[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by niruvrs9669

Congratulations Santosh on your 30d X3 .

I'm quite influenced by your detailed review of X3 and that ''I'm an engine guy'' really played on my mind. I'm going ahead with booking an X5 (White with Terra leather) tomorrow, decided to stretch after lot of thought. I did consider the M Sport X3, but for the space...As you rightly said it's really tough upgrading from a vRS/Octy/Passat.

Hey Thanks!

Congrats on the X5. That X5 is quite a beast. I did test drive an X5 from Navnit and found it quite different from the X3. Its obviously much larger than the X3 and the interior design is newer and richer. You sit much higher but I felt it to be a bit disconnected when I drove it. Maybe its because of the brilliant insulation and softer ride.

Lucky you, you get a spare wheel with a cavity to store it. Its such an embarrassment to show people the boot with that ugly spare strapped in. Worst part of showing the car to people unfamiliar with the concept of RFTs, is explaining the visible presence of the spare in the boot.

[dkaile]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Lucky you, you get a spare wheel with a cavity to store it.

Congratulations mate on a fantastic car.

With regards to these space savers, these irk me the most eating up all the boot space. Call me spoilt after the humongous space of the Superb. But, hey BMW, when you can provision for separate space for the spare tyre in the new X1 (which I love btw) why are the X3 customers shortchanged?

A friend recently bought the X3 and I was blown away by the the sheer acceleration and handling of the vehicle when I drove it. But I feel all these Germans are overpriced for what they actually offer, even though he got a 8L discount on the sticker price. A pre-owned one like what GTO got makes a whole lot better business sense to me.

Cheers...

[shibujp]

Congrats on your new purchase and wishing you many fun filled miles. Thanks for the very detailed review.

Looking forward to those ownership cost logs as with the Laura.

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

When you lock your car with a particular key, the car memorizes those seat positions. If you use another key after that to unlock and change the driver seat position and ORVM and after than again use the 1st key to unlock, the last stored positions with that key, is automatically positioned. Apart from this there are 2 memory buttons on the seats themselves. You can store 2 seat positions in these presets and pull them up just by pressing the buttons. Seat memory includes just ORVM and seats. IRVM and steering positions are excluded as these are not powered or in other words, manual adjust.

I wish this feature at least in some limited sense was offered on premium hatches and C segment sedans as well. Re-adjusting my seat in the Polo after service , is so maddening that I have finally stuck a couple of pieces of tape to ensure I get back to the right position.

Drive on,
Shibu.

[androdev]

Hey man.. I'm late to the party, so you finally managed to crack the Laura upgrade jinx! Congratulations! X3 is a great choice though I hope your daughter appreciates the monumental sacrifice you made by skipping 530D Wish you many years of safe and happy ownership!

[Santoshbhat]

Was glancing through BMW website and find that the specsheet for the X3 has been updated. Looks like the X line 2.0 will now get reversing camera, bigger iDrive screen with handwriting recognition and 3D navigation which were exclusive only to the 30d M Sport earlier. That apart there is no mention of Head Up Display for the M Sport. Hope its not deleted. If that's the case, the gap in the feature list of X line and M Sport becomes very narrow.

Originally Posted by shibujp

Congrats on your new purchase and wishing you many fun filled miles. Thanks for the very detailed review.

Looking forward to those ownership cost logs as with the Laura.

I wish this feature at least in some limited sense was offered on premium hatches and C segment sedans as well. Re-adjusting my seat in the Polo after service , is so maddening that I have finally stuck a couple of pieces of tape to ensure I get back to the right position.

Drive on,
Shibu.

Thanks!

Without powered seats, providing seat memory may not be easy . But yeah they can think of providing some kind of stopper or lever that can lock the seats in position.

Originally Posted by androdev

Hey man.. I'm late to the party, so you finally managed to crack the Laura upgrade jinx! Congratulations! X3 is a great choice though I hope your daughter appreciates the monumental sacrifice you made by skipping 530D Wish you many years of safe and happy ownership!

Hey thanks! I hope she realises that when she grows up. For now I'm having a hard time explaining to her what happened to the Laura. I've told her, that the Laura is resting in my office. She's gets very attached to cars.

