2023 BMW M340i (inc. performance testing, 0-100, 100-0): This could be the ultimate sport sedan!

CarExpert

I love the BMW 3.0-litre turbocharged six-cylinder engine. It's mated to an all-wheel drive system in the 2023 BMW M340i, but is it enough to lure new buyers with its revised price tag? Paul Maric finds out!  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  More BMW content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/bmw More BMW 3 Series content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/bmw/3-series  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior 00:58 Interior 03:06 Infotainment 04:30 Safety tech 06:47 Practicality 07:47 On the road 11:02 Driver aids 17:18 Performance 19:03 Verdict 22:14  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #bmw #m340i #review #3er #3series

Transcript

00:00 Hi, I'm Paul. So the BMW six-cylinder turbo is one of my favourite engines and it was

00:06 in the Supra that I used to own and I just think it is just a really smooth operator.

00:10 So that's why here in the BMW M340i I reckon it's possibly one of the best applications

00:16 of it because they've now teamed all-wheel drive with it. It really just sort of pushes

00:20 the envelope in terms of delivering maximum performance out of that engine. So the M340i,

00:26 it's now priced at around $105,000. So they used to have a pure version and a more expensive

00:31 version. They've now sort of split the difference there and it's kind of in the middle. This

00:35 competes with things like the Audi S4 and the much more expensive Mercedes-AMG C43,

00:41 which is now four-cylinder as well.

00:42 Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car, so if you do want to skip ahead

00:45 to other parts of the review, you can use the timecards on the screen, or if you're

00:48 on YouTube you can scroll down and use the chapters below. If you haven't done so already,

00:51 subscribe to our channel, press the bell icon, that way you can find out every single time

00:55 we drive a car with an engine that I love.

00:59 So let's look at exterior design. You've got nine colours to pick from. All But White is

01:02 going to set you back $2,000. They are expensive colours and you can get like unique colours

01:07 that are even more expensive as well. Just on the design front, I really like the look

01:11 of this. So obviously they've divided a lot of opinion with the big grilles in the M3

01:16 and the M4, but to me I just think this design here is peak BMW design. It looks really cool.

01:23 So you've got your dual kidney grille there with active veins just behind it. You've got

01:27 full LED adaptive headlights there with matrix LED. You have radar sensor down the bottom

01:33 there as well and front and rear parking sensors. So it all looks pretty straightforward down

01:37 the front here and I think this design just looks great. It looks a bit like a 5 Series

01:41 as well which I really like, so this is a great design in my opinion.

01:44 I'll whip around to the side here and have a look at these wheels. So it sits on 19-inch

01:49 alloy wheels and I love the look of these as well. So machined finish on the outside

01:54 there and then on the inside you've got a piano black finish. This comes standard with

01:58 the M Sport package given it's the M340i so you get big brakes, big rotors and also M

02:03 badge just here as well. M on the brakes there with a red finish on the caliper too. It is

02:09 a fairly low profile tyre and it is worth keeping in mind that that is probably going

02:14 to affect the ride, but ultimately I guess it's a bit of a compromise you make. You're

02:18 going to have a slightly firmer ride here but it does have adaptive damping.

02:21 Now up the top here you get the cool M wing mirror there as well with that scallop cut

02:26 out, all piano black with an indicator built into there. Camera on the side there and then

02:30 come around to the back with me. This rear looks sensational. So you've got a little

02:34 boot lip spoiler there, full LED taillights, M340i badge there as well and then a piano

02:41 black diffuser down the bottom. Nice meaty set of dual exhaust pipes too. And that's

02:45 the thing on the design here, I just think it looks really nice and subdued. You've got

02:49 all the performance punch you need without it looking over the top which is why I think

02:53 it's a really great compromise. So let me know what you reckon about the design in the

02:56 comments section down there. Do you like the look of this or do you want to go outrageous

03:00 with like an M3 with the exhaust pipes in the centre here? Let me know what you reckon

03:04 in the comments section below.

03:05 OK, so we're inside the M340i. We will kick off with the key. So you've got unlock, lock,

03:12 boot, the little diamond there for activating the lights and then on the side there you

03:17 have the M insignia, a little bit of brushed aluminium as well. It is a proximity sensing

03:22 key so you can leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside you have a push button

03:25 start just here. Look, I like this interior. I just love this curved screen set up here.

03:31 I love the fact that they're now rolling this out across the rest of their range and this

03:36 interior to me seems very sort of high-end and premium. I guess you can take or leave

03:41 this brand interior but the fact that you can kind of get it with all these different

03:45 options is pretty cool. Very limited piano black as well so it is just a really nice

03:50 place to be seated and it kind of follows on with that character of this car being understated.

