My first M car was an E46 M3 with a Magnaflow Exhaust.
My second M car was an E90 M3 with a Megan Exhaust with stock x-pipe.
My third and current M car is again and E90 M3 with an Active Autowerke Gen 2 Exhaust with Macht Schnell test pipes on my stock x-pipe.
I almost bought another Megan exhaust because of the price. They also sound decent paired with test pipes but I wanted to try something new. I wanted something louder, a little more high pitch, and something quality built. The Active Autowerke exhaust always caught my eye but I just coudlnt see myself paying retail + tax and shipping on it.
Luckily, I was able to find a brand new one for a steal and picked it up the next day.
Got home and realized one of the exhaust tips was missing a clamp. Texted the seller but he could not find it. I got on the phone with Active and they shipped out a clamp same day.
I received the clamp in within a day or two but unfortunately it was the wrong one.
I decided to install the exhaust anyway because why not. It was super easy, hardest part was probably lining it up with about 1.5ft of room under the car. Pretty straight forward installation. Instructions can be found on their site, too.
The craftsmanship is outstanding. The welds look good and overall quality obviously surpasses my previous megan exhaust. Compared to the stock exhaust, this thing looks gorgeous.
Finished the install around 1:30 AM and planned to center it out the next morning.
I also called them again about the clamp, they apologized and overnighted me the correct clamp. Was real impressed they did that.
On a cold start it sounded nice. I noticed heavy drone under 2300-2500 RPM. When the car was warm, I revved it to 3k RPM and thought "Ok, not bad... lets see what 3k and up sounds like." At 3k, it sounds good, not annoying or high pitch but louder and full. I was hoping for a slightly higher pitched sound. Most videos on youtube have the AA Exhaust paired with with their full catless x-pipe. I had a hard limiter at 3k and could not rev passed it. Did some more driving to see if it would change or if the car had some sort of rev limiter in neutral post warm up or something. No matter how I drove, warm or cold, neutral or in gear with clutch in, I could not get passed 3k RPM.
So I drove around like this for a few days, getting accustomed to the new sound. Its definitely deeper and louder than stock. Not magnaflow deep but the sound has a lot of bass and volume to it. At this point, I still have not taken it passed 4.5k RPM because all the errands I have to run are literally a stop light or two away, same with the freeway entrance. At this time, I was a little underwhelmed, naturally.
I asked around and turns out it was my launch control option that I had added to my Alpine tune. I requested for a new tune without it and was able to make this video:
After that drive, I was very happy with the exhaust. It has a behaved loud and rich tone that sounds smooth when WOT in cabin. Downshifts sound crisp and amazing compared to full stock. Giving it extra throttle in tunnels and overpasses turns heads and sounds real good. Dont know if I just adapted the sound but the drone under 2.5k RPM doesnt seem as noticeable or I've just gotten used to it. It is definitely a loud but not over the top exhaust; my wife told me she can hear me leaving and returning to our complex. I have yet to hear the exhaust from the outside myself, off camera. Overall, I'm super pleased with my purchase. Can only imagine what higher end exhausts and different x-pipe combos will sound like. I'm looking to try a full catless x-pipe and see what difference it will make sound wise. But until then, 10/10 would recommend.
Shout out to Active Autowerke for their prompt customer service.