TLDR; I give my impressions of M340i XDrive vs C43 AMG 4MATIC, and would love to hear your thoughts!
Let's start by me mentioning that I've been a lifelong BMW fan, and considered Mercedes to only really be for old people. I've had an E46, have an E90, and my dream car is still an E39 M5. So for my next act, the M340xi would practically be a shoe-in.
I did the MTown Tour yesterday, very brief summary:
M5 Competition - Terrifyingly fast and also felt very heavy.
X3 M Competition - Great noise, something felt off about the seats.
M2 Competition - OMG I WANT THIS... but not for a daily driver!
M340xi - Goldilocks!
Then I thought to myself, "well, why don't I go for a test drive in the closest competitor to M340xi" and hit my local Benz dealer and tried out the C43 AMG.
And that just made life much more complicated! If I called the M340xi Goldilocks compared to her more athletic family, I would liken the C43 to be Goldilocks in a track suit.
So, here's my impressions and curious if anyone else has done this comparison:
Exterior:
M340xi is more athletic and sharper edged. While I am not a huge fan of the new grille, I'm actually OK with the tails. The unfinished Hofmeister kink is weird but not a deal breaker.
This year, C43 just got the prior C63's two bar grille and I must say it makes it MUCH sportier looking from the front than the old diamond point grille. The C43 will blend more in traffic due to the shape, but this is not a downside for me. I've always preferred "sleeper" to a more in your face look (hence, E39 M5).
Interior:
I love the Teutonic simplicity of the M340xi. It really harkens back to BMW's of old in shape, reminding me of the simple horizontal layout of the E30. It's coupled obviously with the modern touches but the overall effect works well. The G20, despite being actually bigger than the E90 on the inside doesn't actually feel larger because of this design. It maintains that cockpit feel and that is excellent. Seats are very good as well, with good bolsters and great adjustability.
The C43's interior immediately felt to me like it belonged in the next class of car. The combination of leather, metal, wood and glass raises it to an amazing level for the same price point. If passenger comfort is more important than driving pleasure, the C43 will edge out the M340i on that basis, while maintaining softer driving settings. More on that later...
Technology
I was interested in driving the car, so I don't have more than a brief impression of iDrive vs. COMAND. But I can talk about the displays.
Neither car this time round had a heads-up display. This meant that I had a traditional rev counter in the C43 and the backwards rev counter in the M340i. Both were driven with full manual shifting and the last time I tried a G20 330xi I had the heads up with the tach so never had to experience the backward rev counter.
I was worried this would be the worst part. It's not. It's nothing. It didn't bother me at all and I barely noticed it. What I did notice was that I never once glanced at the MTown route map in front of me in the cluster, I always glanced to the side to iDrive itself. That space feels almost wasted the way it currently is.
iDrive 7 I didn't play with much, but I love how much smaller the controller for iDrive is compared to the massively overdone arrangement for COMAND in the C43. I also feel it remains much more intuitive to feel through.
COMAND feels a half step behind on performance and cascading menus in the UI are confusing. The graphics are as pretty though! Clear advantage to BMW here. However the next Mercedes system, MBUX, seems like it will fix a number of these issues and it will be interesting to see what happens then. Also felt that the COMAND screen was just a bit too small compared to the beautiful large display in the M340i.
Which brings us to why we are here...
Driving!
The M340i has a perfect blend of sportiness and comfort, with much more feel than the F30 and not as much as the E90. I drove the M340i in Sport on not the most challenging roads and on a much shorter drive. In that brief time, I noted the following:
1. xDrive trumps RWD. My first BMW was an E46 330xi and while I dearly loved that car, it never let you forget it was AWD. My current car is a 2011 E90 6MT RWD. I absolutely love the feel of RWD, the car just speaks to you better. This was the first time driving an xDrive where I couldn't feel the AWD. It seems like they filtered out the interference with the front steering feel thanks to it being a fully electric rack. I also managed to kick the tail out taking a corner in a first
This fact, plus the near 400 horsepower, plus my sad reality of Cleveland makes it not so bitter a pill to swallow for the next car.
