BMW M340i 2020 review

I'm Tom Baker, this is Chasing Cars, and this is the BMW 3 Series to buy if you really must have a six-cylinder engine, and that's a feeling that I understand in this segment. This is the M340i. Until the new M3 arrives, this car is the top of the tree for the new G20 generation of BMW 3 Series here in Australia. There's a few things that are interesting about this car. The first is that it's 30 grand more expensive than the 330i, which is a turbo-4 that we rate very highly here on Chasing Cars, so there's a question about, is it worth stepping up so far to this vehicle? Second interesting thing, unlike the old 340i, which shared the same basic engine, you can only get this with all-wheel drive. The previous car was rear-wheel drive, so we're going to find out whether or not that kills the fun or makes really any impact at all later on in this video. But basically, I want to know, is it worth it? Because I love that 330i, so I've been a little sceptical about this car. That being said, the engine, the BMW B58 inline-6, is one of my favourites in the world. Love it in the new Toyota Supra, for example, so perhaps it could make the perfect 3 Series. But then you jump in and it's like, okay, so I'm in a 340i, how do I even know that? Because the cabin is basically the same as the 330i, which as I mentioned is 30 grand cheaper. So I reckon they needed to do a bit more to differentiate it from the off, but ultimately we're talking about a very nice interior here to start with, so it's not like you're being that short-changed, I guess. The layout, for starters, is really driver-focused, which is still quite rare in this segment. So the centre console here is inclined towards the driver, you sit genuinely low with your legs stretched out in front of you, a proper rear-drive kind of driving position, which I think works well. You sit in super comfortable, supportive seats. These ones are black with blue stitching, but you can get other colours if you're a bit more creative. You've got a beefy M Performance steering wheel here, still a little thick for my tastes, but you get paddle shifters on it, which is nice as well. And then cool contrasting aluminium trim, though that's another thing you can customise if you want to. The technology, very familiar from other 3 Series that we have driven, 10-inch screen up here, which is a touchscreen, though you can control it through the previous system, which is a rotary controller down here, and I still prefer that for manipulating the tech on bumpy roads. You've got a digital driver's display in front of you, which is a bit more basic than what you get in, say, the Audi S4, but, you know, still kind of interesting. Where I think they could have made some changes to the M340i is up here on the dash pad and up on the doors. You still get that same, you know, hardy-looking soft-touch plastic as in a mid-spec or even a base-spec 3 Series. You can get an optional leather pad up here. They should have made that standard on this $105,000 M340i, in my opinion, but let me know down in the comments whether I'm just being a bit dramatic, and if that sort of stuff just doesn't really matter at all, let me know your thoughts, but ultimately, it's a nice place to spend time. It's a good cabin. What about life in the second row? Let's find out, because, unfortunately, in Australia, we can't get the M340i as a wagon. The best engine you can get in the Touring here is the 330i, and that's an excellent car. You can watch our video of it up in the top right-hand corner, but in terms of the top spec, great. It's sedan only. So how is the room? Well, for me, at six foot, headroom's pretty good. Got another inch or two, despite the fact we have the sunroof in this car. Legroom is fine, and towroom is just a little bit constricted. Now, you get four adults in total into this car just fine. A fifth person back here will technically fit, but there's a massive hump in the floor for the xDrive system, so I'd avoid it. That way, those back here can enjoy the air vents, separate temperature zone, two fast-charging USB-C ports, a flip-down armrest with cup holders, which is nice, and the same sort of decent, okay, fine materials here in the back, plus the fact the bench itself is comfy. Now, backseat's good. Does it finish off the job around here at the boot? Now, as I mentioned, I wish they had a Touring version, but thankfully, the sedan's cargo space is perfectly fine. Electric tailgate, we'll come back to that point in just a second. Once it's open, there's a good amount of space, class-competitive, two netted areas off to the side, but a bit of a step that you have to drag your bags up and over. Now, I mentioned this, BMW will shortly be coming out with a new type of M340i called the Pure, which is about $10,000 less expensive, and will make it seriously a bargain compared to the likes of the Mercedes-AMG C43 and the Audi S4. And I'm looking forward to driving that slightly more basic spec that misses out on unnecessary luxuries like an electric tailgate. But first, let's take this thing for a drive. So how does the BMW M340i drive? Well, let me level with you. When I first picked up this car, started driving it around for some of my errands in the burbs, I'll be honest, I couldn't tell a massive difference between this and the 330i. Now, I do know the difference between a four-cylinder engine and a six-cylinder engine. It's just that in character, they're initially so similar. The specification in particular is so similar. They both ride on 19-inch wheels. The difference between the M Performance damping and the M Sport damping is like 10-20% at most, I reckon. So just driving at low speeds, you don't