M have done a little bit of fettling, surely? It can't just be engine & exhaust..
BMW and M Power Owners
- Thread starter panthro
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Soldato
- Joined
- 27 Mar 2013
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- 9,150
Just like a proper M version then
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I think this contrast is better obtained with something like anthracite wheels. The problem with black wheels is that you lose the contrast with the tyres and the darkness in the wheel arch so half the time you can barely make out the styling of the wheel. With an anthracite wheel this isn't an issue, so you get the contrast against a light paint colour but you also still get all the detail of the wheel clearly visible.
The same effect happens with black paint with black trim, suddenly it all blends into one and the detailing on the car, the lines etc all become less obvious.
It's a personal taste thing for sure but the way the market seems to be going at the moment there is very little choice if you don't want black everything with black wheels. BMW do not offer a 5 Series M Sport with a non black wheel anymore. The boring conservative diesel saloon - only available with black wheels...
There are some other differences but in character its much closer to a standard G20 than the G80. EG the LSD is standard, stiffer suspension, wheel camber adjustment and I think perhaps slightly uprated brakes. It also rides slightly lower.
I managed to clock 150 odd mixed miles in mine yesterday so thought I would jot down some background initial impresssions for those that might be interested in this model.
I am coming from just under 6 years and 85k miles in an F36 430d so that is my easiest point of comparison. It was a very capable car and had given me no trouble over the time I owned it, however it was starting to show its age a bit and I fancied a change. I did briefly consider going Tesla Model 3 but my business partner runs one and the time I had in it left me cold and he is still far more likely to hop into the ageing SLK55 he also runs. As a bit of a BMW fanboy the similar offerings from Merc (c43) and Audi (S4) were again briefly looked at but soon dismissed. If the S4 were still available as a petrol then maybe it would have had more of a chance.
I had actually factory ordered a very similar M340i in November 2019, but having still not received it by March 2020 and with lockdown landing I had the option to walk away from it at no cost which I took, given the uncertainty about the economic impact and travel restrictions. That turned out to be a decent move as I clocked less than 2k miles between March last year and 2021. I continued to watch the market though and as I work in an industry that turned out to be quite important during an worldwide pandemic no economic disaster landed at my door. I recently decided should I see an opportunity to get into one at an acceptable price I would take it. In the intervening months the model year changes and subsequent price hikes, coupled with the significant delays meant a new factory order was not that appealing. BMWs contributions in Q1 at least are also much lower than they had been on my original order where I had got to 20% off list. This led to me watching for stock cars, whether new or nearly new that met or exceeded my spec requirements whilst still keeping close to my original price point. Eventually the car I ended up buying surfaced, it being 5 months old and with 3k on the clock it was offered at 25% below original list. Not deal of the century, but within my acceptable range and with plenty of warranty left to run. Most importantly, it was a pretty special spec and I had seen nothing similar come up at that price. I did also consider the touring which I think look nice and are obviously more practical, but my wife vetoed it on the grounds that we aren't old enough for an estate(I'm in my 40s, surely prime estate age?!)
On to the car itself. The exterior is pretty non-descript and for most people would be indisguishable from any other G20. This suits me perfectly as I am happy to run under the radar. Dravit grey is very flat when there is no sun, it comes to life under bright sunlight or lights with gold/bronze touches.The cerium grey touches look awful in pictures but suit the car in this colour very well. They do not stand out and in fact complement it quite well. The grille when first introduced looked quite controversial but compared to the G22 and G80/2 it looks positively normal. My wife's first comment when I brought it home was 'like the grille, love the colour' and she is notoriously fussy so I can confirm that combo is wife friendly! I'm not a fan of black wheels so non-shadowline was a must for me. I am not bothered by the semi fake exhaust tips, I actually think they look pretty decent but I appreciate it's not everyones cup of tea.
The interior is a significant step up from the F series 3 and 4s. The driver's cockpit area feels moulded around you and you immediately get the sense you are in a bigger car. Going from the F36 where the driving position was styled after the coupe you do sit higher up in the 3 series. The build quality and finish is noticeably better than in my older car and it does feel more premium. There were no rattles or squeaks that I could detect, not even from the sunroof which is an often-reported issue on this model. The controls a well laid out although I already miss the thing that altered the hot/cold air mix. Also I feel the stalks for indicators and particularly the wipers are a step back but are fine in reality, its just a shame as the soft touch ones in the F36 were perfect. The digital cockpit is...well its crap. It's overly fussy and I struggled to quickly get the information I wanted from it. This may improve over time and as I configure it a bit more but I'm tempted to turn everything except the essentials off. Thankfully the HUD is brilliant, very clear and positioned well so you never have to take your eyes off the road. The touchscreen display is clear and easy to reach although by habit I still use the wheel. Gesture control is a gimmick but the kids thought it was cool. On the subject of the kids, I have a 9 and a 12 year old and they were quite pleased with the extra space in the back. This is a combination of more legroom but also since its the saloon it doesnt suffer from the sloping roof of the Gran Coupe.
