Used test: BMW M3 vs Porsche Macan costs

Buying and owning

Costs, equipment, reliability, safety and security

Bought at this age, the BMW M3 will cost around £27,000, while the Porsche Macan Turbo will set you back around £30,000. When new, these cars came in at almost £60,000 each. However, both cars are immensely popular and should hold on to their values well, so we wouldn't expect anyone buying a used one to lose too much over the coming years in depreciation, whichever one they buy. 

Fuel costs should be less with the M3, though. During our testing, it averaged 27.6mpg to the Macan's 23.4mpg. It's the same story with road tax, because the M3 will set you back £365 per year and the Macan £395 per year.

On the other hand, the Macan falls into a slightly lower insurance group than the M3 – group 44 versus 45. This means it should cost you around £1078 in annual premiums to the M3's £1099.

For a two-service plan of the M3, we were quoted £1547 by BMW. We couldn't get a quote through Porsche, but we found a specialist dealer that sells a single service of the Macan Turbo for £675. Expect Porsche's own pricing to be slightly higher, mind you.  

Metallic paint, cruise control and Bluetooth connectivity came as standard on the M3, but the Macan's original owner would've had to pay extra for them. Plenty of owners did, fortunately, but don't take that for granted when searching the classifieds. 

On the other hand, all M3s and Porsche Macan Turbos have sat-nav, a DAB radio, USB input and leather upholstery. 

The M3 was too niche to feature in the latest What Car? Reliability Survey but the regular BMW 3 Series on which it's based wasn't. The 2012-2019 petrol 3 Series ranked second out of 26 cars in the executive car class. The BMW M3 appeared in the luxury SUV class and placed first out of 11 cars. 

As brands, BMW came 16th out of 32 manufacturers featured, while Porsche ended up 19th. 

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