**The BMW X3: A Balanced and Enjoyable Driving Experience**

When it comes to SUVs and CUVs, many people look for something that can balance performance, comfort, and practicality. The BMW X3 is one such vehicle that checks all these boxes, making it a great option for those who want a driving experience that's both fun and solid. In this article, we'll take a closer look at the BMW X3, its features, and what makes it stand out from the competition.

**A Balanced Platform**

The first thing to note about the BMW X3 is its balanced platform. The weight distribution is 50/50 front to rear, side to side, which makes it feel substantial and solid when driving. When you look underneath the car, you can see that it's engineered from the ground up with this balanced design in mind. This attention to detail shows in how the car handles on the road, making it a joy to drive. Whether you're cruising down the highway or tackling twisty roads, the X3 feels planted and responsive.

**Steering Feel**

Another standout feature of the BMW X3 is its steering feel. The steering is amazing, with just enough firmness to make you feel connected to the vehicle. This makes it a pleasure to drive on winding roads or when navigating through tight city streets. The steering is precise and communicative, giving you a sense of control that's hard to find in other vehicles.

**Sound Insulation**

One of the biggest surprises of driving the BMW X3 is how well it absorbs road noise and wind buffeting. This sound insulation makes it feel incredibly comfortable on long drives, even when faced with rough roads or strong winds. You won't be jolted awake by every bump or gust of air, which is a welcome respite from some other vehicles.

**Technology and Features**

The BMW X3 also boasts an impressive array of features, including its infotainment system. While it's certainly fast and responsive, the interface can be overwhelming for some users, particularly those who are less tech-savvy. Additionally, there are several optional features that add to the car's price tag, such as safety tech, premium audio systems, and moonroofs.

**Safety Features**

One feature that sets the BMW X3 apart from its competitors is its advanced safety technology. The Intelligent Safety Package is available on some trim levels, but be aware that it comes with a hefty price tag. This package includes four sensors in the front, camera modules in each side view mirror, and a rearview camera module in the bumper. While this sounds impressive, it also means that there are more components to go wrong, which can lead to costly repairs if something does happen.

**Pricing and Options**

One of the downsides of owning a BMW X3 is its price tag. With so many features available as options, it's easy to get carried away with add-ons that may not be necessary for everyday driving. The Dynamic Handling Package, for example, adds better brakes and adjustable dampers, but these features come at an extra cost. As such, it's essential to carefully consider what options you need before purchasing.

**Final Thoughts**

Overall, the BMW X3 is a well-rounded vehicle that offers a balanced blend of performance, comfort, and practicality. Its solid platform, steering feel, and sound insulation make it a joy to drive, while its advanced safety features provide peace of mind for owners. However, be aware of the potential pitfalls of owning a BMW, including its high price tag and optional features. By being smart about what you add to your X3, you'll be able to enjoy this vehicle without breaking the bank.

