BMW 4 Series: Full Australian Review and Buyer's Guide
If you’re in that terrible position with $100K you need to dispose of in a hurry, perhaps a comfortable, fast Beemer will improve your reputation…
Of course if you do have that so-called ‘problem’ with excess cash, and you’re craving for a fine German automobile - meet the 430i, and its distinctive face.
This is a confidence trick, right? It just is. Like, the Emperor’s New Grille. Perhaps it’s a mass psychology experiment, designed by aliens, in orbit, probing us, again, to test the limits of human attraction.
Whatever. It’s ‘out there’ - certainly it’s not doing it for me, but if you want to marry the Sydney Harbour Bridge, knock yourself out, dude.
Perhaps it’s a mad ploy to make you think this car is not merely a 3 Series Coupe. Four-ringed Volkswagen does the same thing with the A4 Sedan and A5 Coupe. It’s a purely artificial distinction. Tomato-tomato.
This is of course at odds with the rabbit hole down which the three-ringed suppository has tumbled with C Class (which has both sedan and coupe variants).
Anyway, if you’re that flamboyant hipster dude with a ponytail, still trying to grow a proper beard, aged 40, in your skinny jeans, and you consider yourself something of a rebel, despite living in the inner city and working 14 hours a day marketing metrosexual apparel - this kind of product differentiation might really matter to you.
To be fair, the ‘not quite a 3 Series Coupe’ does have a slightly lower mass centre and slightly wider track, and they’ve stiffened it up a bit to crisp up the dynamics in line with default soy latte-sipping hipster marketing manager expectations.
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INSIDE
Very comfortable in here. Distinctly premium. And nice and crisp to drive. This is one thing I’ve always admired about BMW: They continue to respect their core slogan - the ultimate driving machine. I’ve never really wanted to give one back.
The seats are infinitely adjustable. The ergonomics are great, too. Very clever touches: co-locating the engine stop/start button with the transmission selector.
Ergonomic triumph. Because what’s the next thing you need after starting the engine?
The transmission shifter is emblematic of this whole ergonomic/’ultimate driving’ concept. Best transmission selector ever, in the context of ergonomic efficiency. But it is counter-intuitive, and there’s gunna be a learning curve if you’ve never driven a BMW before.
This 4 Series you’re looking at is the 430i - middle of the range - seemingly the sweet spot, to me. This particular example is about $100k but the base price is $89k, plus on-road costs - so, roughly $11k in ‘options bingo’ on this baby. We’ll get to that…
OUTSIDE
Anyway - all grille and fake model differentiation pisstakes aside, that 430i is an awesome car to drive - in part because it exists in that rare sweet spot between being too hard-edged and performance-oriented to live with daily, and too soft and luxurious to have a real crack in, occasionally.
You can really throw it around. It’s extremely balanced and responsive, but it doesn’t feel like 12 rounds with Madam Lash when you’re just getting from A to B in traffic with everyone else. So, that’s nice.
Just to detain you with the range, and decompiling its DNA: The base model 420i is about $70k, plus on-roads, here in Australia. It’s $19,000-ish more for the 430i that I spent a week test-driving. And it’s another $28k to step up from the 430 to the range topping M 440i xDrive.
Don’t get me wrong here: The 420i is not ‘poverty’ - all 4 Series vehicles here in Australia get an M Sport body kit and 19-inch alloys. There’s a wireless charging pad for your phone, and faux leather plus Alcantara in the 420. 12.3-inch flatscreen instrument cluster. (Which is quite sexy but does have a learning curve, configurability-wise.) 10.5-inch multimedia screen - nicely integrated - plus voice commands and wireless Apple and Android phone apps. Wireless.
PERFORMANCE
However, the powertrain in the 420i, while it’s essentially the same as the 430i, inasmuch as it’s a 2.0-litre turbo four, with an eight-speed auto and rear drive, the engine in the 420 is significantly de-tuned.
It’s pumping out just 135kW and 300Nm, which is good for about 7.5 seconds to 100 - not totally disgraceful, but just for perspective, the dude next to you at a red light, in his Kia Cerato GT, costing half as much - he’s gunna carve you up, and it’s gunna be ugly. Like, it’s not going to be a fair fight.
Just talking straight-line performance here, not refinement nor cachet - departments in which the 420i remains clearly ahead. (Of Cerato Boy.) But for me this kinda makes the 420i the ‘hairdresser’s’ option - and I have to say, it is some time since I had need of one of those.
This frown of 420i straight-line mediocrity is of course turned completely upside-down in the 430i, which ups the performance ante to 190kW and 400Nm. Meaning, you’ll definitely consign Cerato-boy to the rear-view mirror if push comes to shove, in the 430i. Which is always nice when you spend the big bucks.
The 430 is 10kW more powerful than a Golf GTI, but also slightly heavier, so on power to weight, they’re in the same sort of ballpark. (There’s actually about 3.5 per cent in it - in the GTI’s favour.)
With the 430i you also get a clever adaptive damper system, keyless entry, a surround view camera system, and adaptive cruise control.
EXTRAS
And of course if you have cash to burn, the M 440i xDrive is quite nice indeed. You get sunroof, premium audio - stuff like that. You also get (standard) those miraculous laser headlamps I mentioned earlier, which we first saw in the i8 plug-in hybrid. Counterintuitively, for the car industry, they do actually use lasers. It’s not just empty rhetoric.
That’s almost a breach of the car industry marketing code of conduct, now that I think about it. If memory serves, they use a blue-spectrum semiconductor laser smashing into a yellow phosphorus reflector to produce blindingly concentrated white high-beam light, and then they throw it, like, 600 metres down the road. (Which doesn’t take all that long, #physics.)
The laser tech saves weight and cuts space, too. You will love them, except if you jam a kangaroo into one.
Options Bingo on the 430i includes the following triple platinum hits:
M Sport Plus (a fancy name for coloured seatbelts and a rear e-diff): $3000.
Ventilated seats: $1800.
Heated front seats with driver’s lumbar support and electric adjustments for Tiffany in the passenger’s seat: $2000.
Interior ambient lighting, metallic paint, sunroof and Tony Stark’s laser beam headlamps at the front: $6300.
M Carbon exterior embellishment: $5900.
So-called ‘Individual’ paint: $3850.
So-called ‘Individual’ instrument panel clad in dead animal: $3400.
All-up: we just spent 26,000 fantasy dollars and change - and we’ve only just scratched the surface.
So, shields up, when you are face to face with your local BMW sales dude. Remember: it’s okay to say ‘no’. Really, it is.
Other criticism I have with this car is the default Bridgestone run-flat tyres. Now, generally I don’t have a problem with run-flats themselves, but the cost of replacements is outrageous. Maybe there’s a good reason for it, maybe it’s profiteering, but that’s the ecosystem we’re stuck with. If you get a puncture the tyre is a throwaway and the replacement cost isn’t fun.
I fear I’m also committing fat-shaming here because the steering wheels is seriously fat. a standard barbell is 25mm in diameter, and a competition kettlebell is 33mm. Then a super-serious club or mace is over 40mm where the grip challenge is off the charts. Now I don’t mind a chunky handle, but at its narrowest, this wheel is 38mm, and 47mm at its thickest.
Finally, I know I did piss-take incessantly the 4 Series for its seemingly artificial distinction from the 3 Series. And the target hipster non-conformist owner. And the grille, which my daughter informed me reminded her of the butt-print one might leave, casually, poolside, after an otherwise dignified and invigorating dip. Obviously, this kind of thing runs in the family.
Customer care
Aside from the grille - it’s actually a gorgeous car. Classic coupe proportions and really nice styling touches. And hey - maybe the grille will grow on me, like an out of control infection, and maybe it’s already not a barrier to entry for you. Eye of the frigging beholder.
So, make no mistake: I loved spending a week in this car - very hard not to. And it will be most entertaining to see the dudes at BMW Sydney deploy the jaws of life once again to get me out of it next Monday. They do love putting on a good show. Cold, dead fingers, dudes - again…
This is a proper driver’s car, too, and I’d suggest the criticisms are fairly minor. I’m merely acknowledging that, despite the marketing, no car is perfect. And I’ll leave you with this: BMW will never say this, and they can already give you 400 million reasons why you should own their fine Bavarian Money Wasting machine over that of four-ringed Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz.
So, here’s reason 400 million (and one): BMW are just better at customer care than the other two. Profoundly so, at least here in Australia. And this is the main reason I recommend BMW to premium car buyers. I have no commercial relationship with any carmaker, but every time when I have, in good faith, referred a legitimate customer complaint to BMW head office here, they’ve jumped on it, and customer frowns went upside-down, forthwith.
And I can’t say that about the other two. Like, I just can’t. Also, I’ve never had a disgruntled BMW owner send me, in disgust, the grubby gag order he’s just been asked to sign, after months of stone-walling over some automotive problem from hell. That’s more a Mercedes-Benz MO, in my experience. I’ve seen how they roll on that, and in my view it’s pathologically disgraceful.
I actually think issues of this nature - actual customer care - are the key point of differentiation between BMW and the other two. At this level, cars from all three brands are roughly equivalent. They all look really good and they all drive really well. But BMW’s treatment of its customers - based upon my first-hand experience, over several years - really does set them apart. I recommend them without reservation, because of this - and that recommendation cannot be bought.
So, if you have any lingering questions or, if you want to save thousands on a 4 Series, or some other BMW, click the ‘save’ button below.
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