[Santoshbhat]

The Chrome and satin grill was looking a bit out of place on the M Sport with 'shadowline' elements. Shadowline is basically gloss black window surrounds and roof rails instead of chrome/ satin. I wanted to replace it with an all gloss black grill. So when my sister told me she is visiting us from the US I told her to get me a pair from getbmwparts
Total cost = $ 130.00

Did a DIY install which proved to be quite tricky. Lot of guys have done it to their BMWs and posted it on various forums. The grills are held in place by 6 clips which need to depressed and pulled at the same time. The problem is there is not enough room to get you hands or other tools to where they are easily. I toiled for nearly 2 hours to get the first couple of clips out. Even then its not easy to remove the rest and you need to yank the grill out and slide your hand in. You don't want to yank too hard as you don't want to break anything. Finally I was able to get one grill out. Once one is out, the other one is easy as you can now put your hand through the open one. I ended up with a sore back and scratched knuckles and fingers by the time I was done. But the end result was pretty satisfying .

[shreyak_ss]

First of all, Congratulations on the beautiful car! This is one of my favourite bmw's and I find it above all in its class.
The grill completely transformed the looks IMO. When I saw the pics on the first page, honestly speaking, I felt something out of place and with the Piano black now installed, I know what I wasn't able to catch. Anyways, it looks superb!
Wish you a trouble free and enjoyable ownership!

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Did a DIY install which proved to be quite tricky.

Looks a bit too black, if you know what I mean. If you still have the original grille, how about just blackening the inside area like:



Your dealer would happily do it for you. BMW M cars usually have it like this.

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by GTO

Looks a bit too black, if you know what I mean. If you still have the original grille, how about just blackening the inside area like:

Your dealer would happily do it for you. BMW M cars usually have it like this.

Yo mean something like this?



Pic source : Google image search

I did mull all options and looked up plenty of photos on the internet before taking a call on the all black ones. The thing is, for the X3, the black grills with chrome surrounds come with their smaller engines. In fact for the pre LCI, only the 3.0 got the chrome + satin grills whereas all 2.0s got the chrome + black grills. I did not want the 2.0 look, so I decided to go for the all black ones which BMW themselves sell as M performance accessories. The front end looks quite menacing now and I see people are more keen to give way than before.

The white car messes up the camera's exposure settings and makes the blacks look too black. In person it looks much better. I do have the original grills with me. Maybe I'll change after a couple of years if I want a different look.

[Santoshbhat]

4000 Kms Update

Its been 4 months and 4,000 kms with the car. So thought of updating this thread with some observations. I am happy to report that the car has not thrown up any issues so far, touchwood. Its seen a couple of business trips to Belgaum and one Bangalore – Sirsi – Belgaum family trip. Also did a couple of airport runs and a few drives with family within city.

Love the car to bits. It’s a very refined beast. Every time you take to the wheel, the first thing that hits you is the refined and luxurious feel of the car. The sound insulation is absolutely fantastic and road and suspension noise too is very well controlled. The Pirelli P7s too play their part and are super silent. My US based Bro in Law who is also a car enthusiast and one who has driven all sorts of cars said he could not believe that this is a diesel. The engine is very refined at low revs and with windows up you can hardly hear it running. Its only when you pin the throttle down that it throws out a loudish sporty sounding growl.

The highway performance is brilliant as expected. On the straights the effortless performance from the 3 litre unit is such a pleasure. Even at high cruising speeds wind and tyre noise is well controlled. Chassis in sport mode and gear box in D mode hits the sweet spot for me on four lane highways. I’ve been using cruise control quite regularly too. Wannabe racers ticking you off? Just flick the sexy gear lever to the left for sport mode for a few minutes and they’re history. I am loving the driving position and the overall ergonomics. The sport seats have a very wide range of adjustment and are very comfortable and supportive.

The black interiors are easy to maintain and look classy too. With 2 kids in the house now, the black interiors on the Polo and the X3 couldn’t have come at a better time. Maintaining the beige interiors of the Laura clean really required a lot of effort.

I am amazed at the way this thing grips in corners. I dropped off the family at Sirsi and had some work in Belgaum. I was licking my lips at the opportunity of a solo drive on some two lane state roads with lots of twists and turns. I progressively pushed harder and harder on every curve and the car took on every challenge without a fuss. At one point there was a sharp right hander without any trees or cliffs blocking view of oncoming traffic. Having gotten emboldened by the grip, I did not brake at all. The tyres started squealing mid corner and I turned the steering and stepped on the gas, the way the car pulled itself out of that corner was just amazing!

