[kevinlevrone]

Hello,

So today, like in the last 3 years, I had the pleasure to participate at the M Drive Tour, an event in which the invitees can drive all the current M cars for a few hours, including the new F80/F82 M3/M4, F10 M5, F12 M6, F13 M6 Cabrio. There is no instructor in the car while driving, you can do whatever you want as long as you follow the other cars.

As a disclaimer, I own a twin-turbo N54 335i manual transmission with upgraded turbos (RB Turbo), all the supporting mods and a Drexler limited slip differential and a Bilstein B12 suspension.

On to the new M4 now.

I drove this car with all the settings to Sport+ (including gearbox) on a variety of roads, including town, curvy B-roads, highway. The car really looks great (the M3 too), much better than in the pictures where the coupe can look a bit ugly to some (including me). However, it is not the case.

Suspension is good-to-great, it is quite bearable and even confortable even in Sport+. However, it does not have the extreme sharpness of the old M3. It does have some roll even in Sport+.

The cabin sound is quite loud and it doesn't have any mechanical sound. It's largely synthetized and it sounds nothing like the car sounds from outside. From outside the car sounds nice and loud but the sound is largely like a 335i with a loud sport exhaust, it is not very "special". However it does sound much better on the outside than on the inside. I wonder how can I stand the loud cabin sound on a 5-hour trip ? Not sure, really. In the M5, the sound is like half the volume compared to M4 !

Honestly, the old M3 sounded better but quite a bit less loud.

The steering feel is unfortunately nothing like the hydraulic steering. It is not better than the on the M235i, for example, it's just heavier but you don't feel any road imperfections, nothing, it's just heavy but non-communicative. On the old M3 the steering was worlds better than my car's steering, it was razor sharp, I can't describe how good it was.

The gearbox feels ok, with little to no lag on changing gears and is very smooth. The maximum lag was around a quarter of a second. In Sport+ there is a "jolt" that you feel on every upshift but this is a good thing.

The engine was a bit of a disappointment to be, and I am being honest here. It does not feel very powerful, at least after 5000RPM it feels like it reaches a "plateau" and stays there. However, it does not have ANY turbo lag that I could feel. Compared to a tuned N54, it feels somewhat less powerful at least until 4000RPM. Then it begins to pick up a little better but the plateau at 5000RPMs begins. Especially the 3rd and 4th gears are quite tamed, I was expecting an explosion of power like I read but it just wasn't there. According to my butt dyno the M4 was around 20% faster than the M235i I drove a week earlier. And the M4 was surprisingly close to the M235i in suspensiopn and steering feel, but the old M3 just felt much more direct and precise than both the new M4 and M235i.

Compared to M5/M6/M6 cabrio

The M4 is faster than M6 cabrio until around 5000RPM when the cabrio very slowly closes the gap but until then the cabrio really loses to the M4 (I drove the cabrio behind the M4 on the higway with a lot of accelerations).

The M5 and M6 are quite a bit faster than the M4, everytime the M4 accelerates the M5/M6 can close the gap quickly. In then M5 and M6 you don't feel any power shortage, the power is always there (but with quite a bit of turbo lag which is not felt on the M4).

So that was my review, thanks for reading. I am aware that my reviews causing quite a stir among forum members (sometimes leading the closing of threads) but I can assure you that I am being very honest in my observations. Many times reviewers tend to exaggerate things or have an agenda, my advice is to always test drive a car before purchasing !