When BMW originally introduced its M Sport line of cars and SUVs, it felt like an exercise in trickle-down badge-o-nomics. The M Sport treatment tarted up BMW’s standard models with M-inspired fascias, seats and steering wheels. More recently, BMW developed the M Sport lineup to bridge the comfort-focused base model BMWs and the hard-edged—and expensive!—M cars. Today’s M Sport cars not only look more sporty than their base brethren, but they also get bigger engines, firmer suspensions, and limited-slip differentials. The look is now backed by performance.
The problem is that while I’ve driven many M Sport BMWs that I’ve respected, I haven’t driven one that was right in all respects. The 328i M Sport had a great suspension but a misfit four-cylinder engine. The M235i had a gutsy I6 but dead-as-a-doornail steering. The X3 M40i was magic on a backroad but as harsh as a Conestoga wagon in town. While all were good efforts, each was fatally flawed in at least one dimension, and none will ever enter my garage.
“Ah!” say the critics, “Try the M340i. It’s the crème de la crème!” Really? I’ll be the judge of that. I’ve just received the keys to a 2020 M340i, and I soon find out if BMW has produced a flawless M Sport vehicle.
My first few days with the M340i are entirely unsexy. I run across town to the supermarket, take my daughter to school, and dash down the highway to the mall. Simply put, I use the M340i like a car, not a toy.
Around town, the M340i’s non-adjustable M Sport suspension makes every bump felt, but there’s enough comfort tuned-in that the big impacts are softened, and the small surface tremors are masked. Owners of sporty cars will find the ride stiffness acceptable; the ride is slightly firmer than my M3 in Comfort mode. The optional $700 adaptive suspension may be a good idea for buyers in cities with notoriously bad roads.
Recent BMWs like the X3 M40i have had muted steering feedback but talkative seats and floorboards. The M340i flips this trend. It clearly communicates road texture and tire impacts through the steering wheel while hushing them in the seat and floorboards. As a result, the M340i has some of that insulation from the outside world that you expect from a luxury car, yet it keeps most of the steering communication that you want from a sports car. Most encouraging to me is that BMW is improving its EPAS steering with every new model. The resistance and self-centering still feel rubbery, but once BMW nails those aspects, I’ll be able to stop complaining about BMW EPAS steering.
My daughter’s school run wends its way through the maze of tight and twisting lanes in the Berkeley Hills. Here the M340i’s compact-sedan width makes it easy to squeeze between the parked cars and oncoming traffic. When I need to merge onto the city’s faster boulevards, the M340i’s engine and transmission are ready to squirt me across cross-traffic, especially if I’m driving in Sport mode and the car is using its aggressive shift and throttle mapping.
While the M340i is a compact sedan, it is a reasonably long car with a long wheelbase. As a result, the cabin comfort is quite good. The front passengers have good leg and elbow room, and their sporty seats are firmly padded, well-shaped, and comfortably supportive. The back seats have good legroom and reasonable headroom; I’m 6’ 2,” and my hair brushes the headliner, but adults under 6’ tall should have all the headroom they need. The truck space is deep and wide, though not especially tall. It looks like it would take plenty of suitcases on an airport run. Even though the trunk’s kick-to-open feature is now as old hat as the expression “old hat,” I am still tickled by air-kicking under the bumper to open the compartment.
On my highway dash to the mall, I appreciate the M340i’s easy autobahn lope. It does 80 mph at 1800 rpm and manages +30 mpg at the same time. BMW has spent time refining the M340i’s aerodynamics; the car even electronically closes its grill slats to improve its coefficient of drag. All the work pays off, and the M340i glides down the highway with the frictionless ease of a puck gliding across an air hockey table. The lightest touch on the throttle sucks the M340i forward.
There are two improvements I’d like on the highway. First, I’d like the car to better shush its road noise. On concrete slab highways, the tire roar penetrates the cabin. BMW offers many tire choices for the M340i; picking a different tire than the 19” Pirelli P Zero run-flats may improve the NVH. Second, I wish I had BMW’s hands-free cruise control on this M340i. I’m spoiled by Tesla’s Autopilot, and I want the M340i to handle the lane following and traffic pacing. I know BMW’s $1,700 Driving Assistance Professional Package offers just this.
