BMW M3 Touring Review

There is a reason the M3 Touring caused such a stir when BMW finally built one. The idea had been sitting there for years, obvious and enticing, while BMW watched Audi and Mercedes-AMG dominate the fast-estate conversation. The M3 had already proved itself as a super-saloon for decades. Giving it a Touring body always felt like the missing piece.

Now that it exists, the remarkable thing is how little compromise it seems to involve. This is not a watered-down M3 with a longer roof and a marketing story. It still feels every inch the serious M car, with the same hard-edged focus, the same deeply impressive chassis and the same immense straight-line pace as the saloon.

The Touring body simply changes the car’s usefulness. It makes the M3 easier to justify to yourself, your partner or your accountant because it can now swallow family clobber, dogs, luggage and all the usual estate-car life without giving up its core identity. That is important, because cars like this have always been about breadth of ability as much as outright speed.

The current UK model range is straightforward. In mainstream form, the Touring centres on the M3 Competition M xDrive Touring. That means all-wheel drive and the eight-speed automatic as standard, rather than the more purist rear-drive options seen elsewhere in the M3 line-up. Some enthusiasts will grumble about that, but in truth the xDrive setup suits the Touring brilliantly.

The result is one of the most complete performance cars on sale. It is a family estate with supercar pace, real long-distance comfort and enough chassis sophistication to make even a routine drive feel like an event.

This is one of the easiest sections to write because there is only one answer: the BMW M3 Competition M xDrive Touring.

That is no bad thing. BMW has effectively done the decision-making for you by focusing the Touring around the version that best suits its brief. The xDrive system gives the car enormous traction and huge cross-country pace, which is exactly what you want in a fast estate likely to be used in all weathers and on all sorts of roads.

There are more extreme halo versions in the wider M3 family, but for a current UK Touring review the Competition M xDrive is the one that matters. It already has all the pace, drama and ability anyone could realistically need, and it does not feel like it is missing anything dynamically because of the driven front axle.

In other words, the best M3 Touring is the M3 Touring BMW actually sells in volume, which is refreshingly convenient.

The BMW M3 Touring currently starts at £93,755 in the UK. That is a serious amount of money for any 3 Series-shaped car, no matter how much engineering has gone into it.

The challenge for the M3 Touring is not that it feels overpriced in isolation. It does not. Spend any time with it and the engineering depth, performance and sense of occasion all justify why it sits where it does. The issue is that once you are this deep into six-figure-adjacent territory, the list of other tempting cars becomes very long indeed.

That is especially true once you start adding options. BMW gives you every opportunity to inflate the bill with carbon-fibre extras, driver-focused packages and luxury add-ons. It is easy to push the final figure well past the point where the car still looks vaguely sensible on paper.

The key is not to go overboard. The standard car is already hugely capable and richly equipped, which means you do not need to chase every available extra to end up with something very special.

The Audi RS4 Avant remains one of the key alternatives because it targets a similar buyer with a more understated, slightly more rounded sort of fast-estate appeal. It is still a very complete car, but the BMW feels sharper, more adjustable and more exciting from behind the wheel.

The Mercedes-AMG C 63 has gone in a very different direction with plug-in hybrid power and a four-cylinder engine. On paper it is staggeringly powerful, but for traditionalists the M3 Touring’s straight-six petrol setup will be far more appealing.

It is also worth considering the BMW M340i Touring or M340d xDrive Touring if you want much of the same everyday usefulness and some of the same pace without the M3 Touring’s intensity or price tag. Those cars are easier to live with and easier to justify. They just are not remotely as special.

Then there are the fast SUVs. Cars like the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio or Jaguar F-Pace SVR offer similar straight-line urgency with extra ride height and a more family-friendly shape. But if you actually want a proper fast estate rather than a high-riding performance car, the M3 Touring makes the stronger emotional case.

This is where the Touring starts to justify itself over the saloon. The headline figure of 500 litres is not going to trouble some estates, but the shape and access matter more than the raw number. The load bay is broad, the opening is large and the low lip makes it far easier to throw in luggage, shopping or a dog crate than the M3 Saloon ever could.

The rear glass opening separately from the tailgate is also one of those old-school Touring touches that owners tend to love. It is genuinely useful when you just want to drop in a bag or a few bits of shopping without opening the full tailgate.

The rear seats split 40:20:40 and fold to expand carrying capacity to 1,510 litres. That makes the M3 Touring usefully versatile, even if it is not as cavernous as some less performance-focused estates. It is more about giving you enough everyday practicality than turning the M3 into a van.

Passenger space is good, too. Up front there is loads of room and the usual excellent BMW driving position. In the back there is enough legroom and headroom for adults to travel comfortably, though as with most cars in this class the middle rear seat is best treated as occasional.

So no, the M3 Touring is not the most practical estate you can buy. But it is practical enough to make the performance feel even more outrageous.

The BMW M3 Touring measures 4,794mm long, 1,903mm wide and 1,436mm high. That makes it very much a modern compact executive estate in size, which is to say it is not especially compact at all.

Even so, it still feels more concentrated and more manageable than larger performance estates. That helps preserve the M3’s sense of agility and purpose, even with the estate body added.

The M3 Touring gets BMW’s latest curved-display setup, pairing a 14.9-inch central touchscreen with a 12.3-inch driver display. It looks slick, modern and suitably premium, and it lifts the cabin well above the simpler feel of older M cars.

BMW’s system remains one of the better ones around because the menus are generally intuitive, the processing is fast and the rotary controller still makes the whole thing easier to operate on the move. That matters in a car like this, where you do not want to be stabbing at a screen while managing 500-plus PS.

