well disciplined or have some form of speed camera detector, just in case!

This car is an awesome little package of high performance and serious handling.

With the Dynamic Stability Control switched on, the car is fairly forgiving, however you need to be repectful of the power in the wet, nice light throttle movements.

The brakes are amazing! After a couple of days I managed to stop banging peoples heads of the dash, you literally need the weight of a shoe to stop, no leg muscles required!

Great car.

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

This is a fantastic performance car which is seriously underrated by the public. Odd since it was voted Top Gear's Driver's Car of the Year in 2000 and was a favorite long term test car for Evo.

Forget what you hear about them being difficult handling cars. They're not, mine has no traction control, but feels much safer to drive fast than my previous 328i Sport Coupe. This is mainly due to a higher level of sensation than most modern cars.

For me its still too soft (you can potter around at under 2.5k revs and feel like you're in a regular Z3) but it is good compromise for a daily driving performance car.

Mine is performing in about the sub 5.0s to 60 and sub 13.0s to 100 range (measured with accelerometer). This is significantly slower than Evo's test which has 4.3 and 11.5 respectively. Still seriously fast though.

The engine (as you will probably expect) is brilliant. I was especially surprised by the amount of torque available from 2k revs. Above 2000 revs in any gear gives instant hard acceleration (even 4th and 5th). Amazing for such a high revving engine (peak power at 7400, limiter at about 8000).

And the styling? Well its better in the flesh than in pictures and it grows on you. However, no I don't think anywhere near as nice as a 911 (993).

Even in my amateur hands the handling feels great - partly due to the feedback, but also the short wheelbase you feel very connected to the rear wheels. Hence over-steer is very easy to detect and correct for (and power over-steer is very much possible in the first three gears).

In summary I am very happy with this motor - every time I drive it I am impressed all over again. To drive this feels much more like my old Porsche (an old 944S2 - which was fantastic) than a modern, soft BMW.