BMW M240i 2021 Review

The second-generation BMW 2 Series coupe is due in Australia late this year, opening with the 220i at $59,900 plus on-road costs but headlined by the M240i at $89,990 plus ORCs.

So that’s 50 per cent more money for the 2021 BMW M240i xDrive – the one we had access to at the new 2 Series’ international launch in Munich – but it’s a more complete car than it used to be.

A lot of that has come from a new strategy from BMW that effectively makes it a short-wheelbase version of the $118,900 M440i xDrive.

It will only land in Australia with just one free colour (Alpine White), with Black Sapphire, Mineral White, Melbourne Red, M Portimao Blue, Thundernight (and you thought there was a pattern building…) and M Brooklyn Grey adding another $1700 each.

Preferably, buyers should pick just one of them.

The leather trim on the M240i xDrive will cost a 220i buyer another $2860 to adopt, and that’s before anybody gets to the packages, or bundles of formerly optional pieces, which WLTP testing has forced car-makers to use.

The first of those is the Comfort Package, which costs M240i xDrive customers $1500 (and $3400 for 220i folks). It adds a bunch of stuff that’s actually standard on the flagship (like lumbar adjustment, electric seats and front seat heating), but it also fills in a blank with steering wheel heating.

It’s similar with the M Sport Plus Package, which bundles up a lot of stuff that’s already included in the M240i, including M Sport brakes and the rear spoiler. The add-ons for the flagship, then, are the M Lights Shadowline, the M seat belts and the M High Gloss Shadowline. It’s $1200 on the M-branded coupe and $2500 for the base car.

Only the Executive Package’s Harmon Kardon surround sound system is standard on the M240i, so it adds steering wheel heating, remote engine start, an alarm, tyre pressure monitoring, tinted glazing and a driving recorder for $2800 – just $200 less than on the 220i.

The body of the 2021 BMW M240i xDrive is a full 12 per cent stiffer than the outgoing version and provides a strong anchor point for the five-link rear-end and the two-joint strut suspension design up front.

The adaptive suspension in the flagship coupe delivers electronically controlled damping, with continuously adjustable valves and metering at each wheel, so the car’s corners independently manage their own situations.

There is a Comfort mode, a Sport mode and the harder-core Sport Plus mode, which is easiest to reach by pushing the M2 button on the steering wheel.

But there’s an extra mode these days, the Driving Experience Control switch that allows the car’s steering, damping and throttle responses to suit the driver’s style – just like the old-school ‘Auto’ mode used to do.

The stock M240i xDrive rides on 19-inch alloys and 255/35R19 rubber at the back and 225/40R19s up front, though that can be optioned up to 20-inch wheels and tyres.

The brakes use four-piston callipers up front and single-piston floating callipers at the rear (not coincidentally, precisely the same as the M440i), and the same goes for the M differential.

The interior tech consists of the same M440i moves to over-the-air updates, the same 12-inch digital instrument cluster, the same head-up display and the same 10.3-inch touch-screen multimedia display, with the same iDrive controlling option.

The comfort is addressed by acoustic glass, a three-zone climate control system and a transparent roof option that’s 20 per cent larger than before.

Sixteen of Harman Kardon’s speakers and 464W of power provide the surround sound, while the interior reading and front and rear ambient interior LEDs can even pulse on when there’s an incoming phone call through the Bluetooth system.

It has a full raft of driver assistance systems, including the addition of a lane-return feature to the lane departure warning, and it works at up to 210km/h, which is more than enough for Australia.

We’ve had the BMW M440i xDrive coupe in Australia for almost a year now. And, yeah, the new 2021 BMW M240i is that, but shorter.

A twin-scroll turbocharger crams air into a 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder engine that sits along the coupe’s centreline.

When exhorted to its utmost effort, it delivers 275kW of power from 5500 to 6500 revs (25kW more than the outgoing version), and it backs that up with an obese torque curve that churns out 500Nm from 1900rpm all the way up to 5000.

It’s a lovely thing, the inline six, and BMW rams it full of its variable valve timing and variable valve lift on both the inlet and exit sides of the cylinder head.

There’s a closed-deck aluminium crankcase, a forged steel crankshaft, 350 bar of fuel-injection pressure and a split cooling valve that can close off crankcase cooling to speed up engine warming.

It’s thrifty, too, when it isn’t being pushed, with a WLTP test cycle of 8.1-8.8L/100km or 185-200g/km of CO2.

The paddle-shift eight-speed transmission adds a launch control feature to the 2 Series range, and it’s just about the easiest to use on the market today. It’s backed up with a Sprint function that adds a temporary overboost while you’re on the move.

BMW admits the all-wheel drive system, while rear-biased, is designed so that “any tendency of the vehicle to oversteer or understeer is nipped in the bud”, and that’s comforting when climatic conditions turn dodgy.

But it’s also a bit sad, if we’re honest.

It doesn’t take long to realise just how much M440i xDrive DNA is inside the 2021 BMW M240i xDrive, and how much of that punchy panache from the old version it replaces.

The powertrain is glorious, of course. Revving up to 7000rpm with enthusiasm, it burbles away as loudly or quietly as you’d like before snapping at the surrounding air with every tweak of the throttle.

It morphs from deep and menacing to howling and frenetic as the revs rise and the speed is there, all the time at any revs.

BMW claims it tied the M240i xDrive down at 250km/h and that’s no shock because we easily hit that in the sixth of the coupe’s eight gears.

The transmission is a highlight, and would be in any car. BMW has its own gearbox division, even though it doesn’t make gearboxes, and the result is a ZF-built unit that has just the perfect amount of snap and positive engagement at every Sports-mode upshift, but it’s an invisible companion when you cruise.

The steering is a little odd, with a slow rate of turn just off centre that speeds up with more lock, and it doesn’t like to do a lot of its own self-centring on the way out of corners.

It also rides well and the on-board systems all work stupendously well, thanks in large part to the iDrive scroller.

But our suspicion is that the car has become too refined and has lost some of that M240i raw athleticism we used to love.

Between the clever rear differential, the all-wheel drive and the electronic assistance systems, plus the meaty, over-engineered M440i suspension units it rides on that help it to 1690kg of dry weight, it’s barely possible to feel the chassis enjoying itself.

It’s too busy effortlessly crushing corners. But we sometimes like the effort…

There’s little doubt that the 2021 BMW M240i xDrive is a masterful car, masterfully engineered.

There’s also little doubt that the sheer overwhelming assurance that engineering delivers makes the M240i xDrive feel a lot more grown up than its predecessor.

It’s a boxer in a tight-fitting suit that wants to throw knuckle and make the crowd smile, but isn’t allowed to.

Of course, being BMW, all of the skid- and traction-control stuff can be switched off, but there’s still the matter of a stupendously effective all-wheel drive system to overcome.

Effective, yes, but it also dulls the responses from a car with all the visual promise to be an out-and-out entertainer. And, somehow, isn’t.

It’s a baby grand tourer – fast, swift in corners, reassuring under brakes and acceleration, surprisingly big inside, sonorous, genteel and utterly incapable of physical missteps.

But is that what you want your M240i to be?

How much does the 2021 BMW M240i xDrive cost?
Price: $89,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Late 2021
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 275kW/500Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 8.1-8.8L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 185-200g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested

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