BMW 228i Convertible 2015 Review

This is the second time it’s happened. The last time was down in the south of France, where we lobbed up to drive the Audi RS6 Avant, complete with a twin-turbo version of the Gallardo’s V10 up front.

Yes, lots of noise and speed and cranky, but its star was surprisingly outshone by the unheralded second car at the launch: the Audi A3 Cabrio. Solid of behaviour, stiff of chassis and utterly, comprehensively engineered, it took the respect, if not the headlines, from its big, bad quattro cousin.

This time, though, it’s BMW’s turn. Few people would have flown all the way to Austin just to drive the 228i Convertible. They didn’t have to make the decision, though, because BMW launched it alongside the X6 M thump truck. Despite all the M SUV’s speed, it was the 228i Convertible that attracted the unconscious head nods and inadvertent smiles.

It’s that kind of car, born of no-mistakes engineering, solid medium-term planning and powered by a turbocharged, four-cylinder petrol engine up front (borrowed from the 328i) and twisting the rear wheels.

It takes everything people liked about its predecessor and improves it. From the rear, especially with its roof down, the 228i Convertible looks at least one size larger. Clever design draws the eyes out and down to the corners.

Not that it needs a lot of help to look to look significantly bigger. It is significantly bigger. At 4432mm long, it’s 72mm longer than the 1 Series Convertible. It’s 27mm wider too (1774mm), and the wheelbase is 30mm longer (2690mm) — ostensibly to make it easier for the rear passengers to get in and out (though there are precious few anecdotal examples of this being a major problem). The front track width (the distance between the middle of the front tyres) has been pushed out 41mm to 1521mm and the rear track is up 43mm to 1556mm.

BMW didn’t stop there, either, giving the soft-top convertible’s boot another 30 litres of storage space (now 335 litres) when the roof is up. That falls to 280 litres when the roof is stashed away but that’s still 20 litres more than the 1 Series had.

The hole between the boot and the rear seat backrest is bigger, too, to allow larger stuff to push through. It’s 450mm wide now (up 150mm) and 28mm taller to stretch up to 246mm.

Yep, pretty much everything is larger. But not the 228i's fuel consumption — even though it weighs 1535kg on the dry, unladen DIN scale (and you can add another 20kg for the eight-speed automatic transmission that almost everybody will ask for).

The thriftiest of the options is the automatic, which posts a combined cycle of 6.7L/100km. It’s a fraction more frugal than that on its standard 16-inch wheels and tyres, but the take up rate for those is expected to be so low that it’s not worth mentioning. The manual is typically 0.2 litres/100km worse.

The 228i's turbo 2.0-litre four punches out 180kW at 5000rpm and holds it in a solid plateau until 6500rpm, but it’s most often driven in its torque curve, where it has 350Nm from 1250-4800rpm. Here it's just a fraction harsher than the old straight six but not to a point where it significantly impacts on the car's refinement.

It’s easy to overlook that the 228i Convertible hits 0-100km/h in 6.1sec on its way to a limited 250km/h top speed, because somehow the car doesn’t feel like it’s about speed or power. Instead, it’s about being a package of thoroughly integrated components that add up to a beautifully holistic single-celled organism.

Its ride quality is superb, crossing troubled surfaces with control and dignity without losing BMW’s signature direct-contact feel. It has its suspension hanging from a body that has been much strengthened, with BMW boasting of a 20 per cent rise in torsional (twisting) rigidity and a 10 per cent jump in bending stiffness (when you try to push the nose and tail up to meet each other).

It has done this by stuffing empty holes (like inside the windscreen pillars) full of high- and ultra-high-strength steels and by bracing the underbody and the rear bulkhead. BMW insists this makes it a better car to crash, because it gives a more controllable structure on impact but (hopefully) that’s not the significant benefit to most people.

Instead, it gave the engineers something stronger to hang the suspension from and it shows.

You can push the 228i Convertible as hard as you like, over the roughest of paved roads, and it won’t flinch or wobble the windscreen.

The key word to it is probably 'accuracy'. When it’s being driven hard, it’s a one-turn car — able to be aimed with the steering at the turn-in point and then held at one angle until you’re past the apex. It doesn’t wobble around at the front, demanding constant steering inputs or sudden corrections.

For giggles, we threw the car at a heavy rut across a square corner. Approaching significantly too fast, we dabbed the brakes and tipped it in. The suspension was already fully loaded up when it hit the rut and all it did was the mildest of wiggles of the body on its springs but no letup in the grip, then it punched out the other side.

So it is designed to cope with being driven in a manner it will almost certainly never be driven in, but it’s good to know that depth of engineering is there.

Even if you don’t push it that far, you can’t help but be impressed with the solidity and calm reassurance it continually gives its driver, with accurate steering, relatively quick throttle response, a mega-slick transmission and brilliantly flat body control all helping.

It’s not just a more grown-up thing to sit in, but it has added two levels of agility to the 1 Series’ abilities, too. And that’s despite carrying more weight.

It feels far more like a hard-top now than before, with its multi-layer soft top roof taking 20sec to change from up to down and vice-versa. This can be done at up to 50km/h – no small engineering feat with a 'parachute' this big.

Its interior noise levels are down 5dBa in the front and up to 7dBa in the back. That’s not just an on-paper figure, but rather you’re granted a palpable sense of greater ease in both the front and the back seats.

The front seats are calmer places to be than in the 1 Series, with less air turbulence assailing you from the rear, at least until 120km/h or so. You can even dial this out with the snap-in wind blocker, but then the rear seats get taken out of the equation completely.

The seats have another trick too. Borrowed from the ultra-expensive 6 Series cabrio optional sun reflection technology claims to stop the leather from burning your legs after the car has been parked in the sun.

The infotainment screen is larger and the BMW Professional audio system is standard, although don’t confuse that with the Professional navigation system that is an optional extra.

Down Under the 2 Series convertible range will consist of three models: 220i, 228i and M235i. Unlike the coupe version, there is no diesel variant available for the folding-roof model. The 228i variant tested here is priced at $68,900.

Standard features across the range include Driving Experience Control, reversing camera, parking sensors, alloy wheels and cruise control with braking function. Climate control automatically modulates airflow intensity and temperature according to the speed of the vehicle with the roof lowered.