My personal car reviews: BMW X3 XDrive35d

MacGuffin

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Mar 29, 2008
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Location
Wilhelmshaven, Germany
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'17 Ford Mustang GT Fastback
Weather forecast said that winter was coming. And it came, with a vengeance. Well, at least according to our lights. We hardly ever get more than 5 cm and is usually comes overnight and stays until around mid day.

Not this time, though. We still have 10 cm of snow outside -- and I reserved a rental for the weekend. Yikes!

I did the reservation a week ago. For some reason I said "try to get an AWD for me". Maybe it was intuition, I don't know. But Thursday came and with it the snow.

Naturally I was worried about what car I'd get and thought of maybe cancelling the reservation. So I drove there Thursday after work and was greeted by chaos.
"We have trouble serving all customers, because many cars are damaged in accidents and many customers didn't bring cars back in time due to the weather", an obviously stressed man told me. "Please come back tomorrow, then I can tell you, if we have something for you."

So Friday came and when I arrived at the rental, the only car with AWD was an Audi A6. Hmmm, nice but I already had that three times.

"Nah, I put aside an X3 for you," the man said grinning, when I asked. "It's in the back yard".
"An X3?" I asked a bit disappointed, because I wasn't too keen on getting an X3. It always looked too much like the little brother of an X5 to me. The man just grinned and said: "It's got the 3.5 liter engine."
My brain processed the input for a second, then spat out "286 HP!!" as a result.
"Okay, I'll take it!" :D

The 3.5 liter diesel is the top-of-the-range model of the X3, having 14 HP more, than the strongest petrol version and of course lots and lots more torque.
580 Nm from 1750 rpm on, to be exact. This means the nearly 2 ton heavy SUV will go from 0-100 km/h in 6.4 seconds and will reach 240 km/h top speed. And what do I pay for it? ? 136,-- for the weekend, including fully comprehensive insurance.

I thought about all those misfits in their FWD and RWD cars out there, probably still with summer tires on, and had an evil grin on my face, when I was handed the keys :mrgreen:

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Judging the X3 as a car, I admit, will always be a bit overlapped by the performance of the engine, which is really brilliant, btw. I broke out in chuckles every now and then and I fear some of those even made it on my videos :lol:
It used to be the most powerful 6-cylinder diesel in the world -- no idea, if it still is. I think Jaguar has an equally powerful one by now.

Anyway, the initial impression of the X3 interior was: "Ah, I can tell why this is ? 7000,-- Euros cheaper, than the X5 with the same engine." Rather cheap looking plastic dominates the center console, the aluminium applications change nothing about that. Not really a good thing for a car, that costs ? 53.300,-- in its basic version and is easily up to ? 70.000,-- with a few additional extras on board. That's about what the car I have is worth.

However, equipping an X5 in the same way, gets it close to ? 90.000,-- and it's not really much bigger. Feeling a bit dizzy?

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Plastic fantastic dominates the center console. This needs more flair for sure.

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The figure 260 on the speedo isn't an exaggeration. I reckon the car will be able to make that downhill and with a bit of back wind.

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I really don't like those monitors, that flap open, when you press a button. What's the point? It's one more moving part likely to break at some point in the future.

The cheap looks of the interior aren't mirrored by the build quality at all. In fact, this car feels like a rolling bank vault. There is absolutely no rattling, no fizzing, no other noises. Not even with the huge panorama roof, which usually is a source of some noises on bad roads in other cars.

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I like those panorama roofs. I can report, that the ice on top flew off at 210 km/h. But don't worry, there was no one following me

The ride quality is fine and the leather seats are excellent. The steering gets a bit heavy at times, especially when you brake down from higher speeds and want to turn off. It's obviously one of those adaptive steering systems, which, however, needs a moment to adapt from hard to soft again.

Gearbox and engine make a perfect match, changing gears happens instantly, when you put your foot down, and there is hardly any turbo lag. It's almost unspectacular, how easy and quickly the car acclerates. No need to criticize anything there.

Noise insulation could be a bit better, though. The sound of the engine gets through clearly, which is nice, because it sounds a bit like a petrol V8. But unfortunately you also clearly hear the noise of the engine of the bendy bus two cars in front of you -- which is not so nice. I sometimes wondered if there is a window open a bit somewhere to let the sound in but there wasn't.

Naturally I'm not able to say anything about the handling yet - you need dry roads for that and I doubt I will be able to make a judgement about that until Monday. But it feels nimble and seems to like corners.

Full acceleration on a wet road is possible and really quite spectacular, because there is probably no FWD or RWD car in the world, that can keep up in a straight line with this X3 under such weather conditions.

Acceleration on snow and mud can be a bit tricky, because the power tends to torque-steer the car then and you have to make corrections all the time or lift the foot from the accelerator to catch it again. Nice thing is that you can drift easyliy on snow by putting your foot down, without switching off ESP or using the hand brake.

You feel very safe even on icy, snowy roads and you can have lots of fun with this car, while other drivers are so frightened, that they bite into their steering wheels. The Dunlop snow tires are excellent and are qualified for 240 km/h. I'm going to have to try that out, once the Autobahn has dried out :)

So what about practicality?

Well, it's an SUV and not much shorter than an X5. So there is loads of space inside, even for people like me. However, the leg room in the back could be a bit better. I hardly fit into there behind the driver's seat, if I'm the driver. And of course the boot is big enough for Coke crates ;)

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That concludes my impressions of the first day. More to come.
 
Good write-up, MacGuffin!
 
nice review as usual.

that car has a stonking great diesel engine : )
 
Most powerful 6 cylinder non-commercial-truck diesel in the world has never been a BMW. Title is currently held by the Cummins I6 in the Ram pickup trucks.
 
Well, one could argue that those are not cars :p

First video is up:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu1mXCxYHBY[/YOUTUBE]
 
Well, one could argue that those are not cars :p

First video is up:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu1mXCxYHBY[/YOUTUBE]

Technically, neither is the X3. It's sold here as a truck/SUV.
 
Well, that particular BMW diesel was introduced in the 5-series at first and it is also used in the 3-series. I also have my doubts, that those RAM's have the performance figures of the X3. But you are the expert in nitpicking here, so I won't argue any further in this matter ;)
 
It looks like it was designed by about 10 different people who were not on speaking terms. I've surprisingly never noticed that before, but then again I've only seen it in press shots and TG cinematography - that, and the press cars all seem to be red, which seems to hide the flaws better. In these shots the mismatches between lines and design features are really obvious.
 
Have to say I love your reviews. A lovely down-to-earth perspectice compared to other sources I read my reviews from.
 
Hmmm still don't quite like it purely based on looks alone especially the center console (pales in comparison to the X5 by a wide margin IMO). I'd have to drive it to know for sure but I was never a big fan on SUVs anyways so I'm biased.

But the panorama roof looks nice and your review was really clear and insightful, I'll be waiting on the updates :D
 
Hmmm still don't quite like it purely based on looks alone especially the center console (pales in comparison to the X5 by a wide margin IMO).

X3 is so old tech, it was introduced in 2003 and details like the center console can't hide it.
 
It has beend update since then. The current model doesn't have the plastic planking anymore, which the first version had. I have never driven the first generation X3 but must say that this is an awful lot of fun. You should have seen the face of the Audi A5 driver I encountered yesterday on the Autobahn. He didn't have a chance in hell with this 2.7 TDI.

People simply don't expect an SUV being so fast -- at least not if it's not a Cayenne.

Having said that: I don't like how it looks from the back. The rest of the styling I actually like. Apart from the interior, of course. But I mentioned that.

And yes, it's actually a 3-liter engine with two turbos. It's only called "35d" to set it apart from the 3-liter model without double turbos. I must say that given the choice between an X5 and an X3 with this engine, I would take the X3. Firstly it is massively cheaper, secondly it is faster, thirdly it consumes less diesel and last but not least it is only marginally smaller.
 
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You did 210 on the autobahn just after it had been snowing like that? That seems quite brave to me.. :D

We're having snow like that here in Denmark right now too, and our Suzuki Swift, on summertires unfortunately, is useless. Pretty fun to play around with the handbrake though :p You can litterally drive sideways down the road. People stare a bit :p

But as usual a very good write-up! I'd have that car just for the engine. When having enough power, the rest doesn't matter as much :p
 
They clean up the Autobahns rather fast here. When I did it, it was only a bit moist. No problem with winter tires. I did 240 km/h today :D But no use making a video of it, since there is so much salt on the road, that the front window was always getting dirty in seconds. I try tomorrow with less traffic on the road.
 
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240 km/h? Lucky you ! I was brave doing 100km/h on the motorway because here in the Uk were no efficient are clearing our roads one bit.
 
Next video:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ImFZ8jI0Co[/YOUTUBE]
 
Third video up (including a quick run on the Autobahn):

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqVkKbMt5pM[/YOUTUBE]

I drove the X3 a year ago and liked it a lot.

Did you drive it like this? :mrgreen:
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I'd like to dedicate this picture to forum member vRS :D Greetings to speed limit country ;)

I also took a vid of the fast run on the Autobahn, but that's going to take time to upload. Was nice today: Road cleared and only mildly moist, -5? C outside. Had some fun. Almost blew a Smart off the road in my wake. Those aren't very planted on the road, really...

Boy, this car really turns me into a 12-year-old...
 
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The ugly front lights ruin the car for me. Nice on the inside though.
 
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