What’s good?

• There’s never been any debate about the ability of the 1 Series, but its appearance has often split opinion. To help remedy that BMW has added new front and rear bumpers and reshaped headlamps with LED daytime running lights, which give the 1 Series a far cleaner and more attractive appearance
• As four-cylinder diesel engines go, the 2.0-litre unit in the 1 Series is about as refined as it gets. Muted at low speed and hushed on the move, it adds to the luxurious and polished nature of the hatchback.
• It’s punchy, too. As well as 187bhp served up from the 2.0-litre diesel, there’s also a whopping 400Nm of torque which propels you from 0-62mph in only 6.8 seconds – not bad for practical family hatch.
• There’s plenty of grip served up from the xDrive system, too. Under normal driving conditions the 1 Series is predominately rear-wheel drive with power being sent to the front-wheels when the car detects a loss in traction.
• It’s well-engineered system with no apparent shudder in power delivery or hesitation from the slick eight-speed automatic gearbox.
• If you spec the all-wheel drive setup it comes in combination with the eight-speed automatic gearbox. But that’s no bad thing. It’s effortless in its changes and when you flick it into manual mode, eager and snappy to change up and down the ratios.
• All things considered, 62.8mpg and 119g/km of CO2 are mighty impressive for a car which can cover all bases at the pace it is more than capable of.
• The BMW 120d xDrive attracts a BIK rating of 21%, meaning the 20 and 40% taxpayers pay £1,075 and £2,151 per annum.
• There’s also a great amount of standard equipment inside, too. Keyless start, air con, multi function leather steering wheel, auto lights and wipers, 16-inch alloys and Bluetooth are all standard.