2024 BMW M4 Review: Now AWD-Only, But I Don’t Mind

Think ‘facelift’ for the BMW M4 and you might hope that involves drastically rearranging the front so it no longer looks… the way it currently does. But no. Mid-life update time for the car has arrived, and BMW has stubbornly kept the styling as is.

Well, not quite. There are new light clusters front and rear, the former of which lose the neat crescent shapes which were a kinda/sorta throwback to the BMW ‘angel eyes’ of old. So in some ways, you might even consider this a backward step. But you know what - I quite admire BMW for sticking to its guns, and the best part of four years on from the market launch of the original, I reckon I’m used to the looks. That big snout certainly doesn’t seem to have harmed sales.

While it hasn’t done masses with the styling, BMW has fiddled quite a bit elsewhere. The interior gets a new steering wheel, a reshaped dashboard topped by BMW‘s curved display setup, and some new (some rather lurid) colour options.

The biggest change is one you’ll only see when going into the configurator - you can now only have one that’s all-wheel drive. At least, that’s the case in the UK. The M4 Competition is now only available in ‘xDrive’ form’, and the UK doesn’t get the boggo M4 which remains rear-drive, as well as being available with a manual.

And so, if you’re a particularly zealous M fanatic, you might view this as a double dose of sacrilege. But really, the M3/M4 has evolved so much since the days of the E46 M3 that this doesn’t seem like a big deal. It’s now getting on for being a junior supercar, reinforced by just how powerful it is now. 

The ‘S58’ twin-turbo straight-six has been given a tickle for this mid-life refresh, meaning power rises from 503bhp to 523bhp. The 0-62mph time doesn’t change as a result, but hey, at 3.5 seconds, it was hardly crying out for an improvement. That’s four-tenths faster than the now-dead rear-drive M4 Comp, but it’s not the figure itself that matters. What matters is that it can much more reliably hit that figure.

No matter the conditions, the M4 Competition xDrive is really, really fast. No, it still not as quite an exciting engine as the old S55 (it’s funny how so many people moaned about that engine when it first came out, when in hindsight, it was a cracker), and it doesn’t sound as good, but the S58 is so damn punchy in the mid-range that I find myself not minding.

Meanwhile, even though the shifts from the eight-speed automatic gearbox aren’t quite as ferociously effective as they were with the old DCT, they’re still awfully quick. What’s more, the shift paddles are actually quite nice, and not a flimsy afterthought as is so often the case.

I’m not sure it feels any faster than before, but then, in percentage terms, 20bhp isn’t a great deal when you’re starting with 503. Meanwhile, the chassis hasn’t been touched, or at least, BMW hasn’t detailed any differences, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there has been the odd small tweak here and there. Either my memory is failing me (which is quite possible), or it feels just a bit sweeter in the corners than it did previously.

The front end is truly mega, always staying in line even as the entry speeds rise to levels you might think will unstick it. There’s even a bit of feedback from the steering wheel, which is far from a given these days. So long as you avoid the firmest suspension modes, meanwhile, the car flows with the undulations of the average bumpy B-road quite beautifully, and of course, body roll is pretty much non-existent.

Although it is now all-wheel drive only, there is the option to ditch drive to the front axle with the 2WD mode. But really, the tail will wag around more than enough for most in the 4WD Sport mode, a setting which also dials back the traction control. It gives most of the fun of rear-wheel drive but with a safety net.

It’s the best of both worlds, and I really don’t miss it being available as a pure rear-driven car. The thing is, now the M3 and M4 have progressed to a spicier level than ever before, the exclusively rear-drive and optionally manual-equipped M2 fills a nice space below if you do want something a little more raw.

While the power uplift is not perceptible and the handling is maybe/maybe not marginally nicer, the interior definitely is a noticeable departure. The steering wheel is a step up from the previous part, which was starting to look dated. Meanwhile, the design of the dashboard is unquestionably neater, but the cost of that - the physical climate controls - is too high.

They’ve been binned, and you instead need to prod the infotainment screen. At the very least, the display is big enough that it’s possible to have most of the climate function you might realistically need permanently displayed along the bottom, but it still feels like a downgrade from, y’know, actual buttons.

Really, though, that’s the only thing there is to moan about, other than the looks, which as explained I’m kind of on board with now anyway, as, it seems, are most of the actual buyers. The crossover between angry people on social media comments and those actually willing to part with hard-earned cash to own one is, funnily enough, quite small.

Speaking of which, the M4 now starts at £84,250. That might seem like a lot, but it’s about on the money considering the power and capability of this thing. And in any case, for that price, you’re getting one of the best M cars ever made.