BMW M240i 2018 Review

If you’re a driver who is into subtle, but lapses occasionally into bouts of assertion, BMW’s M240i coupe might just have the right mix for you.

Quite a bit below the surgically-quick M2 in price, but not far behind in outright accelerative abilities, the M240i is tamed, but not cowered. It will bring you a highly-spiced serve of dynamic qualities that would not shame a performance car costing twice as much.

Not that the M240i is bargain basement: Beginning at $76,510 pre on-roads without even beginning to scan the options list, it’s a pretty expensive small car that can easily be made even moreso.

Our test car’s pre on-roads price was bumped to $80,657 by the simple expedient of fitting a glass sunroof and spraying on Estoril Blue metallic paint. If you want to take it further, be BMW’s guest.

Among the many options that can be ticked are things such as active cruise control, adaptive LED headlights, self-parking capability and a wireless charging dock that brings your mobile phone up to full power by simply placing it on a pad in the centre console.

Needless to say, most BMW M240is you’ll see on the road are equipped well beyond standard. Our test car was pretty bare-bones in reality.

And to experience the M240i not with the eight-speed automatic, but with the test car’s six-speed manual (as we also did with the five-door M140i at the 2017 Australia’s Best Driver’s Car in Tasmania), is to get a slightly different perspective.

In the past, choosing a self-shifting option has generally been good for cruising around town – and equally good at emasculating the potentially-fiery performance car lurking within.

In the present, particularly with the advent of quick-shifting dual-clutch transmissions, the reverse is the case. Even conventional auto boxes, in some cases, are approaching DCT efficiencies.

That said, there’s still something about a manual transmission, especially a good manual transmission, which enhances the driver-machine interface in an almost unquantifiable way.

A week with a manual-gearbox M240i was not the chore some might have expected it to be. Coupled with the ready 500Nm of torque (trumping the top-deck M2 model’s 465Nm) that begins asserting itself from just 1520rpm, the manual-shift M240i is wonderfully smooth and satisfyingly flexible. The box quietly slips from gear to gear with a nice complementarity between clutch action and shift feel.

Getting a consistent reading of BMW’s supplied acceleration claims is slightly difficult. Although in some cases it’s suggested there are no performance differences between manual and auto, in general it can be assumed the auto-shifter is a bit quicker, by about 0.2 of a second to 100km/h – 4.8sec for the manual and 4.6sec for the auto.

Either way, the M240i is decidedly quick, with less histrionics than the more revvy and guttural M2. The performance, helped by the chunky torque, is easy to access and even if maximum power comes in at an early 5500rpm, there’s still a 7000rpm redline beckoning on the tachometer.

Same goes for the handling. The M240i might not be as aggressively suspension-tuned as the M2, but it still comes with a set of mixed tyres (225/40R18 at the front, 245/35R18 at the rear), adaptive M suspension and launch-control electronics that enable smoking off-the-line acceleration as the system apportions out the power with appropriate consideration given to available grip and engine output. The steering, as you’d expect, is quick (2.1 turns lock to lock for a tight 10.9m turning circle) and weighted just right.

The ride quality is a nicely calculated balance between handling and comfort and only gets upset on surfaces where the dips and dives are closely spaced and reveal that the M240i is, after all, a sporty performance coupe with a shortish wheelbase.

All this comes back to the mix of visual subtlety and lurking aggressiveness that makes up the M240i’s basic essence.

As mentioned before, it doesn’t come with a huge amount of equipment other than the standard expectations: The M240i brings low-speed autonomous emergency braking, lane-departure warning and all the usual chassis/driveline aids but you’ll need to dig deeper if you want the gear that’s standard on many a cheaper, high-spec volume-seller.

That said, the small BMW coupe is looking good these days – certainly more visually-balanced than the slightly gawky original it replaced in 2014.

With its proportionally-attractive, lower, wider and longer-stanced presence it looks more comfortable in its skin – and is better, in terms of passenger accommodation, to boot.

Better, but still restricted by its front-engine, rear-drive format. In reality, the four-passenger cabin is about as roomy as you’d expect of a rear-drive small coupe. There’s plenty of room for the driver and front passenger, but still not a lot in the (cosy) back seat where the sports coupe flavour is maintained by profiling the cushions to create space for just two. At 390 litres the boot’s pretty good though and, if you wish, you can order a split-folding back seat to extend the load capacity.

The driver and front passenger are wrapped nicely in powered and heated suede-trimmed sports seats with squab extensions and the dash presentation finds a nice balance between minimalistic and overdone. The controls are precise and the central iDrive controller takes care of drive functions without asking for inaccurate and distracting stabs at a fingerprint-smudged touch-screen.

One shortcoming you won’t notice in auto-transmission versions is the manual’s foot pedal area where a size 12 shoe can find difficulty cleanly working the space between the clutch and brake pedals.

Over our week in the manual-transmission BMW M240i the fuel consumption wavered between 8.6 and 9.7L/100km depending on the type of driving, which suggested the 7.8L/100km claim is not unrealistic. Even though the official figures suggest the auto, with a claimed 7.1L/100km, is the more economical, our last experience a year ago suggested the opposite.

Then, our automatic M240i recorded an average 11.6L/100km in two weeks of mixed city/freeway driving.

All this nevertheless brings into focus the 2 Series coupe’s underdone 52-litre fuel tank: In the real world, a cruising range maxing out at 500km or thereabouts is barely adequate (However you’d have to say that with a CO2 figure quoted at 179g/km – 163g/km for the auto – the manual-gearbox M240i is quite clean for a sub 5.0sec performance car).

As for competition, the story is much the same as it’s always been: The most direct challenge to the $76,510 M240i comes from within the BMW stable – the $93,300 Pure edition M2. Sure, there are the Lexus RC 350 F and Mustang GT aspirated V8s to think of, and even the all-paw Volkswagen Golf R, but there’s nothing with quite the compact immediacy and beautifully sonorous performance of BMW’s M240i.

2018 BMW M240i Coupe pricing and specifications:
Price: $76,510 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 250kW/500Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 7.8L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 179g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP