macmaster

Yesterday I tested my friend's 2024 BMW m340i RWD (MSRP $63.9k). It's actually the first BMW I've ever driven (went to a dealership many years ago and they were complete snobs so I didn't have a chance then). I went in with high expectations of the car and here's what I thought in comparison to our IS500:

Pros:
- The car is louder than I thought from the exterior. The exhaust pops and burbles more at startup than our IS500. On an aggressive pull, it is just as loud as the IS500 from the outside. For the record, he did not have the M performance exhaust either.
- Tons more torque than the IS500 as expected. With a little blip of the gas pedal even in Comfort mode, you just go. On the IS500 the same foot blip is completely unresponsive unless you've shifted to a low gear or are in sport+ mode.
- In Sport mode, the m340i is very very aggressive. For example, the car downshifted automatically during a left turn from a stop light! It was so unexpected it almost startled me.
- Way smoother than the IS500 despite the torque which takes getting used to. This is certainly the transmission.
- The Harmon Kardon surround sound is better than the IS500 Mark Levinson.
- Honestly I did not notice the ignition on/off feature when I came to stops. Perhaps because the engine is pretty quiet and the car is well-insulated. But it may have been because we were in Sport mode most of the time (which turns it off).


Cons:
- I did not care one bit for the tech, in fact it was way too hard to use and gimmicky. HUD is unnecessary and I never looked at it. The large swooping touchscreen was impossible for me to use when driving, since I wasn't familiar with it. I like the IS500's classic dashboard much much better.
- The driver and passenger doors felt cheaper and lighter than the IS500. Whenever I closed it I could hear it rattle. I was not expecting this.
- The seats and fake leather is stiffer.
- The interior space actually doesn't feel much bigger than the IS. I was expecting a GS level of roominess, but it still felt like a compact sports sedan from the inside.
- The steering weight is similar to the IS500. The connection to the road is not really any better than the IS500. FYI, his front and rear tires are 225 only.


Final thoughts:
I will probably not trade my IS500 for a BMW m340i not only because of the loss I would take, but because it's not that much better than the IS500. It's a solid car, but not perfect like some reviewers claim. Yep the transmission is truly better, but having driven them back to back, they both have a very similar sporty feel to them. Despite the difference in powertrains, they are both similarly thrilling in that they both egg you on to push the car, and that's fun. BMW M sport and Lexus F sport performance have more in common than I realized. The marketing and price points for both these cars are correct.

At the end of the day, I still prefer the IS500 because it looks better and is a lot more rare. It's probably a more special car. I see m340i's and M3's everywhere.

There is 1 caveat: If Lexus has ongoing quality issues, I think the BMW is the better buy. My IS500 hasn't had many issues but if I was having fuel pump problems or separating bumpers, I would be more likely to do the swap.

95bat

Great feedback!

It makes me wonder if the Supra would be fun. Same engine and transmission, but in a "Toyota" instead. Supposedly they might put the M3 tune in the Supra for 450+ hp.

I kinda wish I would have bought the twin turbo M550i and played with that for a couple years before settling down with the IS 500. I am curious if the BMW turbo motors feel stronger than GM/Toyota V8s.

303CIDV8

I think that's a fair and objective comparison. No sports sedan is perfect. I always wanted a V8 sports sedan, so the choice was easy for me. And in all honestly, if I had chosen the BMW I would've probably sprung for the base M3 with the 6MT and kept the options to a minimum.

chi3fy

Thank you for the comparison and review. Good info

Renault

Also, all the IS 500 problems seem to be either easily fixed or aesthetic (the bumper separation). Even some BMW guys feel the water pump on the m340s will fail and are located in a terrible location. I'm not a mechanic so take that with a grain of salt. Also not trying to be disparaging to the 340, as I still think it's a great car. Just if we are going to compare possible things going wrong it's just a good thing to keep in mind.

387

Thanks for the comparison and reaffirming that an IS500 is a keeper and an M340i you lease only because it's cookie cutter and no soul.

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HydrantHunter

I can't speak with authority on this, but I've heard the IS 500's PCV valve is a bear to get to and has a higher-than-normal chance of failing early. It seems like almost any newer vehicle is going to have some inconvenient engineering choices, for whatever that's worth (don't get me started on my past Audis).

I feel like you and I read completely different reviews. I saw nothing in the above review that even slightly intimated that the M340i is soulless or cookie-cutter.

TGPCanada

Great review and is kinda how I thought the two would compare. The transmission in the bimmer is incredibly smooth and lightning fast shifting. Even my wife's 330i has gobs of torque down low and all through the rev range, so I can only imagine the M340i. I actually feel the steering in these 3-series to be incredibly dumb, with not good connection to the road. I actually like the steering feel and weight in the IS500 a bit better. And course, the engine sounds from the V8 are totally unmatched. The IS500 is more exclusive. I've said on here a few times before, for me to go the BMW route, it would have to be an M3 or higher.
And I agree, the IS500 is such an attractive looking sports sedan , the best looking in my opinion. The M340i's looks dont' really separate it from the pack. Again, both great cars . So for someone cross-shopping both, take your pick, pick what you value the most.

LexLight

Thanks for the insight. Lots of important points covered. Personally I want to own a car and keep it as long as possible, but the BMW and German cars make that impossible from what I can gather. I'm only expecting the Lexus to correct their QC and fix the Bumper on this, I'll be happy. As the car's personality is really good, I will also try to do a test drive for it's close competition perhaps later this year to understand how the market is for a $70K Performance car.

jororo

Good god I’d never buy a late model BMW. At most I’d lease and never plan to use it in any situation that I wasn’t ready to be stranded in.

macmaster

Haha. I see the the BMW hate is still strong. I'm pretty in the middle on BMWs now. I think their reputation for being unreliable is a bit unfair, the same way BMW fanboys say our Lexuses are boring. We know it's not true. Just stereotypes. My friend had an E46 for 17 years and 280,000 miles before he got his m340i. He did all the maintenance himself and never got any catastrophic failures. Reliability and fun/performance can rain on both Lexuses and BMWs. My time in his car showed me how similar the brands actually are.

G30540i

Nice writeup, I'm actually quite surprised with your view on the HK audio as unless BMW upgraded the audio with the recent LCI, the current 3 series HK isn't good. I have the B&W system in my G30 and it's about on par with the ML IS500 system. It has a little better soundstage, but could be from the larger cabin mostly. I'm probably going to miss the B58 torque as it's ready to go, but sometimes can be caught flat footed, but I have Gen 1 B58 which doesn't have the mild hybrid so there's that.

arentz07

I think road noise is a big factor. The IS, in any form, lets more road noise into the cabin than the 3-series. That road noise covers up the beautiful Mark Levinson sound system.

jororo

Not so much BMW hate as it is simply pointing out that modern BMWs are incredibly unreliable over the long term. One would be hard pressed to find a mechanic that doesn't agree with this. Anecdotal exceptions obviously exist, but would never make a $65k decision based on an exception over the overall trend.

Separately pre-2007 BMWs were (comparatively) much more reliable but when they started going to turbo engines things really took a nose dive. BMW & MB have spent the last two decades engineering their products to be on the bleeding edge of technology & material science, whereas Toyota/Lexus engineers intentionally favor an understressed & overengineered approach. That's why it always seems like Toyota/Lexus is a generation or two behind behind their German competition when it comes to engine output, electronics, etc. But that's also why you see so many more 20+ year old Toyota/Lexus on the road versus VW/Audi/BMW/MB, and that gap is only going to get greater as VW/Audi/BMW/MBs recent offerings are even less reliable over the long term than what they sold ~20 years ago.

As for me, I used to LOVE BMWs. Visited the BMW Museum in Munich 4-5 times before I was 25yo. When they were new I would salivate over the E36 & E46 M3 and E39 M5, dreaming of the day when I could afford a M model. But by the time I was in my late 20s and could afford one I realized how foolish it'd be to buy the unreliable M3/M5 models that followed the E46/E39 chassis.

macmaster

Well, unless you're talking about front bumpers.