03:54 It feels professional in here. It doesn't feel like a boy racer car and you have all

03:58 of the tools that you need to do your day-to-day job as well. So, yeah, what about your touch

04:03 points? So up the top there it's all nice and soft. Over here that's soft as well. A

04:08 little firmer on the door there. How soft is it? We've got our durometer. Tested the

04:12 main surfaces in this cabin. If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've

04:16 tested before, have a look at the link in the description below. What about our build

04:20 quality? It all feels really nice and solid as well in our door slam test. Yeah, very

04:29 robust. Okay, let's talk infotainment. So I mentioned earlier that this is the brand

04:35 new whiz-bang setup. So it's a curved display. This side is just under 15 inches. This is

04:40 12.3 inches and I think that iDrive 8 is the step forward that BMW needed. The previous

04:46 generation of iDrive wasn't amazing in my opinion, whereas this I think really just

04:49 solves a lot of the functionality issues they had previously. So you have everything in

04:53 pillars here on the home screen and then you can move them around by just holding and then

04:57 shifting those around the place. It's all connected to the internet and you would have

05:01 seen the controversy about BMW charging for subscriptions and stuff like that and yeah,

05:08 that is the case here. You can actually buy features to add to your infotainment system

05:13 as well. You have remote connectivity through your phone that allows you to connect with

05:16 the car, check its status, remote start the car, lock, unlock, that type of stuff as well.

05:22 Actually, I'm curious, do you want us to do like a comparison where we compare all of

05:26 the car's remote sort of phone access systems to see which is best and how quick they respond?

05:31 Let me know in the comments section below. On the radio front you have AM/FM, DAB, digital

05:37 radio and that's all plumbed through a 16-speaker Harman Kardon branded sound system. Excellent

05:44 sound system, really big fan of it and the fact that it comes standard I think is pretty

05:47 cool as well. Yeah, VIN built satellite navigation, again that's all great, nice and fast and

05:52 snappy and all that kind of thing. Now, you will notice something interesting here. So

05:57 later on when we talk about comfort, I'll talk about dual zone climate control and stuff

06:01 like that but there are no buttons here for climate control anymore. You have to do it

06:05 all through the screen. I don't love that. I think out of all the buttons I probably

06:09 wanted here it was probably just a simple up/down on temperature and a fan button. That's

06:13 all now buried into here including your heated seats. You can activate all of that with voice

06:17 if you need to but to me I would have just preferred to have some buttons for that. You

06:21 have wireless Apple CarPlay, so big screen there and works nice and fast as well which

06:27 is good. This is what Android Auto looks like. It also is wireless, takes up the full screen

06:33 there which is good news, nice and snappy as well so that's great. You also have this

06:37 screen ahead of the driver here. We'll have a closer look at that when we go for a drive

06:41 but you can kind of configure the stuff that appears there using the steering wheel. All

06:45 very impressive here from a tech perspective. Let's talk about safety. So you have autonomous

06:49 emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist detection. You have rear cross traffic alert,

06:54 blind spot monitor built into that wing mirror. You have lane departure warning with a lane

06:59 keeping assistant. This also has a semi-autonomous driving function which we'll test a little

07:03 bit later on. Front and rear cross traffic alert, front and rear parking sensors and

07:07 a 360 camera. I'll show you what that looks like. So there it is there. Look, quality

07:13 is actually not too bad so you can see what's written there on the suitcase. You have all

07:16 your guidelines there as well. You can also then do a 3D view so you can whip around to

07:21 other parts of the car, see what's going on but you can see as we get closer to the back

07:25 there the suitcase looks kind of like a pancake instead of an actual suitcase. You've got

07:30 a car wash mode which lets you look top down so you can get your wheels on the tracks.

07:34 You also have a reversing assistant. We actually shot a video that explains how that works.

07:40 Click up here, you can watch that. Really great feature, helps you get out of narrow

07:43 streets and that kind of thing as well. And this is what the horn sounds like. OK, let's

07:47 talk about your practicality and we'll start off with connectivity. If we open our little

07:51 tray just here you have wireless phone charging just there, USB A port, a 12 volt outlet.

07:56 You have a USB C port just inside here as well. In terms of storing your phone it can

08:01 live there on the wireless phone charger or kind of lives inside the cup holders there

08:06 as well. Now what about our cup holders? Well, we've got our coffee cup. Look at that, how

08:12 cool. We'll see how that fits in here. There we go, no dramas there, sits nice and high,

08:16 you're not going to be de-lidded. We'll try our water bottle as well. Fits in without

08:21 any dramas. You've got teeth in there so it fits in the door too. We'll try our big water

08:26 bottle inside the door as well. Yeah, it kind of does. You have to cram it in there for

08:34 that to fit. Not exactly the most convenient. In terms of other storage you've got this

08:40 little slot down here. You also have a glove box over here that is reasonably sized.

