There's a little voice beginning to wisper in my hear............... M135i, M135i, M135i, M135i its beginning to get louder as well 
Try one.
Everyone is different and wants different things from a car.
To me a Golf is home, it’s a familiar place, it does what it does well.
But I spent 5 months with an M135i and had planned to spend around 18 to 24 months with it.
I disagree with Darlo, I found it anything but dull to drive.
It has a very gutsy engine and in full Sport Mode it’s quite a brawny feeling car (as you’d expect a quick BMW to be).
In Normal it feels latently powerful and wafts along in a fairly mature way. It feels very solid, the interior feels a class above, the tech is slick and quick, there are touches you just don’t get on a Golf and it feels more like a £38k car (by modern pricing standards, I’d certainly not level good value for money at it or any of its rivals). It rides reasonably well, it absorbs bumps nicely, steers sharply and feels less 4wd and more FWD.
But shove it in Sport and it changes character, brutal would be too strong a word but it certainly feels like it means business from both engine and gearbox.
Fuel economy was notably better than my Golf R used to be, about on a par with my TCR.
In Storm Bay or Misano they look really sharp too (although I quite like white personally).
Five months and I struggled to find anything to mark it down on. It does everything really well, feels very modern, looks very modern...
It wasn’t perfect, nothing is, but it’s certainly a very good package.
As a dyed in the wool Golf GTI driver I really admired the M135i but it wasn’t a car I could get an emotional attachment with. A fondness, lots of respect, lots of positivity, but something missing. Maybe it needed more time.
Grab one on a 24 month cheap lease and I very much doubt you’d regret it.
At least it didn’t have multiple spurious electrical gremlins despite it also being an early build.
