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Best Tires for the BMW M3 e46

BMW M3 e46 drivers have left 7 tire reviews on Tire Reviews, covering 326,500 miles of real world driving. Every tire they rated is ranked below, so you can see what actually works on this car.

This page covers the BMW M3 e46 specifically. For the full picture, the BMW M3 page combines 72 reviews from every variant. All BMW M3 reviews →

  • 7owner reviews
  • 326,500 milescovered on them
  • 7different tires rated
  • 70%average tire score
Most fitted size - 3 reviews 225/45 R17 To scale, mm
Ø 634 225 101 17" 101 All 225/45 R17 data →

The best rated tires that fit the BMW M3 e46

The rankings above can only speak for tires a BMW M3 e46 driver has already reviewed. These are the highest rated tires we hold that are actually manufactured in the sizes these drivers run - 225/45 R17 - whether or not anyone here has fitted them yet. They are ranked on the TR Score, which is built from independent test results and every owner review of that tire.

Summer tires

No BMW M3 e46 driver has reviewed a tire in the Summer category yet. Of the ones made in this car's sizes, the Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 is our highest rated, at 9.7 out of 10.

Highest rated Summer tires made in BMW M3 e46 sizes
# Tire TR Score Made in BMW M3 e46 reviews
1 Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 9.7 All your sizes Be the first →
2 Continental PremiumContact 7 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
3 Bridgestone Potenza Sport Evo 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
4 Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →
5 Michelin Pilot Sport 5 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →
6 Hankook Ventus Evo 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →

Want test data as well as owner opinion? Best Summer Tires →

All Season tires

No BMW M3 e46 driver has reviewed a tire in the All Season category yet. Of the ones made in this car's sizes, the Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF3 is our highest rated, at 9.6 out of 10.

Highest rated All Season tires made in BMW M3 e46 sizes
# Tire TR Score Made in BMW M3 e46 reviews
1 Pirelli Cinturato All Season SF3 9.6 All your sizes Be the first →
2 Continental AllSeasonContact 2 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
3 Michelin CrossClimate 3 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
4 BFGoodrich Advantage All Season 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
5 Goodyear Vector 4Seasons Gen 3 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →
6 Bridgestone Turanza All Season 6 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →

Want test data as well as owner opinion? Best All Season Tires → Test winner: Goodyear Vector All Season 4

All Weather tires

No BMW M3 e46 driver has reviewed a tire in the All Weather category yet. Of the ones made in this car's sizes, the Vredestein Quatrac is our highest rated, at 9.5 out of 10.

Highest rated All Weather tires made in BMW M3 e46 sizes
# Tire TR Score Made in BMW M3 e46 reviews
1 Vredestein Quatrac 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
2 Vredestein Quatrac Pro EV 8.3 All your sizes Be the first →
3 Vredestein Quatrac Pro+ 8.1 All your sizes Be the first →

Want test data as well as owner opinion? Best All Weather Tires →

Winter tires

No BMW M3 e46 driver has reviewed a tire in the Winter category yet. Of the ones made in this car's sizes, the Goodyear UltraGrip Performance 3 is our highest rated, at 9.5 out of 10.

Highest rated Winter tires made in BMW M3 e46 sizes
# Tire TR Score Made in BMW M3 e46 reviews
1 Goodyear UltraGrip Performance 3 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
2 Michelin Alpin 7 9.5 All your sizes Be the first →
3 Bridgestone Blizzak 6 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →
4 Goodyear UltraGrip Ice 3 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →
5 Nokian Snowproof 3P 9.4 All your sizes Be the first →
6 Kumho WinterCraft WP52+ 9.3 All your sizes Be the first →

Want test data as well as owner opinion? Best Winter Tires → Test winner: Goodyear UltraGrip Performance 3

Fitment comes from each tire's manufactured size list, and the sizes are the ones drivers reported when they reviewed. Check the size, load index and speed rating on your own doorplate before buying - a size a previous owner ran is not always the size your car left the factory on.

Tire sizes BMW M3 e46 drivers run

The sizes fitted in the reviews on this page. Each one links to the top rated tires in that size, across every car.

What BMW M3 e46 drivers say

The most recent owner reviews from this car, in their own words.

36%
Matador MP 46 Hectorra 2 225-45-19- BMW M3 e46 2,000 miles March 20, 2022
The worst tire ever. Bouncy when I drive a corner with 80 km/h. The sidewall moves in the middle of the corner an I then need to steer again. There is no predictable driving characteristic, the tire gives steering feedback like driving on marbles. And on the motorway with 100Km/h in the wet the car went siedeways. I‘m driving a e46 m3 and a friend of mine put these on. I am now gonna change them for Michelin PS4s
94%
Hankook Ventus RS4 265-35-18- BMW M3 e46 8,500 miles August 27, 2019
I initially purchased a set of these tires years ago when I just started HPDE. Soon afterwards I decided to try other tires to see how they compared, including the Yokohoma Advan AD08R, Federal RS-RR, Hankook RS3, and Sailun R01.

From experience the Hankook RS4s outperform all of them. Turn in response is very fast, but also very sensitive so it can be slightly difficult for new inexperienced drivers to place the car. Once gotten used to however it becomes very predictable and this no longer becomes and issue. The tires have high lateral grip and the car remains very composed when on the limit, especially during high speed corners. The edge of grip is also quite easy to find and allows you to easily push it without any issues.

Wet grip is surprisingly amazing for an Extreme performance 200TW tire. Dont expect it to grip like PS4s but they exceed the wet grip levels of the other tires in this catagory.

Theres one thing that cannot be argued and its that these tires wear like iron. They are far better than the old Hankook RS3s, which were already great. They havent show any signs of overheating during spirited drives or track driving and grip does not fall off as they wear, so they make for an amazing HPDE/Endurance racing tire where you would be doing several sessions. Reviews by other users support this claim and rave about their wear characteristics.

Unless theres another tire out there that has the same handling characteristics, along with extremely low wear, I will be staying with these tires. This tire dominated the Time Attack event here in NSW Australia, with the majority using them over the Federal RSRR and AD08R. The winner, also using RS4s was only half a second off his best time, which was done on Advan A050 Semislicks (60TW)

52%
Radar Dimax R8+ 225-40-19-W BMW M3 e46 1,000 miles January 18, 2018
These tires constantly change shape as they warm up and cool down with speed changes. The vibration in the steering and noise when this happens is quite bad, though it goes away with more time driving. These tires are probably fine for low speed town driving, as this problem occurs when transitioning between motorway/freeway speeds and town speeds.
100%
Primewell PZ900 225-45-17- BMW M3 e46 300,000 miles September 24, 2012
i fit over 100 primewell tires a week, they are a stunning tire, clearly you ppl dont know what your talking about, your comparing a primewell to a pirelli p zero which costs almost twice as much n moaning about gettin 15k plus outa them ? for the money they are great, if ur not happy with them put a set of "suntracks " on then you'll relaise what a poor tire really is !
41%
Nankang NS2 225-45-17- BMW M3 e46 April 26, 2012
225 40 19 fitted to my M3 when i bought it, i wasn't very happy but i got on with it. Anyway i have just purchased some Goodyear Eagle Asymetric 2 and the first thing that struck me is how much wider they looked. I measured the Goodyears thread at 225mm i then measured the Nankangs 195mm no wonder they are so poor. The grip in the wet borders on dangerous the only good thing about them is that they wear out quickly so I could get rid of them earlier than expected.
80%
Kumho Ecsta KU31 225-45-17- BMW M3 e46 5,000 miles March 4, 2012
Had these by coincidence as my friend who owns a tire shop was left with them after someone had ordered them and not turned up. Got them at a really cheap price as the original customer had lost his deposit. Having owned this car for about 4 years I've always had contis m3 and to me there's not much in it. I have noticed that their not as good in the wet but I tend to drive carefully when it's raining as these cars are very tail happy. I have also changed the sizes so I'm running 275/35/19 rear and 245/35/19 front. The dry grip on these is phenomenal and I don't worry as much with regards to tire wear as these are less than half the price of the contis.
Stopping distance is on par and the wear rate is good too. I've done 5k miles and they still have 6mm on the rear whereas the contis would be roughly at 4mm at this stage.
I would recommend these to m3 owners as they are readily available and I like em so much Im going to install them on my evo fq320 when the current falken fk452's wear out.
Well done kumho! I can actually use the car for its purpose without worrying too much on tire prices.

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Where this data comes from

Every rating on this page was submitted by a driver through the review form on this site, naming the car, the tire, the size and the distance covered. Reviews are checked by hand before publication, and the page rebuilds automatically as new ones arrive.

About the TR Score

The Tire Reviews Score rates each tire out of 10 using independent test results and the full body of owner reviews, so you can check a car-specific ranking against the wider evidence.

Who does the testing

Every test published as a Tire Reviews test is run by Jonathan Benson, who has been testing tires independently since 2007.

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