BMW M340i 2022 Review – International

The BMW 3 Series has had a facelift. In BMW-speak, it’s had an LCI, which the car-maker will tell you means ‘life-cycle impulse’ (or ‘mid-life refresh’) but really now means ‘large cost increase’.

That’s because, with the exception of the sumptuous 2022 BMW M340i xDrive tested here, every 3 Series has gone up in price. By a lot.

And, sneakily, BMW also lifted the price of most of them just before the LCI, so they’ve had a double dip.

There’s an entire ecosystem of 3 Series models Australia doesn’t get, ranging from the 318i to the M340d Touring, but we’ll start with the local launch range that’s available for order ahead of the first cars arriving next month.

The base BMW 320i has jumped up $5400 to $78,900 plus on-road costs, and that’s on top of a $1600 price rise earlier this year. And, in case anybody was confused about who the key opponent was, the price tag is now precisely the same as the Mercedes-Benz C 200.

The 330i has gone from an entry price of $83,300 to (hold onto something) $93,400 plus ORCs, and the Touring has made the same $10,100 leap to $97,400 plus ORCs.

The 330e plug-in hybrid sees a price rise of $7100 to $97,400, while the M340i xDrive flagship thankfully sees an $8700 price reduction to $104,900 plus ORCs. (It had copped an increase with the most recent round of price hikes, but is now only $5K more expensive than at its launch early in 2020.

The previous M340i xDrive Pure model (from $103,600) has been dropped, but BMW Australia promises that “no spec has been removed; in fact, the M340i xDrive is just as well specified as before”.

Yeah, it’s a lot to take in, really, especially since none of the engines have seen significant alterations, and only the plastic end pieces – the front grille, bumper and apron, and the rear bumper – of the bodies have been changed.

BMW couldn’t just sit there and watch life-long rival Mercedes-Benz pilfer its owner base with crisp multimedia screens and expensive-feeling materials, so it got some of its own for the 2022 BMW 3 Series.

The Bavarian brand has reworked the exterior styling, with a new grille and more conventional kidneys, hugely revised the interior and reworked the entire digital user-interface with its OS8 operating system from the upcoming BMW 7 Series.

The LED headlights are slimmer and more horizontal-looking, while the optional adaptive headlights have blue elements (this used to be a feature of the laser lights, but BMW has given up on them). The fog lights have been deleted, with the daytime running lights repurposed to cover for them.

Australian 320i models score 18-inch alloys and the M Sport package as standard equipment, along with active cruise control, the Live Cockpit Professional, a wireless inductive-charging tray and electric adjustment for the sports seats.

Up in the 330i sedan and Touring, there are stock 19-inch wheels and tyres, M Sports seats with lumbar adjustment up front, adaptive M suspension, M brakes, leather trim and, for the wagon, an electric tailgate.

The 330e takes all of this and adds an acoustic warning for pedestrians (so they can hear it coming in EV mode) and Mode 2 and Mode 3 charging cables.

The flagship M340i xDrive runs stock 19-inch wheels and grippier tyres (there’s no spare), has an electric glass roof, adaptive LED headlights, a full Harman Kardon surround sound system and heated front seats.

The big boy’s tailpipes have been embiggened from 90mm to 100mm, but the biggest news is inside.

The updated 2022 BMW 3 Series combines two digital displays behind one piece of curved glass, with a 12.3-inch instrument cluster flanked by a 14-inch multimedia display.

It looks superb, from every angle, and combines a reduction in the number of switches and buttons around the place with thinning the air vents so they look more horizontal and, well, neat.

It thankfully retains the iDrive controller, so you can scroll around the multimedia display rather than relying on its touch-screen functions, because there is now a dizzying array of apps on it.

BMW is immensely proud of the operating system, and it works well in some areas, but there are a significant number of instances where you’d be better off with the old system.

BMW has taken what was once the simplest and most intuitive of multimedia operation systems and made it simply good, but it has some instruction paths that are easy and others that are multi-step, clunky and seemingly unnecessary.

It has done away with the single button to turn off the lane departure warning system, which is irksome.

You now have to dive down through a number of levels to turn this stuff off, and there are voice control and touch control options (gesture control has gone) to manage it.

The car is always connected, via a 5G personal SIM card, and it can connect to music apps, podcast apps and has Alexa integrated into the car now, along with CarPlay and Android Auto integration.

Fortunately, the interior is more than the way a pair of screens work. The seats are a massive step forward and the interior materials are of much higher quality.

There is plenty of enthusiasm beneath the nose of the 2022 BMW M340i xDrive, with six cylinders of petrol power, twin-scroll turbocharging and enough gristle to punch to 100km/h in 4.4 seconds.

As lovely a motor as it’s ever been, the 3.0-litre inline six surges out 500Nm of torque from just 1900rpm and keeps delivering it until 5000rpm.

By then, it’s all about the power, and it delivers 285kW from 5500rpm to 6500rpm.

All of this attaches to a brand-new ZF-developed eight-speed automatic transmission. Developed originally for the upcoming 7 Series, the 8HP swallows the 48V mild-hybrid system to deliver greater surgency and reduce fuel consumption.

It also provides steering wheel-mounted paddles for up and down shifts, and there’s launch control as well.

Its electric power steering system gets the M340i around a circle in 12 metres – up from the 320i’s 11.4m, due to the bigger tyres, and that’s on the European model’s 225/45R18 front and 225/40R18 rears.

The short version of the 2022 BMW M340i xDrive story is that it’s a muscular sweetheart, absolutely at home sweeping through bends and compressing into long corners.

That’s in part due to the 2851mm wheelbase and in part due to the 1725kg dry weight (up 210kg on the base 320i).

That’s not to say it won’t whip through sharper bends, but it is clearly at its best as a junior grand tourer rather than a longer BMW M2.

The engine is wonderfully smooth at every part of its rev range, and starts up with a deep and gentle burble that brims with refined purpose and enthusiasm. It gets broader and more impressive as the revs pile on, too, with slick throttle response and even reasonable fuel economy.

The engine’s real beauty is a versatile character that can serve as a highway cruiser, a city gap finder or a track special, with equal aplomb.

We never found  the circumstance where the M340i lost its composure, even in heavy rain with all of its driver assistance systems switched off. It’s just that well organised.

You never feel the interventions of the 48V mild-hybrid system chiming in and out, and regenerating energy under brakes, and the new transmission is easily – easily – the best in the category. It has a wonderful way of delivering a slightly snapped sound on the upshifts, without sacrificing any smoothness.

We’ve touched on the new multimedia operating system before, and the same criticisms remain. It has taken things that were simple and intuitive and made them complex and time-consuming.

Other than that, the new seats are superb, the rear seats have improved as well, all the materials have made a step up in quality and the new centre console looks and feels expensive.

Once you get over the shock of the price hikes applied to the bulk of the new 2022 BMW 3 Series range, you can see where it has gone forward.

In a way, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class moved the interior design goalposts so far forward that BMW had no choice but to respond.

There was not much that could really have gone wrong here, except if BMW had tried to do too much or too little or, as is its current wont, uglified the nose more than conservative customers could bear.

And it hasn’t made any significant errors. It has ended up with a much-improved car, with a superb interior and exquisite handling in the M340i, without sacrificing ride comfort.

And that’s probably all anybody could have hoped for.

How much does the 2022 BMW M340i xDrive cost?
Price: $104,900 (plus on-road costs)
Available: October 2022
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 285kW/500Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 7.8-8.5L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 177-192g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested