No, not in lieu of my M3, but as my daily. My Explorer was my first car, and upon the acquisition of my M3, I decided to keep it. It was given to me when I got my license at 16 in June 2006.
I had driven it 9.5 years when I traded it in on my 128i. At the time, I was working in oil and was making good money and a 15k 128i wasn’t much of an extravagance; especially, given the fact that my M3 was paid for.
Sadly, when I lost my job 6 months after I bought my 128i, I sold it. The 128i never really did the roll I thought it would because my circumstances changed. The Explorer would have been better to just drive around San Antonio because it was paid for.
After 11 months of unemployment, and 8 months of only one BMW, I bought myself a manual 328i. While I really do like my E92, and it handled the role of driving 75 miles per day much better than the Explorer would have, the Explorer would have been cheaper. Now that my commute to work is only 10 minutes, I find myself wishing I had just kept the Explorer.
Hindsight is 20/20, and three years ago I had no idea I would be living in Greenville SC, let alone the fact that I wouldn’t be working in Texas after April 2016. All of this is a moot point, but life is always filled with those what ifs.