All cars get a head-up display, wireless phone charging, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus a Harman Kardon sound system. As ever with BMW, the main irritation is that climate controls have been absorbed into the touchscreen when dedicated buttons would still be easier.

The interior quality is right where it needs to be. The M3 Touring feels expensive, tightly assembled and genuinely special, with enough M-specific touches to remind you this is not just another 3 Series Touring.

There is carbon-fibre trim, flashes of red, proper leather and enough small details to make the cabin feel sporting without turning it into something overdone. It is still recognisably a BMW, which is no criticism, because the current 3 Series interior remains one of the best in the segment.

Optional M Carbon bucket seats add even more drama, but they also make access harder and are not necessarily the natural fit for a car that many people will use as a family estate. The standard seats are the easier choice to recommend.

Power comes from the same 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged six-cylinder petrol engine as the BMW M4 GT3 race car, which means it ought to be both quick and dependable. And it's certainly the former - with 510PS and 650Nm of torque, it'll sprint to 62mph in just 3.6 seconds. Top speed is limited to 155mph, unless you opt for the M Driver's Package (which increases the top speed to 174mph).

Figures don't really do the BMW M3 Touring justice, though. A squeeze of the accelerator pedal will thump you forward at an alarming rate, no matter which gear you're in or where in the rev range the engine currently is. It's quite satisfying to drive a car that'll build pace towards the limiter, yet can't be caught out at low revs.

Part of this is down to the excellent eight-speed automatic transmission which is fitted as standard. It changes gears ultra quickly, while nudging the gear selector allows you to use the paddles behind the steering wheel and take control yourself. It's pretty satisfying to do so, especially as the gearbox doesn't try to take over and change gear itself in auto mode - allowing you to hit the rev limiter should you wish.

While most cars these days come with a selection of drive modes, the BMW M3 Touring offers a huge amount of adjustment via the M Setup menu. You can set up the M3 Touring's suspension to be nice and soft (or relatively so, anyway), while keeping the engine response on maximum attack. And there's no fewer than 10 stages of traction control available.

While the amount of electronic gadgetry might make you think you're driving a Playstation, there's no denying that the BMW M3 Touring is a serious, grown-up performance car. Not only is it brutally quick, but its sensationally direct steering and incredible cornering composure mean it feels every bit the race car for the road. One that just so happens to have space for a labrador...

Unlike the saloon, the BMW M3 Touring is only available with all-wheel drive. And while that might upset small corners of internet forums, we have no qualms about the xDrive system in the real world.

For a start, you can fiddle with the 10-stage (yes, 10!) traction control system, and send up to 100% of the power to the rear wheels for tail-happy heroics. There's even a drift analyser feature and lap timer available as part of the M Drive Professional pack - something we wouldn't recommend playing with on the public highway.

Indeed, on public roads, we'd suggest leaving the BMW M3 Touring in its regular 4WD mode and allowing the standard-fit locking rear differential to divvy torque between the rear wheels as necessary. Unlike many fast estates (we're looking at the Audi RS4 Avant in particular), the BMW M3 Touring feels anything but one-dimensional. It's not just ludicrously fast - the steering, for example, is delightfully communicative no matter how quickly you're driving. And while you adjust the weight of the steering, there's more to it than simply 'heavy' or 'unnervingly light'.

So what about the BMW M3 Touring's ride quality? Well, don't expect a magic carpet ride. But on its staggered alloy wheels (20-inch at the rear; 19-inch at the front), with the adaptive suspension left in comfort mode, it feels compliant enough for bumpy rural roads. Selecting 'sport' firms things up noticeably, but most drivers will be having so much fun they won't care.

Refinement is not really the point here, and you do notice a fair bit of tyre noise. The engine is also not the prettiest-sounding straight-six BMW has ever produced. But there is plenty of theatre, plenty of drama and no shortage of excitement.

The M3 Touring itself has not been separately crash-tested by Euro NCAP, but the related BMW 3 Series achieved a five-star rating in 2019. BMW also fits a generous spread of active safety kit as standard, including front and rear parking sensors, collision warning with brake intervention, lane-departure warning, attentiveness monitoring and the Driving Assistant package with lane-change warning, rear cross-traffic alert and rear-collision prevention.

That is exactly what you would want in a family-shaped car with this much performance.

Official economy is 27.4 to 27.7mpg, which is respectable enough on paper for something this quick and this powerful. In the real world, though, your results will depend heavily on how you drive. A gentle motorway run can produce a decent showing. Start exploiting the M3 Touring properly and the numbers will sink fast.

That is simply part of the bargain with a car like this. Against its direct rivals, it is not outlandishly thirsty. It is just a high-performance straight-six estate being asked to behave like one.

BMW covers the M3 Touring with a three-year, unlimited-mileage warranty. That is standard enough for this level of car, even if it is not generous by broader market standards.

The bigger story will be consumables. Tyres, brakes and routine servicing are all likely to be eye-watering compared with a normal 3 Series Touring, which is exactly what you would expect of a car with this level of performance.

The BMW M3 Touring sits in insurance group 43, which places it firmly in high-cost territory. That is no surprise given the value, performance and desirability involved, but it is still worth factoring in before you fall in love with the idea.

For 2026 to 2027, the standard annual VED rate after the first year is £200. Because every current M3 Touring sits above the £40,000 threshold, all versions also attract the Expensive Car Supplement.

That means an extra £440 a year for five years from the start of the second licence, leaving most owners looking at £640 a year during that period.