**The Big Picture**

Ultimately, the BMW X3 is a car that checks all the right boxes for most drivers. It's solid, comfortable, and fun to drive, making it an excellent choice for those who want a reliable and enjoyable driving experience. While there are some downsides to owning a BMW, such as its high price tag and optional features, these can be mitigated with careful consideration and planning. If you're in the market for a new SUV or CUV, we highly recommend taking the X3 for a spin – you won't be disappointed!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enoddly enough I'm standing in the very place that I bought one of my very first used cars and like so many people it wasn't a matter of want it was a matter of need strolling down here thinking what's the absolute best of the worst that I can afford which wasn't much but with that perspective behind me I'm gonna take you through what it's like when you have the money to buy a vehicle like the BMW x3 you you you you you welcome to the x3 review now talking about the exterior of SUVs or Cu V's is so subjective they're a dime a dozen so it's gonna be up to the buyer or the viewer to figure out is this stylish now something that is very different in modern cars is the interior in the case of this BMW if you're an older owner that has a car pre 2010 or if you're a current owner or a shopper looking to get into the brand you could literally take a seminar on how to figure out all this stuff I feel like you need a certification to operate some of the technology in this car but instead of going over all that let's start with kind of the good and the bad of the interior now I'm gonna start with the biggest pro of this x3 and honestly most BMWs in general you buy this car for its level of solidity and quality and that has to be the biggest cliche because you always hear that and you may see some of this in cars like Mazda or Hyundai and Kia where they've almost lifted out the rotary knobs the steering wheel controls the steering wheel design but one thing I can tell you is the BMW still has those cars on the level of craftsmanship and solidity and how everything is put together so cleanly in this car there's not one rattle there's no knocking or cheapness or nothing feels loose everything feels like it went through a really good level of quality control before it went out the door and you know you just feel it in here from the way that doors shut the way you're isolated from the outside you don't get that and a lot of the cheaper brands yes they're getting better but they do it so well here that I can see why people buy these cars and never want to go to a different brand now here's the problem with that BMW has been copied so well that this no longer looks special and if you're a manufacturer it kind of sucks when you do something so well everybody kind of steals it and we see the same thing in the phone market everybody went nuts for the iPhone now every company from here to China makes phones that look exactly like an iPhone there you can't even tell them apart anymore and that's kind of what I feel like in here but the other huge Pro is they haven't gone off the deep end trying to make it different just for the sake of it they still have things that work amazing physical controls you have a physical volume knob you have physical rotary knobs through HVAC controls to lower and raise the heat and cooling you have physical buttons for your seat heaters and seat coolers while this doesn't have C coolers but you have a fan speed control all of your sport buttons your eco buttons all physical here I don't have to menu jump your infotainment has physical buttons for each thing maps media your phone and the physical command knob to get around the screen and that is just such a breath of fresh air when so many manufacturers have made it an internal policy to get rid of all the physical buttons and guess what we still have fingers so as long as we still have hands there's gonna be a need for physical controls now where there's physical buttons there's going to be little gurga nam ik annoyances based on your body type or the size of your meat hooks and for me here's the couple problems that I've had and you may not even have them the volume rocker up and down button on the steering wheel it has very little like physical feedback to what it is I can't really tell if what's up or down and to make matters worse they put the voice activation button right below the volume down button so at night I constantly hit the voice activation control on accident and it's so annoying could you repeat that please the next thing about this x3 that's positive namely in this trim level is the comfort for the driver and passenger and one of the big reasons why it's good is it has a functional level of seat adjustment now of course it depends on your body type I always say that but what do I mean by functional if you get into certain luxury cars they're gonna try to blow you away with the marking how it's got this hundred way adjustable seat then you sit in it and you dick with it for like 20 minutes and you still don't feel comfortable because there's just too much going on with this car and like most BMWs it's nice they have thigh push ins that are manually adjustable so if you have longer legs or you have bigger legs you can kind of tweak that for comfort it has adjustable bolster side bolster so you can move the seat in if you're you know gaining her and tighter you can feel tighter or if you're larger you can move them out and then the regular adjustments just seem to get you in the right position and that's you know it's one of those things that you think about well that's not really a big deal but in this car it kind of is noticeable so aside from the seats everything has a quality comfortable soft feel to it your arm rests are good the door padding is good the steering wheel all the soft touch is good and here you just just always kind of feel cushy now the other the other area that kind of surprises me is this feels more like an American car because you have real cupholders you have a huge pocket in the door for a bottle and I guess this is technically an American car it's made here and a lot of that thought the design for storage is really excellent and you even have a sliding like louver style cover that goes over your storage space to cover your phone or your valuables and it's also good because if you get a lot of crumbs and crap that's already in here you can just kind of close it up and not have to look at it the only thing really negative I can talk about is just the choice of materials and I know it's hard in modern cars but there's so much shiny black plastic crap in here there's fingerprints and smudges all over everything the center console area when I got it it was just full of dust I've had to clean it every day since I've been driving it it's just one of those things when you have shiny stuff you got to clean it a lot now the back seats are gonna be a big deal you know cuz you're probably gonna be having passengers I would hope in a car like this but when you get back here you realize this door opening is really narrow if you're a bigger person or you're trying to load a lot of cargo back here forget it I feel like they made a sacrifice here to improve the back hatch space and the front occupant space the other thing is the seats do recline like pretty much every car in this class or type but it's the seats still feel very straight up and down to me if you're getting an x3 you want this an electronic lift gate and surprisingly it's not too slow some are pathetic this is not too bad I can deal with it when you get this up you realize you can fit pretty much anything that you want in here it's got a really nice cargo cover