Living with a BMW M4: the best fast daily driver, or is it too compromised?
June 08, 2025 by Jamie Edkins
Car changing is a big deal
We’ve been living with a BMW M4 Competition for a few months. There was never any doubt that it’s fast and fun to drive, but how does it cope with day-to-day life?
The BMW M4 Competition is one of our favourite performance coupes. It’s stupidly fast, as we’ve proved in a number of drag races, and it’s fantastic to drive on a twisty road.
We’ve always known this about the M4, but we wanted to find out what it’s like to live with every day. Does it make a good commuter car, or is it so harcore that it’ll rattle your fillings out around town?
To find out we’ve been given the keys to this ballistic coupe for six months, and we’ll be using it as a daily runaround in between runs up the Carwow drag strip.
And remember, you can save an average of over £18,000 on a new BMW M4 through Carwow, or you can lease one for less than £800 per month. Used M4s start from under £50,000, or you can compare the best sports cars to choose the right one for you.
Living with a BMW M4: an introduction to our car
Our BMW M4 is a Competition model, and it’s the recently-facelifted version as well. This means it has updated front and rear lights and some different interior trim compared to the old car, and it’s more powerful as well.
It has a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged straight-six engine with 530hp, 20hp more than the pre-facelift M4, and it’ll do 0-62mph in 3.5 seconds.
Our car is finished in £875 Brooklyn Grey paint, bringing the total price to over £92,000.
Living with a BMW M4: things we liked
There’s a lot to like about the BMW M4 Competition as a daily runaround, and it’s easier to live with than you may think.
It can be a right hooligan when you want it to be, as you can see in the video below where we were using it as a camera car on track. But once you’ve finished horsing around, it settles down nicely and becomes a reasonably comfy cruiser.
View this post on Instagram
Obviously it’s not as comfortable as the standard BMW 4 Series thanks to the beefed-up suspension, but the M4 still rides nicely over bumps and it’s quiet on the motorway.
You get a big boot as well. At 440 litres in capacity it’s easily large enough to swallow up our camera gear on shoots, but if you want the ultimate practical performance BMW then you’ll want to check out an M3 Touring.
We had a couple of passers-by ask us if this was an CSL, the ultra-rare track-focussed version of the M4. This is likely down to the matte grey paint and the facelift rear lights, which are the same as the CSL’s. It’s nice to have people confuse this car for something far more exclusive.
The biggest surprise though was the massive carbon fibre bucket seats. They work great on track for holding you in place, but we thought they’d be too grippy for daily use. The reality though is that they’re really comfortable and supportive. We’ve done massive journeys in these chairs and come out the other side feeling refreshed.
Living with a BMW M4: things we didn’t like
There are a couple of niggles we noticed during our time with the BMW M4, one of them being its appetite for tyres.
You’ve also got to be careful not to get too carried away exploiting this car’s performance on a twisty road. If we’d had this car for any longer we’d go through tyres like no one’s business – it’s very easy to turn them into smoke if you’re too enthusiastic.
It’s also not the most economical commuter car, as you might expect in a 530hp coupe. It’s supposed to do around 30mpg, however you’ll get more like low 20s in reality. But if you can afford to spend over £90,000 on a performance car, you can probably stomach the added fuel costs.
Living with a BMW M4: verdict
The BMW M4 competition is a brilliant all-rounder. Not only is it one of the best performance cars for throwing down a twisty road or hammering around a track, it can also be a comfy cruiser, and it’s reasonably practical as well.
Being a two-door coupe, it’s naturally not as spacious in the rear as the M3 Touring estate. That’s the car to buy if you’re after the ultimate family-friendly performance car, but if you’re child-free then the M4 makes a great daily performance car.
Car change? Carwow!
Looking for a new set of wheels? With Carwow you can sell your car quickly and for a fair price – as well as find great offers on your next one. Whether you’re looking to buy a car brand new, are after something used or you want to explore car leasing options, Carwow is your one stop shop for new car deals.
Click here to follow us on WhatsApp, where you can keep up-to-date with all the latest news, reviews, advice guides and videos.