2023 BMW M340i xDrive nails sport sedan delight

2023 Cadillac CT4-V vs. Lexus ES 300h Ultra Luxury F Sport vs. BMW M340i xDrive: Small luxury sedan battle.

This week: 2023 BMW M340i xDrive

Price: $67,170 as tested. Blue paint, $1,500; brown seats, $1,500; heated seats and steering wheel, $1,300; LED cornering lights, $850; parking assistance, $700; more noted below.

Conventional wisdom: Car and Driver likes that it’s “mighty quick, plenty of fun on the right roads, impressive highway fuel economy.” Their disappointments? “Not our favorite steering, stiff ride even in Comfort mode, where’d all the buttons go?”

Marketer’s pitch: “A spirited sports sedan with stunning style, pulse-racing performance, and the perfected engineering of BMW M.”

Reality: A spirited sports sedan with pulse-racing performance. But BMW is fumbling the inherent BMW-ness as controls go further into the screen.

What’s new: This is the seventh generation of the 3 Series, and it gets new exterior and interior styling.

And there are just so many 3 Series to choose from. The model variations seem a little out of hand, but that probably means there’s one for you. If you can afford it, of course.

Competition: In addition to the Cadillac CT4-V and Lexus ES 300h, other competitors include the Acura Integra, Genesis G70, Alfa Romeo Giulia, and Audi A4.

Up to speed: Vroom. A 3 Series with the M designation is guaranteed to plant you in your seat. The 3-liter, twin-power V-6 turbo creates 382 horsepower, and arrives at 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, according to Car and Driver, far faster than this series’ competitors.

Shifty: Bye bye, BMW’s awesome joystick shifter. The 3 Series gets the little Reverse-Drive toggle switch for its 8-speed Sport transmission that I first experienced in the X1. You can still shift manually via steering wheel paddles, but it’s mostly not worth it.

On the road: This is a BMW M sedan. It’s awesome. Curves, corners, straightaways, highways, they’re all spectacular. It has three Sport modes and you hardly need any of them, because Normal mode is just fine.

I put lots of miles on the M340i, a trip to Philadelphia here, another trip to North Jersey there. Always a treat.

Driver’s Seat: Well, that’s sure one big dashboard display. Picture an iPad stretched across two-thirds of the dashboard, encompassing the speedometer and the related gaugeaphernalia, plus the infotainment center. Eye-catching, very techy — and I bet it costs thousands of dollars to replace if it breaks. If you can find one not held up by the chip shortage.

Still, if you’re going to change everything inside, may as well make a bold statement.

The rest of the interior offers everything there is to love from BMW — handsome, upscale controls; soft silver accents; a bit of carbon fiber; and soft leathers on comfy seating.

Friends and stuff: The rear seat is roomy: generous above, below, and to the side. Sadly, the seat back is angled fairly straight and it’s pretty stiff without all the adjustments available to front seat occupants, and the center seat faces a big floor hump and intrusive console.

Cargo space is 16.9 cubic feet, by far the winner here.

Tech delight: I don’t make much of the many new tech features in new cars — they’re mostly awesome but sometimes annoying and almost everyone offers some version of them. But this is my first experience with surround view that also maps out where the doors will land when you open them. That’s good information when you might hit something with the car door.

Play some tunes: Something new I found while trying to adjust the sound — a function in the equalizer called surround intensity. It definitely adds a new dimension to the $875 Harman Kardon stereo.

I turned that dial just a few hash marks and was rewarded with some of the clearest sound I’ve enjoyed in a long while. A+.

Control of the system is nice as well. The traditional BMW console dial remains — I thought for sure it would be eliminated along with the shift lever — and the touchscreen works competently as well.

Keeping warm and cool: Almost all the functions happen in the touchscreen, save for defroster buttons. We’re going full Tesla here. Sad.

Fuel economy: I averaged about 21 mpg in a lot of highway driving.

Where it’s built: San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

How it’s built: Consumer Reports predicts the 3 Series to have a reliability of 4 out of 5.

In the end: Of the three competitors, the BMW goes above and beyond the Lexus ES 300h and the Cadillac CT4-V. Of course, it costs far more as well.

I’m betting that a cheaper version of the 3 Series would do well enough to beat the others, though the race would be closer.