the seats against fold down in three different ways and you have a lower storage for a full-size spare while it's not truly a full-size spare but it's not a straight-up donut and your battery is located under here so you can fit a lot of stuff in here my only kind of complaint is there's no lip on this shelf and I noticed when I had cargo in here if it's flying around and not tied down I'll get on a hill park and everything will fly out because this just kind of like falls downward the last two things to talk about are the gauge cluster which I complain about on a lot of modern cars that go to a full LCD screen it's just a screen and no real gauges and it's so flat so boring and so generic BMW uses two things they have physical bezels around their screen and bezels on the side for their digital you know temperature gauge and fuel gauge which is really nice because it does create that three-dimensional aspect to it now there's not a ton of customization you can do to this you know in some of the some of the information on here is just kind of generic but you can change it in the infotainment kind of the layout and when you switch from sport adaptive comfort and eco mode it will change your display structure for the most part I don't screw around with it I think it's pretty well done the black levels are pretty good on here it's not too bright at night so I kind of give it a pass there now save this for last the technology or infotainment or BMWs iDrive whatever you want to call it you know the most impressive part about this is it's utter responsiveness and speed it doesn't matter if you get out of this car for five hours or five minutes when you get in here these menus fly everything is loaded and ready to go either via the touchscreen or the rotary knob and it makes it so much more easy to use and less frustrating and the big thing is you can tell that this is a very mature super developed piece of software that BMW has taken very seriously compared to the competitors and this is where they stand out this is almost like its own operating system and the responsiveness is what you expect from like a phone or a tablet it really works well here get directions to gentleman's club gentlemen of the press 1215 Cranston Road Beloit se yes all select another entry from the list now if you're just using the basics your home screen has media how you can configure it however you want but I like it because I can just tap into my whether my Bluetooth audio my phone and it's great the problem is is when you start to dive deeper into the real menu structure and you want to start to tweak stuff for example I got in this car and had the HUD the heads-up display was on the windshield and I hate it it's distracting so I'm like well I just want to turn it off instead of having like a OneTouch physical button to turn it on and off like some cars I literally took ten minutes before I could find it in the menu the first time so you have to go to the home screen you have to go to my vehicle you have to go to iDrive settings you have to go to displays and then heads-up display and what you think about it and the menu structure there why the hell doesn't HUD have its own physical menu why do I have to jump through all that to adjust it or turn it on and off and that's the the deep-rooted problem with all the technology they're trying to jam into these cars it's literally like dealing with Mac OS or Windows where you're trying to find something now it's so annoying and you know you'd say oh why don't you use the voice search okay turn on heads-up display could you try again please it has no idea and you know then you have to figure out what the commands are maybe there's a voice command for it but that I'm gonna have to sit here and dig through a manual to figure out it's just you know that's the type of stuff that drives me nuts now all your other stuff is in here from touchpad settings to your wireless charging tray you can turn that on and off for alerts your equalizer for your audio control which you can go in there and you can use the touchscreen and has a real EQ in here unlike most cars but there's so many different menus in here from the intelligent Drive menu to the gauges it just it goes on and on and on and on and it you know if all you're using is the basics you're really gonna like it now obviously I've put the bmw x3 on the Ben pack lift in the primary reason for this is to show you some of the things that differentiates this vehicle from other brands you know a lot of it is gonna be the same in modern cars but there's a few things to really point out so let's get on with it no BMW has a real cute marketing term for a lot of this engineering it's called efficient dynamics and what is it well it encompasses a lot of their engineering philosophy weight reduction fuel efficiency aerodynamics in the case of the x3 you see a lot of it up front the first is all of the aluminum in the front suspension both the lower control arms the hub the entire knuckle design is all aluminum here and it kind of continues up into the strut area but the strut of course is you know produced by another OEM on row here and they have adjustable dampers in this model which is optional but you can see there are brake ducts with a little bit of up kick on the aluminum dust shield here to help cool the brakes and mostly what you're gonna see along the whole part of this car is aerodynamics and sound reduction there's a vibration damper on the front strut there are composite or asphalt panels and plastic panels to smooth out air flow along a whole underbody of this car if you even take the drain plug cover off you can see that there's a felt or an asphalt material underneath there to lower and NVH and vibration and road noise it's really impressive and this is something again that you're gonna get in you know in a BMW now of course there's more aerodynamic pieces on the front of the ax3 it has air curtains which moves air through the front bumpers around the front wheels again reduces wind turbulence the front kidney grilles are these signature BMW grilles on the front when you look at them they're kind of unsuspecting until you realize it has active shutters in them and what this does is it leaves them closed all the time to prevent all that air blowing through there and it will only open them up when the coolant temperature of the car it reaches a certain threshold so it open it up cool the radiator and then closes them back up now when you make it to the back of the x3 you realize a lot of that functionality is all back here to the plastic covers help move air over these rear lower control arm covers which then move air upwards over this low-profile muffler and out the back of the car this acts as a diffuser it's all about smoothing air flow which improves aerodynamics and has the benefit of reducing NVH and road noise now the rear suspension you can see that it has an aluminum knuckle which is made in Mexico your half shafts are made in the US and you have stamped lower control arms or stamped steel lower control arms the Monro adjustable dampers are made in Spain and then the drivetrain is also made in Austria and Germany the car as a whole is manufactured in the US so you can tell that they've leveraged a lot of their different assembly facilities and OEMs to build this car when you get under the hood of the x3 regardless of the trim level regardless of the motor you choose weight-reduction lightweight hood same treatments in the fenders in the door skins and all of this adds up to a 40 300-pound kerb weight and you might think that is a lot of heft for a vehicle like this and think about what it would be like if they didn't put all this effort into weight reduction it would be probably fifty five hundred pounds or five thousand pounds the more important thing to talk about than just weight is this architecture or platform was not designed to be some front wheel drive Frankenstein with all-wheel drive added onto it this car right from the drawing board they wanted it to have a 50/50 weight distribution so what it ends up being on our scales is 48 percent of the weights on the front 52 percent is in the rear and it has almost a 50/50 cross balance left to right which is super impressive for an SUV or CUV the benefit is it's not going to plow around like a Honda CRV or a Ford Escape it behaves more like a sport your car and you know what that means is you can put more engine in this now this specific tester has a 2-liter turbo for popper and for me if I had BMW money I would not get a 4-cylinder and it just depends on who you are if you don't care about that type of thing you don't care about engine performance and refinement then this is gonna be fine for most people it makes a ton of power ton of torque it always feels like it's ready to go and it's eager it just doesn't sound all that inspiring now all the motors have direct injection I would step up to the the six-cylinder version of this and supposedly the rumors are there's going to be an X 3m and you think about why would you put a even higher performance motor in the car well the chassis can handle it and it's obvious based on you know these weights and all of that as well so the last thing to talk about is BMW ownership in terms of costs to own and maintenance it's no secret that BMW has one of the highest maintenance costs of any production car higher volume production car if you're owning this out of warranty and you are you're out of your maintenance plan you just know right upfront it's gonna cost more to take this to a dealership than pretty much any other car now there are a lot of shops that just specialize in BMW and locally to me there's a couple guys that are amazing they don't rip you off they can really get a lot of the stuff done and the other thing about it is despite some of the costs to repair maintenance Scott always talks about he would rather work on a BMW and Honda then pretty much any other brand because a lot of this is logically laid out but that's it for the end of the shop segment let's get right to the meat and potatoes of you now that you understand some of the X three's underpinnings the way that the suspension was designed the aerodynamics and all that you know you can throw out the interior the exterior styling but if this car doesn't drive well none of this matters so let's talk about the driving experience let's cover some of the pros of the x3 now we know it's completely balanced but the other important thing about a driving experience as a steering and the steering in this car it's really surprising because you feel something through the steering wheel now that's really odd in modern cars with electronic power steering typically you put your hand here you feel nothing it's like a videogame steering wheel you're not really connected to anything but this car does give you some feedback and it's just enough not to be annoying it's one of the best parts about this car and the reason is you have a dual ball joint setup you have more direct steering you have variable gear ratio steering as a part of this $1400 dynamic package so it really does feel good for being an SUV or COV now the negative part about it with being variable gear ratio even in comfort mode I find that it's way too sensitive to turn in for the type of vehicle it is because you know this is still even with the sport you know sports suspension adjustable dampers this car does have body roll and you know sometimes when I'm on the highway I don't want to just breathe on the steering wheel for it to turn in and I know that's a weird statement but in a car like this I prefer to have it a little bit more lazy so that's the pros and cons of the steering now when you put it in sport mode or adaptive mode it does kind of change the effort based on your speed and how much steering inputs needed and I think it finds a good overall balance now the biggest pro of this car is its level of isolation and quietness with the acoustic glass in the front windshield I had somebody get in the car and they said is this thing really going 85 miles an hour and I'm like yeah it is you just can't hear any wind noise and this is a windy day it's really really good how well it just you don't hear tire noise you don't hear wind noise you really or anything and it's one of my favorite parts of driving the x3 now ride comfort is a factor now because this vehicle has adaptive dampers you can kind of switch it to the mode that you want I typically ride in comfort mode or Eco mode to get better fuel economy and even when I go into sport the dampers don't get ridiculously firm yeah I mean you notice it you know it firms up it feels a little bit tighter but it it still does a really good job over broken pavement and that's an important thing if you're getting a vehicle like this you don't want it to be true up I'm gonna go back in and comfort here and talk about the tires this has run flat Pirellis on it and you know they're pretty quiet but I feel like they are pretty rigid you know I know they're trying to find a balance between sport and ride quality here and I think they've done it for the most part for the for the buyer that's looking at this I don't think you're gonna find too much complaints with the tires now how long they last is a totally different story now I'm gonna throw this into sport mode I've disabled the traction and stability control as much as it allows you to do and I'm gonna put it in manual mode and you can kind of take manual control of the transmission with the paddles by clicking them but the true manual mode where it allows you to hold revs is when you move the stick over to the left so let's take a look and see how this handles there's some turns holds rubs and manual shift mode these upgraded brakes do a really good job I think for the $1400 for this I would I would upgrade to that package with the adaptive dampers and having the different the ability to take more control of this car with that package with the brakes with the dampers and the changes to the steering programming the variable gear ratio steering it's a really good balance between kind of like a putter cruiser and you know a sporty combo and what are the big things that you want to talk about in a car like this is the transmission is buttery smooth it's a torque converted unit but it allows you manual control and when you take manual control it really lets you take manual control it will downshift almost to the redline so I'll show you what that looks like here now let's talk about acceleration this has a twin-scroll turbo for a four-cylinder which also has two inlets which is supposed to help eliminate turbo lag so if you come to a stop let's say in comfort mode like you're at a light and you want to nail it first you have to deal with the auto stop start restarting which is a delay and then you have to deal with the turbo lag which seems like a lot before that torque and boost kicks in so the only way to alleviate it is to kind of put it in sport mode to turn the traction stability control off and put in a manual mode and brake torque it like typical automatics hold down the brake give it some gas then you're really taking off that's when the accelerations at its best and I think most people are going to be satisfied with it let's take a look at how this does through the rest of the turns brakes are really good with this package I like them a lot so push it through here again and I got to tell you the nicest thing is all these cars come with all-wheel drive now and because the weight distribution is so good it feels more rear biased than it does front wheel drive and I think that's the the biggest Pro of driving the x3 this is definitely not some eco SUV CUV it feels more performance oriented it feels more like a driver's car and I know that again I say cliche a lot but it it has a really good sense of control and fun to drive aspect that you don't get you just don't see it a lot in these type of vehicles now yes you're paying a lot more money for the BMW badge but I think they've done a good job at balancing all of it together final thoughts on the bmw x3 here's the pros and cons the biggest pro of this SUV or CV is its level of solidity when you look underneath you look at the body structure and how it feels to drive it just feels so substantial and it's one of those things you can't really explain until you drive up drive a platform like this the fact that they engineered it from the ground up to be balanced 50/50 weight distribution front to rear side to side that's something you don't get even in a lot of cars so you know all of this is those things that are working in the background that make it so enjoyable to operate the second Pro is the steering feel it has steering feel it's amazing and it's just enough to make you feel connected to the vehicle now those are the two biggest things the third is also the sound insulation or isolation you get from the road it seems to just absorb all the negative parts of bad road surfaces wind noise and it does it just enough to make you feel comfortable and that's the biggest part you feel extremely comfortable driving this and you know you could go into more pros like the infotainment it's one of the best ones out there it's extremely fast and if you're just touching the surface with it using the basics you're really going to enjoy it now let's get into the negatives that being technology it's overbearing the infotainment again as good as it is it is so complicated and I said this in the the earlier part I feel like people that get this car needs to go to a seminar if you're older and you're not tech savvy it's gonna be just a nightmare to deal with now the other part of the technology is the intelligent safety package that's optional which is good because in my tester it didn't work it had a fault and one of the sensors or camera modules and when you start to look around this car you see it's you know four sensors in the front their sensors in the rear camera modules in each side view mirror in the front and the rear bumper and you're thinking okay this is great when it's new and shiny and you know you feel all good about the experience if you're planning to keep this car long term out of warranty these are the things you're gonna start to look at somebody hits it with a shopping cart and breaks one of these modules well there goes a lot of these systems and they will malfunction and they will cost you a lot to repair and you know same thing with the infotainment the screen or the touch membrane goes bad the LCD panel in the gauge cluster all these little things add up in long-term ownership so that's just more of a you know explanation of the tech now the other negative part is there is so much in this car that is optional and extremely expensive as you know like safety tech the premium audio system you know the moonroof a lot of these features that get bundled into more affordable cars you can get a more affordable car for with a lot more features than you can get in a BMW and I think it's time that they start adding this stuff as standard features because you're just paying so much for it there's really no justification other than margin for that maybe they that's how they make their money obviously so you know pick your packages carefully don't just if you don't drive hard then you don't need the dynamic handling package with better brakes which are gonna cost you more money in the long term adjustable dampers as if they go bad you know a shock is gonna cost you more it's one of these just be smart about what you're tacking on in terms of options and you're gonna be really happy with this thing take care I'll see you next time youoddly enough I'm standing in the very place that I bought one of my very first used cars and like so many people it wasn't a matter of want it was a matter of need strolling down here thinking what's the absolute best of the worst that I can afford which wasn't much but with that perspective behind me I'm gonna take you through what it's like when you have the money to buy a vehicle like the BMW x3 you you you you you welcome to the x3 review now talking about the exterior of SUVs or Cu V's is so subjective they're a dime a dozen so it's gonna be up to the buyer or the viewer to figure out is this stylish now something that is very different in modern cars is the interior in the case of this BMW if you're an older owner that has a car pre 2010 or if you're a current owner or a shopper looking to get into the brand you could literally take a seminar on how to figure out all this stuff I feel like you need a certification to operate some of the technology in this car but instead of going over all that let's start with kind of the good and the bad of the interior now I'm gonna start with the biggest pro of this x3 and honestly most BMWs in general you buy this car for its level of solidity and quality and that has to be the biggest cliche because you always hear that and you may see some of this in cars like Mazda or Hyundai and Kia where they've almost lifted out the rotary knobs the steering wheel controls the steering wheel design but one thing I can tell you is the BMW still has those cars on the level of craftsmanship and solidity and how everything is put together so cleanly in this car there's not one rattle there's no knocking or cheapness or nothing feels loose everything feels like it went through a really good level of quality control before it went out the door and you know you just feel it in here from the way that doors shut the way you're isolated from the outside you don't get that and a lot of the cheaper brands yes they're getting better but they do it so well here that I can see why people buy these cars and never want to go to a different brand now here's the problem with that BMW has been copied so well that this no longer looks special and if you're a manufacturer it kind of sucks when you do something so well everybody kind of steals it and we see the same thing in the phone market everybody went nuts for the iPhone now every company from here to China makes phones that look exactly like an iPhone there you can't even tell them apart anymore and that's kind of what I feel like in here but the other huge Pro is they haven't gone off the deep end trying to make it different just for the sake of it they still have things that work amazing physical controls you have a physical volume knob you have physical rotary knobs through HVAC controls to lower and raise the heat and cooling you have physical buttons for your seat heaters and seat coolers while this doesn't have C coolers but you have a fan speed control all of your sport buttons your eco buttons all physical here I don't have to menu jump your infotainment has physical buttons for each thing maps media your phone and the physical command knob to get around the screen and that is just such a breath of fresh air when so many manufacturers have made it an internal policy to get rid of all the physical buttons and guess what we still have fingers so as long as we still have hands there's gonna be a need for physical controls now where there's physical buttons there's going to be little gurga nam ik annoyances based on your body type or the size of your meat hooks and for me here's the couple problems that I've had and you may not even have them the volume rocker up and down button on the steering wheel it has very little like physical feedback to what it is I can't really tell if what's up or down and to make matters worse they put the voice activation button right below the volume down button so at night I constantly hit the voice activation control on accident and it's so annoying could you repeat that please the next thing about this x3 that's positive namely in this trim level is the comfort for the driver and passenger and one of the big reasons why it's good is it has a functional level of seat adjustment now of course it depends on your body type I always say that but what do I mean by functional if you get into certain luxury cars they're gonna try to blow you away with the marking how it's got this hundred way adjustable seat then you sit in it and you dick with it for like 20 minutes and you still don't feel comfortable because there's just too much going on with this car and like most BMWs it's nice they have thigh push ins that are manually adjustable so if you have longer legs or you have bigger legs you can kind of tweak that for comfort it has adjustable bolster side bolster so you can move the seat in if you're you know gaining her and tighter you can feel tighter or if you're larger you can move them out and then the regular adjustments just seem to get you in the right position and that's you know it's one of those things that you think about well that's not really a big deal but in this car it kind of is noticeable so aside from the seats everything has a quality comfortable soft feel to it your arm rests are good the door padding is good the steering wheel all the soft touch is good and here you just just always kind of feel cushy now the other the other area that kind of surprises me is this feels more like an American car because you have real cupholders you have a huge pocket in the door for a bottle and I guess this is technically an American car it's made here and a lot of that thought the design for storage is really excellent and you even have a sliding like louver style cover that goes over your storage space to cover your phone or your valuables and it's also good because if you get a lot of crumbs and crap that's already in here you can just kind of close it up and not have to look at it the only thing really negative I can talk about is just the choice of materials and I know it's hard in modern cars but there's so much shiny black plastic crap in here there's fingerprints and smudges all over everything the center console area when I got it it was just full of dust I've had to clean it every day since I've been driving it it's just one of those things when you have shiny stuff you got to clean it a lot now the back seats are gonna be a big deal you know cuz you're probably gonna be having passengers I would hope in a car like this but when you get back here you realize this door opening is really narrow if you're a bigger person or you're trying to load a lot of cargo back here forget it I feel like they made a sacrifice here to improve the back hatch space and the front occupant space the other thing is the seats do recline like pretty much every car in this class or type but it's the seats still feel very straight up and down to me if you're getting an x3 you want this an electronic lift gate and surprisingly it's not too slow some are pathetic this is not too bad I can deal with it when you get this up you realize you can fit pretty much anything that you want in here it's got a really nice cargo cover the seats against fold down in three different ways and you have a lower storage for a full-size spare while it's not truly a full-size spare but it's not a straight-up donut and your battery is located under here so you can fit a lot of stuff in here my only kind of complaint is there's no lip on this shelf and I noticed when I had cargo in here if it's flying around and not tied down I'll get on a hill park and everything will fly out because this just kind of like falls downward the last two things to talk about are the gauge cluster which I complain about on a lot of modern cars that go to a full LCD screen it's just a screen and no real gauges and it's so flat so boring and so generic BMW uses two things they have physical bezels around their screen and bezels on the side for their digital you know temperature gauge and fuel gauge which is really nice because it does create that three-dimensional aspect to it now there's not a ton of customization you can do to this you know in some of the some of the information on here is just kind of generic but you can change it in the infotainment kind of the layout and when you switch from sport adaptive comfort and eco mode it will change your display structure for the most part I don't screw around with it I think it's pretty well done the black levels are pretty good on here it's not too bright at night so I kind of give it a pass there now save this for last the technology or infotainment or BMWs iDrive whatever you want to call it you know the most impressive part about this is it's utter responsiveness and speed it doesn't matter if you get out of this car for five hours or five minutes when you get in here these menus fly everything is loaded and ready to go either via the touchscreen or the rotary knob and it makes it so much more easy to use and less frustrating and the big thing is you can tell that this is a very mature super developed piece of software that BMW has taken very seriously compared to the competitors and this is where they stand out this is almost like its own operating system and the responsiveness is what you expect from like a phone or a tablet it really works well here get directions to gentleman's club gentlemen of the press 1215 Cranston Road Beloit se yes all select another entry from the list now if you're just using the basics your home screen has media how you can configure it however you want but I like it because I can just tap into my whether my Bluetooth audio my phone and it's great the problem is is when you start to dive deeper into the real menu structure and you want to start to tweak stuff for example I got in this car and had the HUD the heads-up display was on the windshield and I hate it it's distracting so I'm like well I just want to turn it off instead of having like a OneTouch physical button to turn it on and off like some cars I literally took ten minutes before I could find it in the menu the first time so you have to go to the home screen you have to go to my vehicle you have to go to iDrive settings you have to go to displays and then heads-up display and what you think about it and the menu structure there why the hell doesn't HUD have its own physical menu why do I have to jump through all that to adjust it or turn it on and off and that's the the deep-rooted problem with all the technology they're trying to jam into these cars it's literally like dealing with Mac OS or Windows where you're trying to find something now it's so annoying and you know you'd say oh why don't you use the voice search okay turn on heads-up display could you try again please it has no idea and you know then you have to figure out what the commands are maybe there's a voice command for it but that I'm gonna have to sit here and dig through a manual to figure out it's just you know that's the type of stuff that drives me nuts now all your other stuff is in here from touchpad settings to your wireless charging tray you can turn that on and off for alerts your equalizer for your audio control which you can go in there and you can use the touchscreen and has a real EQ in here unlike most cars but there's so many different menus in here from the