BMW X4 M Competition 2021 Review – International

That the updated 2021 BMW X4 M Competition (MY22) is fast is a given, and it would damned well need to be to compensate for the comfort sacrifices it demands of its drivers and its passengers.

BMW insists the upgrade hasn’t come early due to the market telling them the X4 M Competition was too, well, much, but rather that the X3 and X4 were taking a facelift, so why not bring them all into line?

Why not, indeed? That upgrade means new sticky-outie, injection-moulded tail-lights, a one-piece kidney grille frame and headlights that are 10mm flatter than before (partly to make the BMW iX EV seem a bit less squinty).

There are matrix LED headlights as standard equipment, and a laser light option gives the X4 M Competition up to 650 metres of light range in open country. Down the back, the redesigned tail-lights are also LEDs.

There’s a new front apron with new vertical air intakes on the sides, and a few M-specific air breathers. The rear-end is dominated by the two pairs of exhaust pipes, plus a large diffuser.

While there’s a new black and a new grey colour, BMW stuffed us into the M Sao Paulo Yellow version for our international launch drive, which is rather louder than the M Marina Bay Blue that’s the other exclusive M Competition colour here.

It’s almost high-vis, but the irony is that BMW M is naming their colours after Formula One tracks they don’t race at.

Pricing? The upgrade brings a $3000 increase to the outgoing MY21 BMW X4 Competition, with the opening marker now set at $167,900 plus on-road costs. The X3 M now starts at $160,900 plus ORCs.

The difficult juxtaposition with the 2021 BMW X4 M Competition could be one of two things.

It’s either that an SUV that rides so damned hard and is so damned loud is stuffed with every luxury and premium device BMW could think of, and then bolted in.

Or it could be that the entire car industry migrated people across to higher-riding SUVs on the promise of improved vision and ride quality, while the X4 M loses out on both.

It’s impressive, in a very strange way, especially in Sao Paulo Yellow. Blink, blink.

Firstly, the dashboard’s pair of 12.3-inch digital screens is quite possibly inadequate to transmit all the necessary information to the driver, so there’s a comprehensive head-up display as well.

As ever, the upside to the multimedia system of the X4 M is that it uses touch-screen control and has the option of the gloriously haptic iDrive controller, with its very useful ‘back’ button.

It’s still far easier and more intuitive to use than a straight touch-screen, and there’s even gesture control (which BMW denies is a dead-end technology, for some reason).

The seats are dedicated BMW M Sports seats, the navigation has switched to cloud-based, rather than being carried in the car, and that means it’s always connected to the net.

There is a Harman Kardon surround-sound system as standard equipment, plus BMW’s Live Cockpit Professional system.

There’s a price to pay for all the beauty and image projection of the BMW X4 M, and that’s a reduction in luggage capacity from the X3 M’s 550 litres (down to 525L) and from the more conventional body style’s 1600L of maximum capacity (which falls to 1430L).

What this upgrade for the 2021 BMW X4 M Competition didn’t really need was more performance, especially in an era where BMW is projecting its environmental credentials with the i4 and the iX electric cars.

But that’s what it received, with the 3.0-litre inline turbo six-cylinder petrol engine gaining 50Nm more torque to reach out to 650 Isaacs from 2750rpm to 5500rpm.

The power peak of 375kW chimes in 750 revs later, at 6250rpm, and it’s enough to hurl it to 100km/h in 3.8 seconds – or 0.3 seconds quicker than the outgoing version.

BMW limits the SUV to 250km/h, though that can be shuffled northwards to 285km/h with the M Drivers Pack. The energy involved at that speed doesn’t bare thinking about.

Wait. Yes, it does, so here it is. Though it’s only a 35km/h difference, it translates to a jump from 4847 kilojoules of kinetic energy to a frightening 6299kJ.

BMW only sells this option because people ask for it, but for everybody’s sake, don’t be one of them.

The rest of the powertrain is mildly fiddled, with the eight-speed transmission still being a charmer and the all-wheel drive system biased to deliver most of its urge to the rear-end, most of the time.

The five-link rear suspension and MacPherson strut front-end are both suspended via electronically controlled dampers that can run as adaptive units or, in the sportier modes, hard-core cornering monsters.

BMW makes much of the new 21-inch forged alloy wheels saving 2kg per wheel, but they’ll have to try harder than that to overcome the 2010kg of dry weight in the X4 M.

The 2021 BMW X4 M Competition is not a comfortable car to live with. It never was and it hasn’t improved.

I mean, it’s actually quite a nice place to be when you are sitting still, with the luxurious seats and figure-hugging seats and touch-tempting premium surfacing.

The sound system is pretty impressive, too, and it swallows OTA updates now to keep its crispness at the front lines.

Another upside is that you can’t see the bloated 4754mm overall length and the 1927mm width from inside, and the two outrigger rear seats are also nicely sculpted.

But the game is up when you fire up the X4 M’s 3.0-litre six and it’s obviously impossible to hide the total lack of nuance in the car.

It’s loud, even in its quietest moments, and the continuously variable exhaust flaps mean it just gets louder as you go, and as you select the more aggressive drive modes.

Roll a metre and you find a shocking difference in ride quality between the X4 M and whatever you drove before it.

The oddest part of driving the X4 M are the fleeting windows, on roads as smooth as a quantum-stabilised atom mirror, where it shines almost inconceivably, braking hard and whipping around bends with such tiny degrees of body movement that you’d swear you were in an M3.

And then a bump arrives – just one is enough – and the whole charade comes tumbling down again.

On a normal road, punting the X4 M becomes an impossible exercise of hanging on and gritting your teeth as it pounds and thumps its way through its limited suspension compliance and then howls the engine again as the road straightens.

There are times when it shines, but they are oh, so few.

I’m not a fan of this type of car, but there are good reasons for that. It’s ridiculous in terms of the energy it carries on the road and the energy it uses to carry it.

The 2021 BMW X4 M Competition takes a flawed concept – the X4 – and makes it untenably flawed by removing the ride compliance.

For those who like this style (and they do exist), it’s a bold, booming, unsubtle exercise in image projection and spine stress.

All the individual pieces sort of add up to a reasonable score, but the car is less than the sum of its not inconsiderable parts, and I don’t like it.

How much does the 2021 BMW X4 M Competition cost?
Price: $167,900 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Late 2021
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder twin-turbo petrol
Output: 375kW/650Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 10.7L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 238-247g/CO2 (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested