BMW 2 Series Active Tourer MPV (2022 - ) review

If you need something bigger than a regular hatchback for your next family car but don’t want an SUV or crossover your options are split between premium MPVs like this 2 Series Active Tourer or van-based options like the Peugeot Rifter. If the latter’s commercial roots are just a little too functional for your tastes the BMW is a more sophisticated – and expensive – option, but one made more palatable thanks to its premium image and hybridised petrol engines. True, you can still get a diesel if you rack up the big miles but most people will probably want some level of electrification in this day and age. At the time of writing full details for the plug-in hybrid are to be confirmed, but BMW has said it will cover an impressive 49 miles on battery power alone, meaning you could in theory do most of your regular journeys without firing up the petrol engine at all. If you can plug it in at home that could save on fuel costs but the big attraction will be for company drivers, for whom the attractive Benefit In Kind savings will more than make up for the extra cost of the plug-in.

As a brand BMW hasn’t had a great reputation of late for overall reliability, which may come as a shock given its premium image. The 2 Series Active Tourer is too new to make a meaningful judgement on its dependability at this stage, so we’ll just have to hope BMW’s quality is taking a swing back the other way to where you’d expect. With that in mind (and the longer cover offered by many rivals) the standard three-year warranty looks a little flimsy, though you can extend it at a cost.

As a car for families safety will be an important consideration for 2 Series Active Tourer buyers, and BMW has upgraded the assistance technology over the previous generation. One example is the forward collision warning, which now detects oncoming vehicles as well as other hazards. Thankfully we didn’t record any annoying false alarms in our time in the car. Standard cruise control with automated braking is another welcome feature. If you really want the next level in tech you need to dig a little deeper for the Driving Assistant Professional package, which will actively keep you in lane and increases the scope of the warnings for wrong-way driving and crossing traffic you may not have seen at junctions – an all too present danger given the huge blind spots created by the thick pillars either side of the windscreen.

It may not be an SUV but the 2 Series Active Tourer has a similarly confidence inspiring seating position, with the upright driver’s seat and commanding view of the road ahead many seem to appreciate. At the same time it feels pretty compact, which is confidence inspiring for navigating busy urban roads, parking and all the other potentially stressful driving scenarios most of us encounter day to day. Handily it combines this with the ‘big car’ comfort and refinement you’d associate with BMW, though there was quite a lot of tyre roar in our M-Sport level test car and we're not sure you need stiffer sports suspension on a family MPV. Overall , it’s not as trendy as a crossover or SUV or as sharp to drive as a hatchback but, for most people, the ease of access and space inside are more useful. As far as the latter goes you can slide the rear seats backwards and forwards according to whether you need to prioritise boot space or legroom and the 40:20:40 split gives you lots of options as to how you use the room inside. If you regularly carry three people on the rear bench or need space for more than two child seats you’ll need one of those van-based MPVs and knee room for the centre seat is a little limited, but other than that it’s an adaptable space for various family needs. Saying that, while BMW has moved the battery location compared with the previous version to reduce intrusion on interior space it seems the hybrid versions do lose a little luggage volume over the non-electrified diesel. There is some stash space under the boot floor it doesn’t extend all the way back so it is a little limited.

Just as Mercedes used the A-Class as a springboard for its impressive MBUX onboard tech so the 2 Series Active Tourer brings BMW’s flagship widescreen infotainment system from the iX to a more affordable level. The instruments are replaced with a configurable display, while the majority of the other controls are integrated into the central touch-screen, the two combined into a single, curved panel that sweeps stylishly across the dash. As in the iX this is combined with a ‘floating’ central arm rest on which the few remaining buttons are located, though sadly you lose the option of a turn and push rotary interface and are forced to use the screen or voice activation. A good job the menu system is clear and easy to navigate in that case, the top-level features like nav, phone and media a swipe away on a tile-based interface while the rest of the features are accessed through phone-style app icons. It may take a little learning at first but there are loads of personalisation options to create shortcuts to the things you need regularly and the graphics and menus are structured logically.

The 2 Series Active Tourer launches with a regular diesel (unlikely to appeal to many in this day and age) and the choice of two mild hybrid assisted petrol engines. A slick, seven-speed automatic gearbox is standard on all models. The 220i is a three-cylinder engine, the 223i we drove a four-cylinder and we would hazard a guess the bigger engine contributes to the improved refinement we enjoyed. 218 horsepower is more than enough in a car like this, as well. We’ve not tried them yet but, on paper, the plug-in hybrids sound very impressive indeed. The officially stated 49-mile range on electric power alone is a step up from the 34 miles or so of the previous generation Active Tourer hybrid (and, indeed, most rivals) so you should in theory be able to do most journeys without waking the petrol engine at all. And when both are working together performance should be very impressive, especially in the 326 horsepower 230e xDrive. We were less impressed with the brakes, which are electronically controlled but have a long ‘dead spot’ in the pedal where nothing much seems to happen, meaning you then end up stamping on the pedal to come to an uncomfortably abrupt halt. This makes for jerky, uncomfortable progress in stop-start traffic and, while you may get used to it in time, other BMW owners we spoke with reported similar issues on their cars, suggesting it’s a widespread rather than isolated issue.