08:46 OK, comfort features. So, we're going to dive into our climate menu here for dual zone automatic

08:52 climate control. Seat heating for the first row. You have electric seat adjustments. You

08:56 can go forwards and backwards. Backrest can go forwards and backwards. You can lift the

09:01 front of the seat, the back of the seat. You also have lumbar adjustment. You can also

09:06 adjust your side support as well. You have seat memory for the driver. Electric seat

09:12 adjustment for the front passenger. Have a look at these seats as well. They look amazing.

09:16 They're kind of like a work of art. They've got this centre section that sits out a little

09:20 bit and then these air holes on the side with some good bolsters too. Very beautiful looking

09:24 seat. Steering adjustment is manually adjustable and it adjusts for both tilt and reach. On

09:30 our reach test all of this stuff is easy to reach while you're driving but you do have

09:34 to tilt in a little bit to catch the corner there. OK, second row. It is pretty cramped

09:39 back here. Not a great deal of knee room. Toe room's OK. Headroom is pretty tight but

09:45 you know it is a 3 Series after all. You have a third zone of climate control just here.

09:50 Two USB-C ports. You get air vents. No mat pockets in the back of these seats but you

09:54 can pop your drink in the centre console here. You've got two little cup holders in there

10:01 with rubber teeth as well. A drink bottle can then live inside the door as well. This

10:06 actually folds down too to give you better access to the boot as well so that's not too

10:12 bad. Now, window test. So it's auto up and down. Does it go all the way down? Winner.

10:18 And finally ISOFIX points on the two outboard seats with three top tether points. OK, let's

10:23 check cargo space. So you have 480 litres available to you. Powered tailgate. You have

10:29 storage off to the sides here with a little first aid kit there and a tyre repair kit.

10:34 You don't really have access to this underfloor area here that's all sort of closed off. What

10:38 it looks like with our bags in there. Let's give that a crack. There's our laptop. Suitcase

10:45 as well. So there's actually a fair bit of room in there. You know, sedans are pretty

10:49 versatile when they have a big opening area like that. Then you can expand the space a

10:53 little bit more as well. You've got seat release levers just here and then you pop your seats

10:58 out of the way and that exposes a almost flat load floor.

11:02 OK, we've just hit the road in the M340. Gee, this seating position is so low. I'm just

11:09 used to driving SUVs recently and this feels like just a completely different beast entirely.

11:16 You really do sit quite low which is good. I think it's nice to get away from SUVs for

11:21 a change. Now, in terms of the engine. So 3.0-litre turbocharged six-cylinder. It's

11:26 an inline six, makes 285 kilowatts of power and 500 newton metres of torque. That is just

11:33 the perfect amount for something like this. It's nice and nimble and darty. It is a little

11:37 bit heavy. It's around 1700 kilos so could be lighter but when you do look at this type

11:43 of car with this type of engine, I think it is a really nice pairing. So is the gearbox.

11:47 Eight-speed torque converter automatic transmission. So no dual clutch. Means that whenever you

11:52 lean on the throttle, it's right in that torque band and it just pushes you along really

11:56 nicely. Now, that brings me to the noise. It is such a good sounding engine. So I've

12:03 turned off the iconic sounds inside the cabin and this is what it sounds like just when

12:07 you roll onto it in comfort. It's just so nice and smooth which is awesome. So in terms

12:14 of the rest of the driving experience, it feels just like a BMW should. It's got heavier

12:18 than usual steering. You know, it's not anywhere near as light as something like a Mercedes

12:23 so you do get a little bit of feel through the wheel there. It actually feels like stuff

12:27 is going on. You've got paddle shifters in easy to reach spots and with the M Sport package,

12:31 you get this slightly thicker wheel that sits nicely in your hands as well. Everything just

12:35 works together great. Now in terms of fuel economy, BMW claims eight litres per 100 k's.

12:40 I'm not even going to bother showing you our fuel economy here simply because it's just

12:45 not realistic. We had to shift around filming today and do all of our faster driving and

12:48 silly driving up first and it's completely blown it out of the water but you will expect

12:52 to see around 10 to 11 litres per 100 k's if you are just sort of pottering around the

12:57 city and driving normally. The other fascinating thing as well is this has an all-wheel drive

13:03 system but it is rear biased. You do still get a lot of input from the front but you

13:07 do get that rear biased feel behind the wheel so when we go for our sportier lap here, I'll

13:11 be keen to see whether it is actually like that from behind the wheel as well. Okay,

13:14 time for our sine waves. We're in comfort mode. I'm going to dial this up to 130 k's

13:18 an hour. Sine waves give us a really good indication of what this feels like with a

13:26 little bit of pace such as when you're overtaking. So here we are, comfort, 130, sensational.

13:33 So you've got an adaptive damping underneath the skin and that means that this is just

13:37 constantly adjusting how firm the ride needs to be depending on the surface that you're

13:41 on and in this particular instance here it is proving to be spot on to where it needs

13:45 to be. We are driving this car with big wheels and the big wheels tend to not be great for

13:50 ride but here it is a really good complement between the two. Okay, time to hit up our

13:54 bumpy road. So this road is representative of like a really bad country road in Australia

14:00 so we do this at 90 k's an hour. This gives us an idea of what the suspension feels like

14:05 in the comfort setting. Actually feels surprisingly good when driving a car with giant wheels

14:11 and I've genuinely staggered how well this is riding for it being a sporty car. Here's

14:16 our condensed sine wave. So even here it's just falling into those divots nicely. Cars

14:21 with a poor suspension tune tend to just float over those and you just don't really have

14:25 any control over the car whereas this is just catching everything it needs to catch and

14:29 still giving us a really comfortable feel behind the wheels so that is really impressive.

14:36 Now let's go for a bit of a punt. You've got sport, comfort and eco pro but in sport you've

14:41 also got sport, sport plus and sport individual. So let's go sport plus. I can instantly feel

14:46 that become firmer, the steering become heavier. Don't love the brakes, they've got a bit of

14:53 a wooden feel to them. Yeah, I had a feeling this was going to be under tired. I think

15:07 it's on 255s at the rear and it does help that you've got that front axle helping things

15:14 out a little bit but ultimately I can constantly feel the rear just sort of getting to the

15:22 point where it wants to let go. So it does show you probably need a stickier set of treads

15:27 here if you're going to be seriously going for a drive but it has some tremendous pace.

15:33 This is ridiculous. This actually feels, certainly around our circuit which is not really a super

15:45 high speed circuit but this feels as quick as the M4 that we drove here recently. So

15:51 for a road car this is pretty phenomenal stuff. I'll roll onto the back straight here. Gee,

15:56 it is absolutely piling on speed. That is unreal. Yeah, those brakes definitely need

16:03 a bit of feel. They pull up okay but the brake pedal feel is just so wooden. You hit this

16:08 point where it just becomes hard and you just don't get the feedback you're expecting to

16:12 get from the pedal. But I'll tell you what, I will never grow tired of that sound. That

16:18 is absolutely unreal. Yep, very nice. Good job BMW. This is like most of the thrills

16:24 of an M3, well most of the thrills on a road like this that's representative of an Aussie

16:29 road. Most of the thrills without the huge price tag. So yeah, really bloody impressed

16:34 with this. Now what about your road noise? Look, it's okay but not amazing, especially

16:42 if you hit some coarser, chipped sections of road at highway speeds, you do get a fair

16:47 bit of noise coming into the cabin. That is a side effect of a sporty attire with big

16:51 wheels as well. So that is worth keeping in mind. It's not going to be totally serene

16:55 but you do have a massively good sound system to drown everything out.

16:58 Now let's talk visibility. So I can see clearly down the front of the car there. Wing mirrors

17:03 are on the smaller side but they give me enough visibility down the side. Visibility out the

17:07 back is really good as well so I'm pretty sort of happy with all that. Cameras are great

17:11 so when it comes to parking you've got a litany of options there to make parking a straightforward

17:15 process. And if you are doing any tighter parking, turning circle comes in at 12 metres.

17:20 Okay, time to do some semi-autonomous function testing. So the way that we do it, we use

17:25 the three outer lanes here on the circular track and we have the speed set at 70 k's

17:31 an hour. And basically let the car do its own thing. As we get to the outer section

17:35 of the track, we're relying on the car to apply more steering input, more torque on

17:40 the wheel and that is a pretty good indication of how it actually goes out on the normal

17:43 road when it approaches a tighter corner. So there is 70 k's an hour. We'll change that

17:50 to assisted driving mode. So you can see it's in its assisted mode because we've got a little

17:54 steering wheel down there. So that is active now. So in this lane it's doing a pretty good

17:59 job. No complaints there which is good news. We'll jump over to the next lane. Alright,

18:05 wait for that to lock in. Waiting, waiting. There it is. So steering is active. It's holding

18:17 the centre of that lane really nicely. Awesome. Alright, let's try our outer lane. This is

18:21 where most cars struggle. We'll see how well it does up here. Wait for that to activate.

