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2012 C63 P31 LSD-Current: My past 1999 C43, 2004 Clk55, 1999 C280 sport, 1995 C280
W202 C43 VS E36 M3
Having owned both. I figured I would give my opinion on these two cars and also see what others think or personal experiences are. I have owned a total of 4 W202's 3 C280's one being a sport, and my current C43 AMG. I have also owned 2 E36 BMW's. Now I will say hands down I am a Mercedes guy all the way, but my first BMW was my first car, a 1999 328is great car. Than I did stupidly sell my 2004 CLK55 for the 1999 M3 pictured below. Obviously the C43 and M3 are fairly different in theyre purpose. The C43 is a highway monster and has great torque and luxury to keep you comfortable. It does handle too but not as well as a M3. However since the W202 is a small fairly light chassis, I feel its really not bad if you upgrade suspension. The M3 handles very well but is not nearly as refined as the C43 and does not have the carved from steel solid feel either. Obviously I prefer the C43, but the M3 is a great car with a big exception...Build quality. The BMW is almost as if its designed to fall apart. I poured so much money into mine, granted a lot on mods as well but there are so many things that fall apart, including the fact that you need to reinforce shock towers and rebuild vanos. The biggest difference is the build quality and the mercedes is miles better. The other intangible is the fact that one I used to get in my M3 it really didnt make me feel too excited. It was a fun car but that was about it. Everytime I get in my C43 and hear the thunk of the solid door, fire up the V8 and watch the Xenons self level at night I feel special. It never gets old. The thing that boggles my mind is there were about 1500 of our cars imported over 3 years, The M3 was produced at around 70+ thousand units and the values are shooting up! I guess there are only a few that really know wassup. hahahaha.
from a purely metrics standpoint, the m3 is clearly better in only one way: handling.
the w202 AMG's were cheaper to maintain, far more reliable, far more practical (unless you bought a sedan automatic M3), more economical, cheaper to insure. they had better brakes, better engines, the list goes on and on. and to top it all off, they're far more exclusive/rare.
yet the M3's shoot up in value and at this point are basically impossible to be daily driven, while you can still get a $3500 high miles 36/43 and daily drive it for another 100k before you have to start worrying about it.
they made many thousands of M3's more than AMG's. nothing makes sense, other than popularity.
Estroil Blue if memory serves me correctly on your E36, the best color ever made in any car imho. I hear ya on the production #'s and overall build quality and I'm waiting on values to go up, but I guess the manual option in M3s versus automatics in W202s is one big factor.
98 C43, 15 Alfa 4C LE, 18 Tesla Model 3 DM Perf, 08 Duc S1000, 02 Duc 998, 98 Duc 748, 01 Miata
So I obviously own a C43 and was paid by a friend to fly to Boston and pick up an E36 M3 a few years ago and drive it back to NC. My dad owns an E46 M3 and I was surprised by how similar the driving experience was between the two. The E36 obviously had a more low end focused power delivery in the US models while the E46 is more peaky, but the driving position and feel of all of the controls was very similar. The radio and things of that nature were obviously much improved in the E46, but overall, it was a good drive and one that felt familiar and natural almost immediately. Despite being rated at only 240 hp here in the US, it was a fun car to drive that felt quicker than 240 hp. The manual transmission gives a level of engagement that you just don't get with the C43. I think that the new car market, especially in the high end sports car realm, has proven that well heeled buyers of new cars do not prefer manual transmissions (hence Ferrari not even offering a manual any more and many many Porsches being sold with PDK) and that may bode well for new vehicle sales for AMG. However, the opposite is true on the used market and manual transmission cars command a premium over their automatic or semi-automatic compatriots, at least at this point in time. I think that the lack of manual transmission in the C43 is a limiting factor in its value on the used market. That being said, let's agree not to sell our cars for pennies and see what we can do to impart value on a model that we all obviously love. I still remember driving my car around when I first got it (over 10 years ago now) and just chuckling to myself that no one around me had any idea what lurked under the hood. I still love it.
02-06-2018, 03:39 AM