(Speaking of my Tesla, let’s quickly compare the M340i to the cars in my stable. For daily driving, my 2011 BMW M3 sedan and the M340i are roughly equal in comfort and practicality. But for daily duty, I’d rather drive my Tesla Model 3. The Model 3 has a similar city-friendly footprint as the Bimmers, but the Model 3’s interior is much more spacious and airy. The Model 3’s silent and swift propulsion is also more immediate, torquey, and predictable than the BMWs’. In the Tesla, there’s no engine, transmission, or turbocharger to be caught napping.)
After a few exceedingly normal days with the M340i, I have a healthy respect for the M340i’s balance between sport and comfort, performance and economy. It’s not hair-on-fire crazy or demanding like a hyper-performance M3 or C63, but it’s cheaper and offers better comfort and economy in return. For 80% of the cost, you get 80% of the experience of those super sedans.
Still, it is abundantly clear that the M340i offers much more than what I’ve sampled in town. I pack my backpack with snacks and hit the highway with Mount Tam in my sights.
The highway is quiet as I cross the bay, and I decide to stretch the M340i’s legs. I bury the throttle, and the I6 engine pulls hard through fourth gear. Its torque curve feels as level, and nearly as broad, as the Bonneville Salt Flats, with the shove only waning slightly above 6000 rpm. (Redline is 6500 rpm.) I lift off the throttle and return to normal cruising speeds. After my little blast, I have no doubt that the M340i can pull cleanly to its software-limited 155 mph top speed. In fact, I’d bet it goes faster if freed from its electronic leash.
(Last spring, I spent two glorious days in Germany with a BMW M2 Competition. While the M340i is 248 lbs heavier and 23 hp lighter than the M2 Competition, the M340i feels roughly as fast. I took the M2 to 163 mph and found that its short wheelbase made it skittish at high speeds; I’d bet the long-wheelbase M340i is a more stable autobahn blitzer.)
I exit the highway and start climbing Mount Tam. The digital instrument cluster shows Highway 1 as a serpentine squiggle. Unexpectedly a warning of “Dangerous Curves” appears in the dash, and I laugh out loud! BMW isn’t wrong, but I’m in an M340i, so “Fun Curves” seems more apt!
The climb is a series of tight stacked second and third-gear corners. I gradually gain confidence in the M340i and increase my cornering speeds. The front tires remain tightly pinned to the pavement; they occasionally whisper complaints, but they never wilt into understeer. The rear tires are locked to the pavement too, but the power delivery feels choked. I press the stability-control button once, selecting ESP Sport Plus mode, and the car figuratively loosens its tie and unbuttons its collar. With the electronics standing down, the engine breathes deeper and pulls harder from corner to corner. That’s better!
There’s a lot riding on the B58 engine, and I’m not referring to the M340i’s 3,849 lbs. This is the engine Toyota has picked for the reborn Supra. To live up to the Supra legend, the B58 needs to be reliable and hugely tunable. I won’t be able to speak to either need this week, but from the driver’s seat, I can say the B58 engine feels undeniably stout. The M340i accelerates so well that it wouldn’t surprise me if the engine produces more than its rated 382 hp and 369 lb-ft. Even though the engine is turbocharged, there is little lag and good throttle response from the B58.
My only complaints about the B58 are that it isn’t teeming with character or excitement. As the revs climb, there is no charismatic build of power, and little change of song. The M340i’s punch feels the same at 3k rpm as it does at 6k rpm, and its sound only changes volume, not timber or pitch, as the engine winds out. My favorite engines have two or three distinct sounds over the rev range and seem to change emotion as they work harder and harder. The M340i’s B58 sounds unfortunately similar to the Nissan GT-R’s VR38DETT, an engine that was never known to be tuneful.
I break out of the redwood forest and dive down towards the Pacific. As Stinson Beach comes into view, the road taunts me with a pair of beautiful hairpins. I can’t resist; I defeat the stability control, downshift into second gear and huck the M340i into the first corner. As I transition from heavy braking to heavy cornering, I can feel the car’s weight and grip transferring from the front to the side. The M340i’s suspension is heavily loaded as I apex, and as the corner opens, I jab the gas. Smoothly and gently, the car’s tail swings wide. For a split second, I feel like I’m back at the BMW Performance Center, drifting F80 M3’s on the polished skidpad. Oh, the joy! The exhilaration gives way to survival instinct, and I counter-steer while lifting off the gas, correcting the M340i’s line.
Driving away from the hairpins with a giddy grin, I am reminded of the excellent Camaro SS. Both cars have amazing chassis, indefatigable front grip, and instant-on torque that can send rear tires sliding sideways. The SS and M340i are some of the most skid-happy cars I’ve had the pleasure of testing: How is it that the M340i is a sensible family sedan too?