On driving, I managed a mixture of different roads across motorways/dual carriageway, A and B roads as well as through town. I can best sum the experience up as 'effortless'. It is not an aggressive car, even in Sport and with foot planted it is so smooth. If you are looking for an event each time you get in your car, pick something else. Obvoiusly if you push it hard you can have it moving around but in every day use it is extremely smooth. It is of course pretty quick,I am yet to launch it but it picks up quickly and pushes you a bit into your seat. It is very easy to be over the speed limit before you know it. There is a little bit of turbo/gearbox lag in comfort depending on the circumstances. The engine is a peach as I think everyone knows and has a reasonable soundtrack, although some of that is piped in and it is quite muted so again if you want something that roars you probably need to look elsewhere (or mod it). My kids immediately picked up on the reduction in wind noise/tyre roar in the cabin compared to the previous car, although the F series was notoriously bad for that. It's definitely an improvement. The suspension is quite stiff although its fine in comfort. Steering is overly heavy in sport as seems to be standard for non-M BMWs
I had a bit of a play with the driving assistance stuff as well. The lane depature intervention I initially thought was OK, but it did try to fight me a couple times and made me nervous enough I've turned it off for now. I suspect this might be about adjusting driving style as much as the system being overly aggresive but we will see. I have left the lane departure warning rumble on though as that seems to be quite useful. Adaptive cruise worked well, as did the driving assistance and it kept to the road very well. The fact you have to keep your hands on the steering wheel, whilst I understand why, does render it a little pointless though! Speed limit detection worked very well even in some temporary roadworks it detected the signage correctly. It's nice it gives you the option to hit the Set button and adjust the speed automatically although it slows the car quite quickly, not in the way people would naturally bleed off speed when changing between zones. Just something to watch out for particularly if you are in tight traffic. I LOVE the blind spot detection, what a brilliant system and so simple. The lane display in the cockpit is also quite cool although I've not yet figured out how to get it to change lane automatically (based on an indicator push I thought?). There is still no substitute for actually looking around and in your mirrors though.
I am yet to play with the parking stuff other than the basic detection I used when I got home. I'm not sure how much I would use this anyway although the cameras are quite handy and the fact they can double up as kind of dashcam in case of an accident seems useful. I have also not used any of the connected apps but will be going through some setup today to see what there is. Frankly the amount of tech embedded is slightly intimidating and I suspect it will be several weeks before I've worked my way through it all.
One last thing, whilst picking it up I did see both a G22 and G80 in the flesh. The grilles are not as bad in person as they look in pictures. If that's all thats turning you off I'd suggest going to have a look as you might find you are actually OK with it. The G80 in particular looked epic in Brooklyn Grey, but too rich for my pocket and definitely not a subtle motor. The G22 front looks much better with a UK plate on it but is still not great in my opinion.
Well that's it, if there's any questions anyone might have I'd be happy to do my best to answer.
It's a lovely car, the grey is really nice too. Great review, I agree with what you're saying. The lane assist is awful, borders on dangerous in my opinion and has been turned off since day 2 of ownership. I like the understated look of the car and the quality of the interior, the seats and position is the most comfortable car I've driven.
I do prefer the diesel, mainly because I drive 20k a year. Also my wife has the x3 m40i, and I find the exhaust way too noisy for my likeing in sport, shocking I know. I really dislike the shadow line stuff, black wheels are just wrong in my opinion.
Really strong writeup there - thank you for putting the effort in to that. It was a good read.
To get the lane change assist to work, you need to be in Assisted Driving mode and then hold the indicator stalk to indicate in direction you wish to change lane. The Live Cockpit display will show the traffic around you and highlight a space to move into in green if safe. It is a fairly gimmicky feature, I liked it the first few times I'd used it but I found really it was just easier to change lanes conventionally.
I also agree with your thoughts about Live Cockpit Professional itself. I don't think it looks particularly nice and I also struggled to get it to do what I really wanted. The classic BMW dials were always a nice look and I think BMW have struggled in the digital cockpit age. They seem to focus on having a virtual cockpit for the sake of it - by contrast both Mercedes and Audi do it better and allow full colour satnav maps on the instrument cluster. BMW still doesn't let you do this, even in Live Cockpit Professional. A real shame. I think in terms of raw looks the digital cockpit immediately prior to Live Cockpit (So, fitted to most 2018ish G30/31 and above) is probably the nicest so far, but again, lacked quite a lot of the features the competition have. A real missed opportunity.
