BMW 1 Series 2015 Review

Must be a tough job, having a facelift as your first game on the big stage in production cars.

Changes to plastic bits and headlights are relatively inexpensive. Changes to metallic bits cost a lot of money, largely because the presses that stamp all those metallic bits cost a lot of money.

Yet you’ve got to keep it front and centre in the buyers’ minds and keep them believing it’s got the opposition covered, which is a tough ask when there’s an Audi A3 in both hatch and sedan forms and there’s also Benz’s gangbusters A-Class hatch and CLA sedan out there.

That was the welcome-to-A-grade crash-tackle that greeted Australian designer, Calvin Luk, when BMW moved him up from concepts to production cars a couple of years ago.

He’s responded by using the introduction of LED headlights to make the lights narrower and more aggressive, with flat-bottomed BMW signature coronas, and the rear-end’s look is a big departure, too. There he has given the 1 Series tail-lights a three-dimensional L-shape in the LED as well as in the body of the light, which now moves over to take up some real estate on the edges of the hatch as well as at the side of the body.

There are larger air intakes below the bumper area and the kidney grille has been reworked to give it a three-dimensional feel.

And, unlike the facelifted 6 Series, you could pick the difference between this and the old one, even if you followed it at night.

You’ll pick it if you try to, too. Most of its five petrol and five diesel engines (there are three-, four- and six-cylinder versions to choose from) have had urge added to them, with the half-way-to-M M Performance Automobile brand’s M135i now boasting 240kW (up 5kW) and the ability to punch to 100km/h in 4.9 seconds.

The twin-scroll turbocharger helps it to 450Nm of torque that is spread thick like a kid’s Nutella on a pancake, arriving at 1300rpm and still laying it on at 4500rpm, which isn’t bad when the power peaks at 5800 revs.

It’s fast enough to force BMW to limit it to 250km/h, but if you want its best acceleration you should get the eight-speed automatic, because the standard six-speed manual is 0.2 seconds slower to 100km/h. It’s also a bit thirstier, with 8.0L/100km compared to the automatic’s 7.5.

At the other extreme, the three-cylinder 116d Efficient Dynamics three-door hatch will light-foot its way to 3.4L/100km on the NEDC cycle, which equates to just 89g/km of CO2. Which explains why BMW hasn’t sorted a hybrid variant of this body style yet.

The 120d (the only other powertrain available at the launch) delivers 140kW of power at 4000rpm and 400Nm of torque from 1750rpm, but it’s not thirsty by most standards. It pulls an NEDC number of 3.9L/100km, for 108g/km of CO2.

It is still a solid performer across the mid-range, though, and a 100km/h sprint of seven seconds is more than good enough for this style of car in this type of market.

More importantly, this is the first time the 1 Series has combined with BMW’s new generation of three- and four-cylinder turbo-diesels (which debuted in the X3). Its roller-bearing turbocharger uses variable geometry to delivery faster response regardless of the revs and it now crams in injection pressures of up to 2500 bar.

It’s faster, it’s faster to warm up and it’s quieter, too. It’s a pretty nice engine all around, having no issues shuffling the 1445kg three-door version around at pretty reasonable pace and excelling at doing anything from very low rpm.

It’s quite reasonable at higher revs, too, but that’s not even remotely close to how this car will be driven in the real world. It will live and die on its flexibility and smoothness, and it’s plenty flexible and smooth, and so is the eight-speed automatic.

The 120d also has an almost easy ride that’s comfortable but still accurate. Run-flat tyres are optional (and if you want to detract from the ride quality, by all means go for it).

It gets upgrades across the board inside as well, with rain-sensing wipers, automatic climate-control and a new free-standing, high-resolution 6.5-inch multimedia screen all now standard, along with the iDrive controller.

The ConnectedDrive system has also been moved across from the optional to standard lists and the built-in SIM card uses LTE technology to upgrade the car’s on-board systems four times a year, at least in Europe.

It has other tricks, too, with its Parking Assistant (which will do the reverse parking for you at a touch of the iDrive button) now capable of reversing into 90-degree parks as well as the (now) traditional parallel parks, thanks to the upgrade from 10 to 12 sensors. If a park is 80cm longer than the car and 2.5 metres wide, it’ll take you there and expect you to touch nothing but the throttle and brake pedals.

We’ve not touched much here on the packaging or the seating from the three- and five-door versions because those things are unchanged in the facelift. So there is a two-seat rear bench in the three-door, which can be boosted to a three-person bench, and the 360-litre boot can be boosted to 1200 litres with the seats folded.

In Europe, BMW has also tried to save people from the pesky tick-a-box procedure to personalise their cars by offering the 1 Series in Advantage, Sport Line, Urban Line and M Sport packages, which half do the job for you.

But that’s not for the Big Dog. The M Performance Automobile M135i gets its own trim and not-so-subtle performance-oriented bits and pieces, which include a fatter front air intake, thumper exhaust tips and bigger 18-inch wheels and 225/45 ZR18 rubber.

Just in case the points were too subtle there are also four-piston fixed callipers up front and twin-piston fixed callipers at the rear, both of which can be painted to whatever colour preference you want to pay for.

The top-spec 1 Series has the range-topping dual-zone climate-control fitted standard, its leather seats offer more lateral grip and its front armrest slides. I know; it’s good stuff.

We like the old M135i and the short version is that we like the new one, too. It’s not much different from the old one, except that its handling package is a bit more refined and it seems to roll a bit less at the rear-end during quick direction changes.

It still has all the strength and sweetness of its predecessor, with the extra muscle from the low-boost turbo combining with the delicately balanced purity of the 3.0-litre in-line six.

The six-speed manual is a giggle (though it still has the occasionally jerky and high clutch bite point), but the auto is quicker. Being quicker, however, is scarcely the point because you just want to drop that motor back into its fatter parts and floor it, time and again.

The only issue is that the skid-control system doesn’t seem to trust the chassis enough and intervenes frequently, even when the car is being driven at a pace no more than brisk. That’s at least in part down to slippery Portuguese road surfaces, but it’s pretty clear that it could be done a bit better.

It doesn’t do any sudden, rough intervening, though. It just delivers a big delay in delivering more urge and it throws out the car’s balance and leaves you annoyingly shy of its ultimate abilities, even in the skid control’s most liberal Dynamic mode.

Bite the bullet and turn it off (well, the half-off you get when you push it once) and you find a different car underneath you. The car will move around a little more, sure, but it never feels like it wants to move far and the mechanical engineers have fitted it with plenty of its own hardware and geometric helpers to get you back in line.

It gives the car back its on-the-limit throttle response, its steering feels more logical (though it’s never less than terrific) and the attitude of the car is up to the driver’s skill and preferences. And all the time that big six (it’s big for a car of this size, at least) is howling away manfully.

The car just feels like all it could be this way, so let’s hope BMW’s next generation of skid-control systems can replicate it.

The M135i's brakes are mighty, too, using every scrap of the car’s rubber to bite hard and wash off speed time and again, with no hint of fade even after sustained punishment.

The only price to be paid is that the ride is a bit firm and there is a bit of thump from the tyres as they fail to straddle the bigger bumps.

BMW M135i M Performance:
Price: TBA
On sale: July
Engine: 3.0-litre turbocharged in-line six-cylinder
Output: 240kW/450Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 8.0L/100km
CO2: 188g/km
Safety rating: TBC

BMW 120d pricing and specifications:
Price: TBC
On sale: July
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel
Output: 140kW/400Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel: 4.1L/100km
CO2: 108g/km
Safety rating: TBC