BMW 4 Series Coupé
Last word on M440i and 420d
WHY WE RAN IT
❝ No journey in the diesel ever really stuck in my mind. You couldn’t say that about the M440i ❞
To see if a coupé still has a place on today’s Suv-dominated roads
One of the beauties of this job is that we’re quite often in different machinery week to week. Upside: variety. Downside: bonding. While you can deliver a verdict for a first drive in a week, you never really get to know a car’s character by only driving it for that amount of time; and let’s face it, when so many cars are so good these days, it’s the character of a machine that helps distinguish it.
And so it was with a heavy heart that we bade farewell to the
BMW M440i xdrive Coupé, a few months after spending an equally delightful period of time in a 420d. But in this case there were two more people who were upset: my two sons. ‘Daddy’s racing car’ had been cruelly ripped away from them, and the school run (with a superb humpback bridge en route) was never going to be quite the same again.
They really did love the M440i: the engine note, the looks (they’re too young to cast aspersions on the grille), the way it hunkered low to the ground so it felt even faster to them. These are the sorts of memories that stay with kids and mean they will grow up always having a soft spot for the brand – in the age of the omnipresent SUV and electricity, manufacturers would do well to remember some of this more visceral stuff.
The bits that remain in my mind even after the car has gone back are the random moments of pleasure, when the road emptied suddenly and also opened up, allowing you to really lean on the straight-six engine. With 369bhp and 369lb ft, it was punchy enough to be enjoyable but delicate and reactive enough to be exciting at sensible speeds. We had some great short blasts, sometimes on the school run (we’re lucky enough that it contains some testing roads) and other times during assorted trips at the weekend.
We were stuck in lockdown during the first bit of the petrol BMW’S time with us, but as things eased so we got to enjoy the car more. The way it absorbed whatever sort of road or journey I threw at it was mightily impressive. With a supple ride and reasonable fuel economy (low 30s from a petrol straight six isn’t bad), it could do motorways easily, helped by the relaxed eight-speed automatic gearbox. But drop it into manual, click through the paddles and it was superb over a B-road as well.
I never did bother flicking between the driving modes. I did
switch through them in the interests of trying to work out whether or not they made a material difference, but soon gave up fiddling. The car was good enough in the standard Comfort setting.
Of course there were annoyances – no car is perfect. Chief among those was the Active Lane Keep Assist. I’ve never seen so many reader letters on one subject, with every single one roundly condemning the technology: Euro NCAP and manufacturers would do well to pay heed to the level of feeling aroused by it. Fortunately, you can still turn it off in the BMW with a single press of the button (my patented ‘Vettel’ approach – see ‘Loathe it’), or dial it right down, but my bugbear is that technology is meant to help. If you have to switch something off, it shouldn’t be there in the first place.
The idrive system was largely brilliant and easy to control – the balance of touchscreen and rotary dial was perfect – but there were some foibles. Phone calls had a weird delay that meant you had to pause once you had finished speaking, to wait for the other person to reply. And navigation app Waze seemed intent on forcing the system to play music from the phone library, rather than remain on radio. To be fair, BMW hasn’t had any of these issues reported by customers, so it could just be my phone.
And that grille. It remains controversial but, while the car was with us, it seemed to attract fewer and fewer negative comments as more and more of the cars appeared on our roads. What it does mean is that the car is terribly spec-dependent. The metallic black of our BMW worked because it was fitted with the optional Shadowline Plus Pack so the grille blended in, but I still think the best bet would be Arctic Race Blue metallic (standard on the M440i) with Shadowline. Subtle but different.
As I’ve mentioned, we started off with a 420d M Sport. That car was a lovely thing but it never got under my skin the way the M440i did. The diesel was quick enough, comfy enough, enjoyable enough, but lacked that final bit of frisson that meant no journey ever really stuck in my mind. You couldn’t say that about the M440i.
The key thing for me was that the petrol coped with general family life but also added excitement. We piled kids into it, went to the beach, crammed office chairs into the boot, took dogs to the vet, but it simply shrugged and got on with it. All in a coupé, remember.
And then when you wanted a spontaneous early morning trip, it was there to deliver. As I said, Daddy’s racing car will be missed.