Has anyone gone from a 2wd Saff to a E46 M3 and got any feedback about the two ?? Their obviously different beasts, just wondering if the anyone has changed to the M3 and regretted selling the cossie??

 

what power was the cossie tho?

 

Ram should be able to give you some insight into this,he has both.

 

I went Cosworth to E39 M5.... you just cant beat the way a Cossie drives though.

 

My mate had a 400hp 3 door, sold it for a E46 M3 then ended up back in a 400hp Saph.

The M3 had done 30k so was probably as good as they get but as mentioned there is just something about Cossys that seems to bring people back to them.

 

Thats what I was thinking. Always fancied a nice tidy Laguna Seca M3. My Saff is running MSD custom Stage 1 with T34. Should be around the 285bhp mark. Im probably just getting cold feet with the saff, I have put a lot of work into finishing the restoration over the last year. Just keep seeing nice motors on Piston Heads and temptation gets the better of me sometimes, even though I know I will likely regret it.

 

If you sell it you WILL end up with another one...... most of us have been there and done that unfortunately

 

you'll regret it everyone always does mate

 

Every M3 I've been out in feels the same (E36 and E46). Not slow but just lethargic and not that quick lower down the revs. Thing is though as the speed climbs they just seem to maintain the level of acceleration and you look at the speedo and relise you are doing licence losing speeds. Superb cars but just leave me a little cold

 

get your cossy to stage 3 300-330bhp and i bet your fall in love with it again!

 

steve nail on the head





why the fuck people compare a 20 year old nasty old ford that dont handle and the interior that would match a 80's fiat panda to a well ballance well engineerd car is beyond me there so different

if everyone was sensible and clever who wanted a great car then everyone would own a M3 !! i just cant bring myself to buy one

 

That was my plan next year. Ive only done around 2k miles on new engine build so theres time yet. Its bloody quick as it is TBO. I had a chipped Focus ST2 before this and it feels lethal compared to that. Sometimes just miss the creature comforts, but I guess there is always a trade off which ever car you choose.

 

M3 = boring in my experience. Cossie = exhilaration and heart break.
Cossie everytime!

 

And we love em for all those reasons

 

Perfect car imo, but as said not the most thrilling thing to drive,

I bought this 1 after getting fed up of spunking all my money on a track toy i never got to drive



Sold it after only 10 months and still lost 4k on it in that time,

I went back and started another cossie project build, would love to own another 1 one day as a second car but i could not afford both so i chose another track build

 

I had 4 Cossie's over a 11 year period from 1995 to 2006, 2wd saff, 2 4wd saffs & 1 3dr. 3dr was by far the best car for me, just love the looks. All of them were T34 greens etc. Moved to an E36 M3 Evo in 2006 for 2yrs then an E39 M5 in 2008. Never looked back, still like Cossie's but would never own another one. I found i never used the Cossie and it sat in the garage most of the time in the end, the BMW's just more useable for me, much prefer the M5 over the M3 though & wouldn't go back to an M3 unless i could afford the V8 M3.

Simon.

 

once you have the cossie bug a brand new ferrari wont get rid of it imo lol

 

Thats not the way to do it, what you were meant to ask was saph to escort cossie! Thats the correct way.

 

went from a 280 bhp saff to a e36 m3 and i would never go back to a cossie i love them but when you start driving on track and hard they brake alot my m3 took the shit all day every day hit 155mph plus a few times aweek to got hard launches all the time and it had 150k on the clock lol

 

I just dont know how people can compare a 20 year old cossie to these bmw,s.Its just a shame ford have never made a car that could compete with these bmw,s.

 

there was only 6 years between my cossie and my m3 and the diffrence was out of this world

 

cossie = kick up the arse hooligan ride, big power big boost ANIMAL type drive

m3 = lend it to your mum or take it to a trackday it'll be "good" all round

you'd need to drive both and decide what it is YOU want from a car. they are completely different.

and i agree with oranoco's description, they dont "feel" fast at all, but they are

 

I've made the switch and would NEVER go back.

Cossie was fun, but the M3 does everything my stage 3 saff did but better.

 

They did....but it competed with the E30 BMW, 20 years ago

 

Cossie for a toy to enjoy, M3 for every day.

 

Indeed and royally kicked its arse

 

the E30 M3s are very different to the E36/46s in almost every respect and only really share the same name.

the E36 and E46 are both very similar with the E46 obviously being far superior in almost every aspect

none of us here can afford the new model ones so no point talkng about those

 

this debate will go on for years and years

 

Not if someone knocks some sense into him and shows the way foward is with a blue oval on the front and a cosworth badge on the rear!

 

Its a hard one this as said the debate could go on and on, i had a stage 3 3 door and loved it, was so much fun and felt special everytime i drove it, but on the whole was a complete pain in the ass reliability wise and i did nothing but chuck money at it. I now have an e46 m3 after many other quick turbo cars. There a great all round car and theres little to fault with how they drive, very reliable and easy to live with but dont feel special really though and if you miss that turbo kick. In an ideal world you'd have an m3 for the week and a cossie for some fun at the weekend

 

I like the fact i could give my E46 M3's utter tits and not worry about it going wrong or blowing up.

I used to spend all my time worrying about blowing up my 2wd Spah (and it did blow)

The E46 M3 is a great car for not alot of cash these days, just keep the traction control switched off.

 

I have owned subaru's, type-Rs etc etc, and never kept any of them for longer than 6 months. My first ever Ford was my Focus ST2 which I had for 2 years and only recently sold it. Always wanted a cossie since passing my test, but could never afford one. Got the urge to buy one last year and decided to combine my other craving for restoring a car.

So two birds with one stone, I bought a rolling shell and started from scratch.
Before



10 months later



I dont need any sense knocking into me, the car is everything I hoped and expected. The E46 M3 is also one of those cars I have always fancied owning at some point. The cosworth is a beast, its just taking over my life a bit Im getting on a plane in 5 hours for our summer holiday in Cyprus , and here I am on here talking about the cossie, and trying to find replacement parts for it

 

Sorry mate just keep advertising that your going on holiday as you dont now whos reading this thread just a bit of advice pal.

 

I think the above picture says it all . Pure class. The M3 e36 and e46 will never look this good .I love Cosworth interiors( cloth especially) when i look in a BMW nothing really says perfection like a cossie if you know what i mean . With respect i think they are comparable, to a point obviously but to compare an 80,s ford to a E46 also says it all when you think of it. I would always go for a Cosworth .

 

m3s ARE FUCKING SLOW! i absolutly terrorise them hey common as fuck and everytime i see em i just know its time over for them when i floor it thats how confident i get. with a cossie you just cant under estimate one you will just not know how quick it is . m3s are common yobo cars now sorry but i hate them im from brum and im sick and tyred of seeing them . there not as reliable as people think they are anyway.. as i seen em break down a few times now

 

cossie all day long. I do like the e36 and e46 M3's and have driven a few but i would never part with my saff for one. Mate of mine went from a 2wd escos to a e46 M3 now back in a 3dr.

 

ok a few things.

1 saying a 3 Series will never look as good as a sierra saphire is a pure opinion, and i'm also confident that it's not one shared by the majority of the population

to say they are slow? compared to what? for the past 2 decades they have been THE benchmark performance car to which all other performance cars are compared. supercar speeds? no but to say theyre not fast is a bit of a strech.

and COMMON? they made about 50,000 worldwide. thats not common

 

Out of interest how many of the people with cossies use them everyday?

 

i used to use my 3dr everyday and am using the saph everyday, even once the YB is in.

Which model M3 are you talking about, E36, E46 or E90?

 

You do really come out with some complete bollox sometimes... Have you ever tried being a stand up comic as you seem to make the whole of passionford laugh at you

Are you saying a 300bhp+ M3 is fucking slow??? and a yobo car?? when you drive a dodgy old Escort RS Turbo commonly associated with boyracers and yobos????