The BMW M135i might lack M-car looks but packs a performance punch, and can be had from £9000:
The steering is smooth, accurate and quick, providing a quicker ratio once you get off-centre than it does at the straight-ahead. It’s a common trick that gives straight-line stability allied to a feeling of agility once you’re on lock. The whole plot weighs 1545kg, yet the M135i turns with the willingness and accuracy of a car a couple of hundred kilos lighter, no doubt aided by the fact that only 52% of its weight is on its front tyres.
Typically, the M135i is quite pleasingly balanced and adjustable at the limit, but seemingly it would be overly tailhappy were it to wear the same width rubber on the front as the back. As it is, it’s a rather enjoyable steer down most roads, with just the right level of adjustability when you get serious.
Add in a classy cabin, decent practicality and a top-notch infotainment system and you’ve got yourself one dead-cert hot hatch page-turner, even if the cover won’t set you on fire.“Nearly but not quite an M car. That’s what the M135i looks like on paper, and that’s what it turns out to be in practice: a car that retains the mainstream 1 Series range’s sensible appeal but with the wick turned up to cast a larger glow. It’s a compromise that works.
BMW describes it as ‘M Sport suspension’, which suggests that it’s not much different from that of a cooking 125i M Sport, for example. There’s an aluminium-rich MacPherson strut suspension set-up at the front and an independent multi-link rear end, all supported by model-specific springs and dampers. Adaptive dampers were offered as an option. Passive variable-ratio power steering was standard.
The car is rare in having rear wheels and tyres that are wider than those at the front. It’s to transmit the fat portion of torque to the road by the driven rear wheels, you suspect. But it has no mechanical locking rear differential, which in our view is a black mark against the name of anything with an M badge.Launch to around 2014 cars with mid to large mileages. Check service history and condition carefully. More early to mid cars with up to 60,000 miles.
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