BMW 4 Series coupe - Reliability & safety (2013-2020)
Based on the ever-popular 3 Series, the BMW 4 Series has a huge amount of standard and optional safety kit
The BMW 4 Series might be a relatively unfamiliar name, but underneath it’s a 3 Series – and that model is both reliable and safe.
BMW 4 Series reliability
The BMW 4 Series was rated highly overall for reliability in our 2017 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey of cars currently on sale in the UK. Of the owners who responded, only 8.7% reported experiencing a problem with their car on one or more occasion. It slipped down the rankings in our 2019 survey, though, coming 94th overall out of the top 100 cars listed, and it failed to appear in 2020's list of the top 75 models.
BMW also failed to impress overall, coming 27th out of 30 manufacturers, behind Audi, Jaguar and Lexus. 20.4% of BMW owners reported one or more faults within the first year of ownership.
Safety
The 4 Series hasn’t been crash-tested by Euro NCAP, but the BMW 3 Series it’s based on has been, and it scored the full five stars. All models get a full complement of airbags, electronic stability control, tyre-pressure monitoring and ISOFIX child-seat mountings.
Pretty much the full range of BMW’s hi-tech safety kit is available on the option list, including a fighter-jet-style head-up display that projects information such as sat nav directions and speed onto the windscreen.
Another option is active cruise control, which can match the speed of the car in front and follow it at a safe distance, and even come to a complete stop in traffic. You can add a reversing camera or even a surround-view system, which displays a 360-degree overhead image of the area around the car when parking. There’s also lane-departure warning that lets you know if you drift out of your lane, plus a speed-limit display, which shows you the current limit on the section of road you’re driving along.