intelligent Drive menu to the gauges it just it goes on and on and on and on and it you know if all you're using is the basics you're really gonna like it now obviously I've put the bmw x3 on the Ben pack lift in the primary reason for this is to show you some of the things that differentiates this vehicle from other brands you know a lot of it is gonna be the same in modern cars but there's a few things to really point out so let's get on with it no BMW has a real cute marketing term for a lot of this engineering it's called efficient dynamics and what is it well it encompasses a lot of their engineering philosophy weight reduction fuel efficiency aerodynamics in the case of the x3 you see a lot of it up front the first is all of the aluminum in the front suspension both the lower control arms the hub the entire knuckle design is all aluminum here and it kind of continues up into the strut area but the strut of course is you know produced by another OEM on row here and they have adjustable dampers in this model which is optional but you can see there are brake ducts with a little bit of up kick on the aluminum dust shield here to help cool the brakes and mostly what you're gonna see along the whole part of this car is aerodynamics and sound reduction there's a vibration damper on the front strut there are composite or asphalt panels and plastic panels to smooth out air flow along a whole underbody of this car if you even take the drain plug cover off you can see that there's a felt or an asphalt material underneath there to lower and NVH and vibration and road noise it's really impressive and this is something again that you're gonna get in you know in a BMW now of course there's more aerodynamic pieces on the front of the ax3 it has air curtains which moves air through the front bumpers around the front wheels again reduces wind turbulence the front kidney grilles are these signature BMW grilles on the front when you look at them they're kind of unsuspecting until you realize it has active shutters in them and what this does is it leaves them closed all the time to prevent all that air blowing through there and it will only open them up when the coolant temperature of the car it reaches a certain threshold so it open it up cool the radiator and then closes them back up now when you make it to the back of the x3 you realize a lot of that functionality is all back here to the plastic covers help move air over these rear lower control arm covers which then move air upwards over this low-profile muffler and out the back of the car this acts as a diffuser it's all about smoothing air flow which improves aerodynamics and has the benefit of reducing NVH and road noise now the rear suspension you can see that it has an aluminum knuckle which is made in Mexico your half shafts are made in the US and you have stamped lower control arms or stamped steel lower control arms the Monro adjustable dampers are made in Spain and then the drivetrain is also made in Austria and Germany the car as a whole is manufactured in the US so you can tell that they've leveraged a lot of their different assembly facilities and OEMs to build this car when you get under the hood of the x3 regardless of the trim level regardless of the motor you choose weight-reduction lightweight hood same treatments in the fenders in the door skins and all of this adds up to a 40 300-pound kerb weight and you might think that is a lot of heft for a vehicle like this and think about what it would be like if they didn't put all this effort into weight reduction it would be probably fifty five hundred pounds or five thousand pounds the more important thing to talk about than just weight is this architecture or platform was not designed to be some front wheel drive Frankenstein with all-wheel drive added onto it this car right from the drawing board they wanted it to have a 50/50 weight distribution so what it ends up being on our scales is 48 percent of the weights on the front 52 percent is in the rear and it has almost a 50/50 cross balance left to right which is super impressive for an SUV or CUV the benefit is it's not going to plow around like a Honda CRV or a Ford Escape it behaves more like a sport your car and you know what that means is you can put more engine in this now this specific tester has a 2-liter turbo for popper and for me if I had BMW money I would not get a 4-cylinder and it just depends on who you are if you don't care about that type of thing you don't care about engine performance and refinement then this is gonna be fine for most people it makes a ton of power ton of torque it always feels like it's ready to go and it's eager it just doesn't sound all that inspiring now all the motors have direct injection I would step up to the the six-cylinder version of this and supposedly the rumors are there's going to be an X 3m and you think about why would you put a even higher performance motor in the car well the chassis can handle it and it's obvious based on you know these weights and all of that as well so the last thing to talk about is BMW ownership in terms of costs to own and maintenance it's no secret that BMW has one of the highest maintenance costs of any production car higher volume production car if you're owning this out of warranty and you are you're out of your maintenance plan you just know right upfront it's gonna cost more to take this to a dealership than pretty much any other car now there are a lot of shops that just specialize in BMW and locally to me there's a couple guys that are amazing they don't rip you off they can really get a lot of the stuff done and the other thing about it is despite some of the costs to repair maintenance Scott always talks about he would rather work on a BMW and Honda then pretty much any other brand because a lot of this is logically laid out but that's it for the end of the shop segment let's get right to the meat and potatoes of you now that you understand some of the X three's underpinnings the way that the suspension was designed the aerodynamics and all that you know you can throw out the interior the exterior styling but if this car doesn't drive well none of this matters so let's talk about the driving experience let's cover some of the pros of the x3 now we know it's completely balanced but the other important thing about a driving experience as a steering and the steering in this car it's really surprising because you feel something through the steering wheel now that's really odd in modern cars with electronic power steering typically you put your hand here you feel nothing it's like a videogame steering wheel you're not really connected to anything but this car does give you some feedback and it's just enough not to be annoying it's one of the best parts about this car and the reason is you have a dual ball joint setup you have more direct steering you have variable gear ratio steering as a part of this $1400 dynamic package so it really does feel good for being an SUV or COV now the negative part about it with being variable gear ratio even in comfort mode I find that it's way too sensitive to turn in for the type of vehicle it is because you know this is still even with the sport you know sports suspension adjustable dampers this car does have body roll and you know sometimes when I'm on the highway I don't want to just breathe on the steering wheel for it to turn in and I know that's a weird statement but in a car like this I prefer to have it a little bit more lazy so that's the pros and cons of the steering now when you put it in sport mode or adaptive mode it does kind of change the effort based on your speed and how much steering inputs needed and I think it finds a good overall balance now the biggest pro of this car is its level of