I tiptoe through the town of Stinson Beach—the M340i is a Q ship, they’ll never suspect me of my drift indiscretion—and follow Highway 1 north. The road is beautifully paved and gloriously sculpted, but there is too much traffic for me to build up a head of steam. Every so often, I pull over, make space, and create a moment of driving levity. The brief spurts are but appetizer-sized tastes of the M340i’s goodness; I’m hungry for more.
I break off of Highway 1, turn inland, and find a hidden gem, an empty side-road with the cadence of a race track. As the road dances along the banks of Lagunitas Creek, I squirt up the straights, brake hard for the corners, and lean heavily on the tires through the curves. The M340i’s precise steering, throttle and brakes let me easily move the car’s weight and grip around. While the car rolls modestly in the corners, it dispatches big mid-corner bumps with ease: Its chassis, suspension, and tires work in harmony to make the M340i neutral, supple and stable. It is immensely enjoyable to drive the M340i at its limits!
I am impressed by how much grip is available from the Pirelli P Zero run-flats. P Zeros are not my favorite summer tires, and the 225/40 R19 front and 255/35 R19 rear fitment is narrow for a super sedan, yet the only time I wish for a smidge more grip is under heavy braking. A switch to Michelin Pilot Sport 4S’s would probably give me that extra grip, but I also worry that stickier tires might overwhelm the compliant suspension. Is the non-adjustable M Sport suspension ready for track work? Or does the M340i need its optional adaptive suspension to handle the rigors of the racetrack? I won’t find out today.
The road flattens and straightens, and I use iDrive’s trick natural-language voice control to look up the M340i’s launch control sequence. With the stability control in Sport Plus, the transmission in S, and my left foot firmly on the brake, I floor the throttle, and a chequered flag appears on the dash. My left foot springs off the brake, the rear tires spin briefly, and the transmission rips off two shifts as I fly to 60 mph. BMW quotes 4.4s for the sprint to 60 mph, and the M340i appears to deliver.
My final fun road of the day flies through the redwood forest and past the Skywalker Ranch studios where George Lucas once dreamed up Star Wars adventures. I whip the M340i through the tall trees as if I’m reenacting the Endor speeder-bike chase. I grin with glee as the M340i dances over the writhing pavement and humors me with little drifts out of the tight corners. My Bavarian speeder makes it through the forest without a metal-crunching collision and a Hollywood fireball. Princess Leia wishes she could say the same!
The calm highway drive home gives me time to reflect on the 2020 BMW M340i. In my week with the M340i, I’ve done the boring and the fun, and the M340i handled both like a full-blooded M car. It’s calm and comfortable when used for errands and exciting and enabling when taken on wild mountain flings. Bravo M340i! Bravo BMW! Here is an M Sport BMW that fully captures the M philosophy.
Still, I can tell that BMW is holding a little in reserve for the upcoming M3. The M340i’s engine and transmission could have more sharpness and charisma—especially in engine sound—and its steering could rid itself of its rubbery return. These are minor blemishes, though, not fatal flaws that would prevent me from buying an M340i.
Yes, the rear-wheel-drive M340i is an excellent do-it-all choice. And arguably the crème de la crème of its segment. It rewards people like me who love the art of driving and also coddles those who just need to run to the store or commute to work.
Again, well done, BMW. Now please excuse me because I need to start a letter-writing campaign to bring the M340i Touring station wagon to America.
How I’d spec my M340i:
- $54,000 RWD M340i. Because the RWD is the hoon’s choice.
- $550 Portimao Blue. Because the blurple is beautiful.
- 19” M Double-spoke cerium grey wheels, style 792M with high-performance non-run-flat tires. Hopefully, this gets me the Michelin PS4S tires.
- $1,450 + $250 Black Vernasca Leather with Blue contrast sticking + ambient lighting. Because of the little M flags in the leather.
- $0 Open Pore Fine Wood Oak Grain. Because the tetrahedral trim was ugly.
- $1,500 Cooling and High Performance Tire Package. Let’s go to the track!
- $500 Driving Assistance Package. Required for the Driving Assistance Pro Package.
- $1,700 Driving Assistance Professional Package. For lane following.
- $900 Parking Assistance Package. Because of the surround-view cameras.
- $1,400 Premium Package. HUD for me, heated front seats for the wife.
- $700 Adaptive M Suspension. For more comfort and track capability.
- $995 Destination & Handling
- Total Price MSRP: $63,945
Mike's Steering Column 