notice massive differences between the top four-cylinder and this six-cylinder version. It's only when you bring the 340i out to one of your favourite back roads, like I have here, and you open up that wonderful sonorous B58 engine that we've seen quite a lot of together in the past, that you start realising some of that extra spend. So what is that engine? It's a 3.0-litre inline-six single-turbo petrol, producing here 285 kilowatts of power and 500 newton-metres of torque, so pretty healthy outputs. Those are the same outputs as the 2020 Toyota Supra, which uses this engine, and the 2020 Z4 M40i, which got a power bump at the end of last year. So it's a pretty serious six-cylinder, at least for this end of the class, because this car's rivals, you'll remember, is cars like the Audi S4 and the Mercedes-AMG C43. Unfortunately, little enigmas like the Jaguar XE-S with its supercharged V6 no longer exist, sad face. The thing is, there's just very few things that you can say about this engine that are bad. It's super smooth, linear, responsive, it sounds good, and it generates good power and torque. Plus, it's easily tunable if that's your thing, not that I think that's really what goes down in the minds of people that own M340is, but the option's there. The throttle response, it's really good, a little doughy in comfort, but chuck it into sport and it just dances underfoot. It's a nice engine, it's even fairly efficient for a six, you know, it'll do 10-11 litres per hundred, whereas a four-cylinder in this place will do 7-8 litres per hundred, so that's kind of the penalty for upgrading an extra pair of cylinders, but I think that's fair enough. Now, it's quick, 4.4 seconds to 100, using BMW's xDrive all-wheel-drive system for longitudinal engines, so it's still definitely rear-biased, and you can tell that when you dial down some of the nannies and give it a hard boot out of corners, it'll still want to put its rears out, which is nice, just not as easily as the rear-wheel-drive-only versions of the M3 series, naturally. Sadly, you can't get it in just rear-drive, it's xDrive or nothing now, but there are murmurings that the M3 will be offered in rear-drive with a manual gearbox, which would be nice. Speaking of gearboxes, it's the commonplace 8-speed ZF torque converter here, and it does a bang-up job. It's only very rarely hesitant in town, it's almost always in the right gear, nice intuitive sport mode, and the paddles offer up shifts that rival a dual-clutch for perceptible time in the real world compared to the science. It's a good combination. The thing is, it's just, you know, the B48 4-cylinder, BMW have just got that so far now, it's a fast car, it's a 6-second car, you know, ish, 0-100, same gearbox, so there's just not all that much in it. There is sound in it when you really start to work this one, you know it's a 6 and not a 4, but that's about it, so if you care about that, then by all means, go for it. In terms of the rest of the handling, only the steering is a little bit blunted by the extra weight of the 6-cylinder, it's another 100 kilos or so over the 4-cylinder. Not all of that is in the engine though, there's also the all-wheel drive system, but there is some extra weight over the front end, but the engine doesn't sit over the front axle anyway, so it's a fairly minor thing. But that really nice chassis on the G20 is all there, you know, exactly where it is on the road, it's really predictable, and you can sort of make it dance under your right foot if you want to, which is cool. Plus the ride is excellent, we have 19-inch wheels here, familiar package on the new 3-Series to us, 19-inch wheels with adaptive dampers. In the comfort mode, there's a little bit of vertical motion, feels a bit springy, but ultimately it's comfortable, and then the sport mode dials in a bit more, I wouldn't want to use it across too many ruts and potholes, but it makes the body sit really nice and flat in the corners, so you can kind of customise it at will. Now there are only two stages on the adaptive dampers, and I kind of respect that, there's the soft mode and the hard mode, that's it, not three, not four, not five, I think two is enough, I mean one's enough if the suspension's done really well in the first place, in my opinion. Refinement, really good, the new 3-Series is a quiet car, we've seen that time and again. The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres on the 340i do make it a little louder, but it's an exceptional tyre and it offers heaps of grip, so I'll take that trade-off any day. And the safety systems are impressive, we have the BMW Driving Assistant Professional with high-speed AEB, Adaptive Cruise, Lane Keep Assist with really powerful lane tracing, 360 degree camera, laser headlights, so that sort of package on the autonomy side is pretty decent indeed. So the BMW M340i, honestly it's a bit of an enigma this car, it isn't really a poor man's M3, it isn't just a 330i Plus, it kind of has a character of its own, so if what you really want is a 3-Series that's pretty supple and has a six-cylinder engine, this thing could very well be your jam. As for my jam, well I'd actually just go a 330i, because I like the idea of a fast four-cylinder and I'd prefer it in the wagon and that's the only combination you can get with the Touring in Australia, but I'm a weirdo that's obsessed with station wagons, you may not be, so I'd take this thing for a test drive, especially when that new, cheaper, purer grade comes out. Now let me know all your thoughts down below the video in the comments, while you're down there, make sure to hit subscribe and the notification bell, and as always, thanks for watching Chasing Cars.