2. The ZF-8 speed is only a bit slower than the DCT. I loved the shifts in the M2 Competition, it was my cherry for driving DCT. But I was amazed at just how close the shifts in sport were on the M340i. I really didn't feel I was losing all that much over my 6MT because the speed of the shifts compensated for the slower more deliberate (also fun) shifts in my car.
3. Weight penalty. Boring math ahead. My E90 is approximately 3600 lbs, and the M340xi is 3968. That makes it 368 lbs, or two slight larger than average adults heavier. I was very concerned that this would make the car, now grown in size to an E39 5-series, feel ponderous. I had a taste of what weight feels like dragging down the drive when I drove the M5 Competition, which weighs in at 4370, or 770 lbs more than my car!! I am very happy to report, I felt no difference in the nimbleness of the M340xi to my 335i! I suspect part of it is due to the increased chassis rigidity and the rest is due to the improvements in responsiveness with the B58 vs the N55. For comparison, the C43 is a touch lighter than the M340xi, at 3825.
3. Suspension modes. While I personally prefer my passive M-Sport suspension for "purity", the adaptive has gotten very good. The changes to feel have also sharpened up comfort mode a bit. I still drove in Sport mode mostly. The BMW struck a more consistent feel across all modes than the Mercedes. And that brings us to her rival.
Driving Impression vs. the C43.
Now, I got to drive the C43 on roads I am familiar with and challenge the car dynamically quite a bit more. I will absolutely take an M340xi to this "home course" at some point. Because of this, I am not going to focus on capability as much as I am going to focus on feel.
1. C43 FEELS faster. I'm emphasizing this first. In actual point of fact C43 is NOT faster, but it absolutely feels faster. Seems like Mercedes has purposely engineered in less refinement, more rawness, to distinguish between the AMG-lite and her common Mercedes brethren. This means:
- Shifts are rougher, with hesitancy and holding of gears longer.
- The gearbox feels like it is shorter geared, to make you hit 5000 RPM more often while still going sane speeds.
- The crackles and pops in the exhaust have a volume setting (comfort and loud modes)
- The entire cluster flashes RED as a shift light!
It also means:
- The divide between modes on the Benz is higher than on the BMW. Benz does Comfort, Sports, and Sports+ as BMW does, but Benz in Comfort is TOO soft, almost feels wallowy. Sports is harder edged than our Sport, and Mercedes' Sports+ is harder edged again than our Sport Plus.
- The ZF-8 speed is smoother overall and that matters when you are NOT hammering it.
I felt more bumps in the C43 but neither car had crashy suspension over bumps like a classic E46 M3, or for that matter a modern passive M2 Competition!
C43 also has an excellent steering wheel rivaling our MSport wheels with a caveat... metal paddles get REALLY hot in summer! Both cars had great steering feel for modern electric racks. Weighting is excellent in both, in Sport mode.
BMW has not figured out the modern dynamic digital cluster like her rivals have. The Benz cluster was much more engaging, had much more customizability and remained legible and easy to read at speed. Hopefully BMW realizes that a traditional analog cluster graphic should always be an option. The AMG cluster setting puts tachometer front and center with speed and gearing inset, so you have very easy access to the most pertinent data.
Cost
When priced out online using a combination of options and packages, the BMW will always win over the C43. When priced out using packages only, the delta slips to just about a grand. Given negotiation, either car could win from that perspective.
Conclusion?
While I always had a soft spot for the W211 E55 AMG wagon because of its sheer insanity, in general I always saw Mercedes as a car for the 70-plus crowd. BMWs egg you on, "go faster, turn harder, c'mon what are you waiting for?" Mercedes felt like they would do anything you asked but wouldn't push you.
This one though. This one pushes you. HARD. Constantly whispering, "faster, more, more, more". It feels less sanitized, less built to appeal to the driving masses and more to the actual driver.
I feel torn because it seems Mercedes' is encroaching upon the classic ultimate driving machine philosophy and yet I know just how good BMW's engineers are at fulfilling that at the core of the new G-series cars, it just seems you have to dig for it more. I think I need more seat time in the M340xi on better roads. But right now, I am finding the C43 a formidable rival.
What are your thoughts?