The rest of iDrive, however, remains excellent.
I like that M340d as well - a while back I had the pleasure of a 540d with exactly the same engine and it was a wonderful thing. Effortlessly fast, sounded pretty good and astonishingly frugal. After 5 years now with my 530d I've really come to like the BMW 6 Cylinder diesels despite only really ending up with one because I found it so difficult to get a petrol F10. I'd have another but I do worry about the constant diesel hate and the effect that will have on residuals. Following the apparent mess BMW have made of the G30 facelift (Any colour wheel you want as long as its black sir, and do you like our new Skoda Octavia headlights?) I think the M340i is probably the top of the replacement list when the time comes. I've had a bad experience moving from a 5 to a 3 before but the G20 feels different - it's bigger for a start, the interior this time is genuinely really nice rather than just feeling like a big 1 Series and it does sadly appear to be the last genuinely good looking classic BMW shape BMW are going to make. If the styling direction BMW are taking carries on like this then I'd imagine a nice M340i will be my last BMW. A shame as I've had nothing else for 16 years
To get the lane change assist to work, you need to be in Assisted Driving mode and then hold the indicator stalk to indicate in direction you wish to change lane. The Live Cockpit display will show the traffic around you and highlight a space to move into in green if safe. It is a fairly gimmicky feature, I liked it the first few times I'd used it but I found really it was just easier to change lanes conventionally.
I also agree with your thoughts about Live Cockpit Professional itself. I don't think it looks particularly nice and I also struggled to get it to do what I really wanted. The classic BMW dials were always a nice look and I think BMW have struggled in the digital cockpit age. They seem to focus on having a virtual cockpit for the sake of it - by contrast both Mercedes and Audi do it better and allow full colour satnav maps on the instrument cluster. BMW still doesn't let you do this, even in Live Cockpit Professional. A real shame. I think in terms of raw looks the digital cockpit immediately prior to Live Cockpit (So, fitted to most 2018ish G30/31 and above) is probably the nicest so far, but again, lacked quite a lot of the features the competition have. A real missed opportunity.
The rest of iDrive, however, remains excellent.
I like that M340d as well - a while back I had the pleasure of a 540d with exactly the same engine and it was a wonderful thing. Effortlessly fast, sounded pretty good and astonishingly frugal. After 5 years now with my 530d I've really come to like the BMW 6 Cylinder diesels despite only really ending up with one because I found it so difficult to get a petrol F10. I'd have another but I do worry about the constant diesel hate and the effect that will have on residuals. Following the apparent mess BMW have made of the G30 facelift (Any colour wheel you want as long as its black sir, and do you like our new Skoda Octavia headlights?) I think the M340i is probably the top of the replacement list when the time comes. I've had a bad experience moving from a 5 to a 3 before but the G20 feels different - it's bigger for a start, the interior this time is genuinely really nice rather than just feeling like a big 1 Series and it does sadly appear to be the last genuinely good looking classic BMW shape BMW are going to make. If the styling direction BMW are taking carries on like this then I'd imagine a nice M340i will be my last BMW. A shame as I've had nothing else for 16 years
It looks like disabling it permanently has been prevented in later firmware as in my car it was re-enabled when I took it out again this morning and specifically says it will be re-enabled each time the car is started.. It also doesnt appear possible to link the checkbox directly to one of the programmable buttons so need to go through the menu each time I start it up. That's annoying!
Really strong writeup there - thank you for putting the effort in to that. It was a good read.
To get the lane change assist to work, you need to be in Assisted Driving mode and then hold the indicator stalk to indicate in direction you wish to change lane. The Live Cockpit display will show the traffic around you and highlight a space to move into in green if safe. It is a fairly gimmicky feature, I liked it the first few times I'd used it but I found really it was just easier to change lanes conventionally.
I also agree with your thoughts about Live Cockpit Professional itself. I don't think it looks particularly nice and I also struggled to get it to do what I really wanted. The classic BMW dials were always a nice look and I think BMW have struggled in the digital cockpit age. They seem to focus on having a virtual cockpit for the sake of it - by contrast both Mercedes and Audi do it better and allow full colour satnav maps on the instrument cluster. BMW still doesn't let you do this, even in Live Cockpit Professional. A real shame. I think in terms of raw looks the digital cockpit immediately prior to Live Cockpit (So, fitted to most 2018ish G30/31 and above) is probably the nicest so far, but again, lacked quite a lot of the features the competition have. A real missed opportunity.