isolation and quietness with the acoustic glass in the front windshield I had somebody get in the car and they said is this thing really going 85 miles an hour and I'm like yeah it is you just can't hear any wind noise and this is a windy day it's really really good how well it just you don't hear tire noise you don't hear wind noise you really or anything and it's one of my favorite parts of driving the x3 now ride comfort is a factor now because this vehicle has adaptive dampers you can kind of switch it to the mode that you want I typically ride in comfort mode or Eco mode to get better fuel economy and even when I go into sport the dampers don't get ridiculously firm yeah I mean you notice it you know it firms up it feels a little bit tighter but it it still does a really good job over broken pavement and that's an important thing if you're getting a vehicle like this you don't want it to be true up I'm gonna go back in and comfort here and talk about the tires this has run flat Pirellis on it and you know they're pretty quiet but I feel like they are pretty rigid you know I know they're trying to find a balance between sport and ride quality here and I think they've done it for the most part for the for the buyer that's looking at this I don't think you're gonna find too much complaints with the tires now how long they last is a totally different story now I'm gonna throw this into sport mode I've disabled the traction and stability control as much as it allows you to do and I'm gonna put it in manual mode and you can kind of take manual control of the transmission with the paddles by clicking them but the true manual mode where it allows you to hold revs is when you move the stick over to the left so let's take a look and see how this handles there's some turns holds rubs and manual shift mode these upgraded brakes do a really good job I think for the $1400 for this I would I would upgrade to that package with the adaptive dampers and having the different the ability to take more control of this car with that package with the brakes with the dampers and the changes to the steering programming the variable gear ratio steering it's a really good balance between kind of like a putter cruiser and you know a sporty combo and what are the big things that you want to talk about in a car like this is the transmission is buttery smooth it's a torque converted unit but it allows you manual control and when you take manual control it really lets you take manual control it will downshift almost to the redline so I'll show you what that looks like here now let's talk about acceleration this has a twin-scroll turbo for a four-cylinder which also has two inlets which is supposed to help eliminate turbo lag so if you come to a stop let's say in comfort mode like you're at a light and you want to nail it first you have to deal with the auto stop start restarting which is a delay and then you have to deal with the turbo lag which seems like a lot before that torque and boost kicks in so the only way to alleviate it is to kind of put it in sport mode to turn the traction stability control off and put in a manual mode and brake torque it like typical automatics hold down the brake give it some gas then you're really taking off that's when the accelerations at its best and I think most people are going to be satisfied with it let's take a look at how this does through the rest of the turns brakes are really good with this package I like them a lot so push it through here again and I got to tell you the nicest thing is all these cars come with all-wheel drive now and because the weight distribution is so good it feels more rear biased than it does front wheel drive and I think that's the the biggest Pro of driving the x3 this is definitely not some eco SUV CUV it feels more performance oriented it feels more like a driver's car and I know that again I say cliche a lot but it it has a really good sense of control and fun to drive aspect that you don't get you just don't see it a lot in these type of vehicles now yes you're paying a lot more money for the BMW badge but I think they've done a good job at balancing all of it together final thoughts on the bmw x3 here's the pros and cons the biggest pro of this SUV or CV is its level of solidity when you look underneath you look at the body structure and how it feels to drive it just feels so substantial and it's one of those things you can't really explain until you drive up drive a platform like this the fact that they engineered it from the ground up to be balanced 50/50 weight distribution front to rear side to side that's something you don't get even in a lot of cars so you know all of this is those things that are working in the background that make it so enjoyable to operate the second Pro is the steering feel it has steering feel it's amazing and it's just enough to make you feel connected to the vehicle now those are the two biggest things the third is also the sound insulation or isolation you get from the road it seems to just absorb all the negative parts of bad road surfaces wind noise and it does it just enough to make you feel comfortable and that's the biggest part you feel extremely comfortable driving this and you know you could go into more pros like the infotainment it's one of the best ones out there it's extremely fast and if you're just touching the surface with it using the basics you're really going to enjoy it now let's get into the negatives that being technology it's overbearing the infotainment again as good as it is it is so complicated and I said this in the the earlier part I feel like people that get this car needs to go to a seminar if you're older and you're not tech savvy it's gonna be just a nightmare to deal with now the other part of the technology is the intelligent safety package that's optional which is good because in my tester it didn't work it had a fault and one of the sensors or camera modules and when you start to look around this car you see it's you know four sensors in the front their sensors in the rear camera modules in each side view mirror in the front and the rear bumper and you're thinking okay this is great when it's new and shiny and you know you feel all good about the experience if you're planning to keep this car long term out of warranty these are the things you're gonna start to look at somebody hits it with a shopping cart and breaks one of these modules well there goes a lot of these systems and they will malfunction and they will cost you a lot to repair and you know same thing with the infotainment the screen or the touch membrane goes bad the LCD panel in the gauge cluster all these little things add up in long-term ownership so that's just more of a you know explanation of the tech now the other negative part is there is so much in this car that is optional and extremely expensive as you know like safety tech the premium audio system you know the moonroof a lot of these features that get bundled into more affordable cars you can get a more affordable car for with a lot more features than you can get in a BMW and I think it's time that they start adding this stuff as standard features because you're just paying so much for it there's really no justification other than margin for that maybe they that's how they make their money obviously so you know pick your packages carefully don't just if you don't drive hard then you don't need the dynamic handling package with better brakes which are gonna cost you more money in the long term adjustable dampers as if they go bad you know a shock is gonna cost you more it's one of these just be smart about what you're tacking on in terms of options and you're gonna be really happy with this thing take care I'll see you next time you\n"