18:28 Waiting, waiting. Still no green steering wheel. Still nothing. Let's move around this

18:39 lane a little bit. There we go, it's locked in now. Gradually let go of that wheel. That

18:44 is sensational. That is holding us dead centre in that most outer lane. Not many cars will

18:49 actually do this which is pretty awesome. It's telling me to put my hands back on the

18:52 wheel because you're meant to actually keep your hands on the wheel if you're on a normal

18:55 road. So that is unreal. So that gives you an idea of how good this system is and if

19:00 you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before in that same test,

19:03 have a look at the link in the description below.

19:05 Okay, let's do a little bit of performance testing. So BMW claims a 0-100 time of under

19:11 5 seconds. So we'll see how this goes. Yeah, we're going to go through to 120 and then

19:17 we'll get our 0-100 and our 80-120 as well. I'll use launch control here too. So hard

19:22 on the brake, hard on the throttle, it'll say launch control active. Away we go.

19:27 Oh, he's quick. Bar out, it's 100. That's 120. Gee, it really pins you back in the seat.

19:38 This is colossally quick. BMW has sorted itself out when it comes to launch control in torque

19:44 converters. That is bloody impressive. So let's see how it went for the first attempt.

19:49 0-100, 4.26 seconds. That is a lightning fast 4.26 seconds. Far out. Very impressive. And

19:58 then 80-120, 2.7 seconds. Like that is also a very quick overtaking figure. I'm going

20:04 to be so sad when this engine disappears. It is, it is unreal.

20:08 Okay, let's see how these wooden feeling brakes feel when we stop from 100-0. Okey dokey,

20:13 let's dial up 100 k's now and then we'll hit our marker. She gets up to 100 so quickly.

20:20 Some cars need a massive run up here. So, there's our marker just here. Oh, the seat

20:26 belt's just... Oh, Jesus. It's taken three years off my life. That is very vicious, my

20:37 goodness. Okay, let's see how it went for our 100-0 stop.

20:42 So 2.7 seconds and 37.29 metres. That is bloody impressive. So even though the brake pedal

20:48 doesn't feel great, it actually pulls up really nicely and quickly there. So there's some

20:53 good numbers. So if you want to see how this car compares to others, we actually have a

20:57 table with all of these results including our noise road results down in the description

21:02 below. So have a squiz at that if you want to see how it compares.

21:05 Okay, time to see how quick this goes in reverse. So here we go. 43 kilometres an hour. So I

21:15 mentioned before that it still has a little bit of front bias. I'm keen to see how much

21:19 it is. So I'm going to put it into Sport Plus and then we'll switch stability control off

21:25 and I'll just dial in second gear here around our cone. Yeah, see it's interesting because

21:38 when the back end comes around, it's doing exactly what a rear-wheel drive version of

21:43 this BMW would do. But the second you start putting in too much steering input, it starts

21:48 feeding lots of torque to the front axle to kind of undo what you're doing. So it would

21:53 be cool and I think that's probably why they reserve it for the M3 and stuff, but it would

21:57 be cool to have a mode that I could get it to just stay in rear-wheel drive or just keep

22:02 more of a rear-wheel drive bias instead of flicking everything back to the front there.

22:06 But still, nevertheless, good fun but just worth pointing that out.

22:12 Okay, so if you're not into leery sports cars and stuff, this is like the perfect car for

22:21 you because it is just frigging quick in a straight line. It's actually like EV quick,

22:26 but you still get all of the noises and the excitement of that inline six. It is just

22:30 such a fun car to drive. If you are going to be a little more serious about driving

22:34 it faster, probably fit, if you can, a wider set of treads on the rear, maybe something

22:38 a little stickier and then that should sort out some of the traction issues. But it is

22:42 a real smile maker and at the new revised price, I think it is actually really good

22:46 value for money when you consider what you're getting.

22:48 You could go get a Model 3 Performance which is quicker in a straight line, but this is

22:51 way more fun than a Model 3 Performance, so get that in mind. Now, have you bought one

22:56 of these? If so, we are mates. Go down to the comment section below, let me know how

23:00 it's going, let me know if you're enjoying it and why you bought that over something

23:03 like an M3. I'm very keen for your feedback. Now, if you did enjoy this video, please make

23:07 sure you like it and share it with your mates. If you haven't done so already, subscribe

23:10 to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time, take it easy.

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