The rest of iDrive, however, remains excellent.
I like that M340d as well - a while back I had the pleasure of a 540d with exactly the same engine and it was a wonderful thing. Effortlessly fast, sounded pretty good and astonishingly frugal. After 5 years now with my 530d I've really come to like the BMW 6 Cylinder diesels despite only really ending up with one because I found it so difficult to get a petrol F10. I'd have another but I do worry about the constant diesel hate and the effect that will have on residuals. Following the apparent mess BMW have made of the G30 facelift (Any colour wheel you want as long as its black sir, and do you like our new Skoda Octavia headlights?) I think the M340i is probably the top of the replacement list when the time comes. I've had a bad experience moving from a 5 to a 3 before but the G20 feels different - it's bigger for a start, the interior this time is genuinely really nice rather than just feeling like a big 1 Series and it does sadly appear to be the last genuinely good looking classic BMW shape BMW are going to make. If the styling direction BMW are taking carries on like this then I'd imagine a nice M340i will be my last BMW. A shame as I've had nothing else for 16 years
Aha OK, thanks for the tip on the lane change although I agree its a bit pointless, given you have to have your hands on the steering wheel and push the indicator you may as well do it yourself! Getting in it again this morning definitely made me think small 5 rather than big 3 series. It's a very diffierent feel to the previous generation 3, but then I haven't driven a G30 at all so I can't give a direct comparison. I have briefly driven and been a passenger in various F10 5ers over the past few years though.
Soldato
Don't be so sensitive - for every Fox, there are 10 people who LOVE black wheels and stick on tat, hence why you can barely find a car without black wheels and an AMG NIGHT PACK CARBON PRO M SPORT PERFORMANCE S-LINE TRIM EDITION pack Seriously though, I think it looks lovely. Yeah black wheels aren't to everyone's taste (including mine), but against a white car I think they look pretty great. The carbon accent's are pretty subtle too and I think they add a few extra lines and a bit of contrast. I don't really like the M PERFORMANCE stickers though so if it was mine, they'd be the first to go. The rest of it though - I think it looks magnificent.
This is why I like it. So far I've driven 2 G20's but both were 24 hour loaners from the dealer when mine was in for service. I liked them, you are right in that it feels more like a smaller 5 Series which IMHO is really good. I'd have a G30 as I've loved every single one I've driven but:
a) The LCI doesn't look as nice as the pre LCI
b) The pre LCI lacks some of the newer technical revisions of the LCI and the G20
c) We'll probably run out of under a year old pre LCI before I want to change anyway
d) A 12 month old 540i is about 8 billion quid, which represents quite poor value compared with the M340i IMO
I saw one review of the G20 where somebody was complaining its now as big as an E39 5 Series and thought 'That sounds like my next car'
It also feels like the last conventionally good looking BMW we'll see for some time. I accept that market trends change, but my taste is very much for the conventional 3 box saloon. If BMW are not going to offer that in the future then I'll have to look towards manufacturers who are.
If I was richer I'd go for an Audi Etron GT. I can't believe how incredible they look. Sorry to say that in the BMW thread but I find it really sad how Audi can pull something like that out of the bag and the only big pure EV BMW have is that weird iX thing and a 4 Series with a terrible grille and strange blue accents everywhere.
Soldato
All the components are the same as those of the regular 3 series etc.
And what do the actual M’s get over the regular 3 series?
Soldato
I can't speak about the latest M3 but traditionally a different engine, a proper mechanical locking diff, previously had different gearbox (although they have the same box now but different software), completely different suspension systems, quicker steering, more sporty seats, louder exhausts, different braking system, carbon fibre propshafts/roofs/bonnets(?) and lighter alloy wheels.
Oh there’s a difference @Havana_UK: the M340i has an LSD.
Yeah it turns it back on each time I drive, I don't understand why though. I get the idea of it, but if I need to take evasive action, such as something falls off a lorry then if I don't have time to indicate before swerving the car takes over and steers me back into lane!
Its easier to just to hold the button with the green circle for 2 seconds which turns off all the saftey stuff rather than going into the menu to adjust one setting, again that is madness to me, why make it so difficult!?
NCAP testing criteria changed, so such systems only help boost your score if they can't be disabled long term / permanently.
Well maybe it works perfectly in laboratory conditions, but real world its not a good or even safe feature. Maybe on a Tesla that's got some level of auto/self drive it could help, but in this car it's not something I think should be auto reactivated.