The car just does everything without any drama and to some extent it takes away that edge of the seat fun that a pure driving machine like a VRS or a 3 series gives you. I am not complaining though. When I decided to buy a crossover, I was prepared for way less fun than what I am getting right now. Having said that, I am also enjoying the practicality the car offers. 5 adults can be seated in reasonable comfort. I was able to install 2 car seats at the back for my 4 year old daughter and 8 month old boy and my wife could still sit comfortably next to them. I was also able to stuff quite a large amount luggage in the boot despite the presence of the space saver and tyre inflator in there. The good ground clearance also gives a peace of mind factor you don’t get with low slung sedans.

The ride with RFTs is surprisingly good. I keep 30 psi in city and for highway drives pump it up to 34 psi. The soft compound Pirellis and the adaptive suspension ensure a good ride. Only time when the RFTs are pain is when there is a sharp cut on the road, the kind where you don’t slow down fully and take it at 30 kph or so. In such situations you get a huge thud and a shockwave which really unsettles you, since, otherwise the road noise and ride quality was sublime all along. The hard sidewalls of the RFTs don’t absorb the sharp road undulations and transfer the impact to the occupants. So now I make it a point to fully slow down for those sharp cuts on the road. Otherwise I have no complaints about the RFTs. I have bought a space saver with a jack kit and also a Michelin tyre inflator. The jack kit fits under the boot floor storage area. The space saver does take up space, but the boot is huge and if you remove the parcel shelf, you can still fit in a lot of luggage. I think I am going to stick with the RFTs since my usage is mostly highway and on the highway, RFTs don’t hamper the ride and are safer in tyre burst situations.

By the way I’ve already suffered one puncture which I got fixed at the nearby tyre shop. I have a habit of checking tyre pressures before starting off on any highway drive. I had filled up to 35 psi just the week before. On the day before the journey I was prepping up the car and happened to check pressures. One of the tyres was showing 20 psi. So I drove up to the nearby tyre shop. A small nail was the culprit. Surprisingly the TPMS did not throw up a low pressure warning. I always reset the TPMS after every pressure check. 35 PSI to 20 PSI is a huge drop and it really should have thrown up an alert. So now I’ve lost faith in the system and its back to my trusty old analogue gauge.

Mileage hovers between 6.00 kmpl and 8.00 kmpl in thick city traffic and between 10.00 kmpl and 12.00 kmpl on highway drives depending on the way its driven. Eco Pro mode does increase efficiency by 1 or 2 kmpl but its no fun.

I am very happy with the aircon performance. This year’s scorching summer has caused no problems to the powerful aircon. The retractable sun blinds are pretty useful too.

Another thing I have to mention is about the paddle shifters. I had mentioned earlier that the paddle shifts may not have much utility given the brilliance of the AT box. I put the car into manual mode and drove the car using paddle shifts for about 40 kms on the last part of Belgaum – Sirsi leg. I thoroughly enjoyed the manual mode + paddle shifts. The shift action is very smooth and it is super fun swapping cogs up and down the 8 speeder like an F1 racer. At first I was looking at the upshift and downshift suggestions on the cluster (8 gears can be confusing at times) but later I turned off the music and was able to do it intuitively feeding off engine sound. I am pretty sure I will be making good use of the paddle shifts ghat roads and twisty curvy state roads from here on in.

Cliked a few pics from my phone which I would like to share

X3 in front of the magnificent Suvarna Soudha

















Navigation system is nice. Note the fuel efficiency over 170 kms.

[Santoshbhat]

Just completed another brilliant highway drive. As I have now become more and more familiar with the car, I am now slowly able to exploit the true potential of the car. The handling and performance just blew my socks off. BMW just own the drive department .

This time I managed to use the 'Sport +' mode for the first time. From my understanding of the manual, I thought that Sport + turns off DSC (Dynamic Stability control) while activating DTC (Dynamic traction control) in addition to turning all the sport options 'on' that usually are turned on in 'Sport' more. So it allows a bit of wheel spin and the threshold limits for stability control are pushed further up. I never really bother with Sport + since I never really felt the need to burn rubber and drift the car sideways . And I always thought that when you are cruising at good speeds, DSC is a good thing to have looking over you.

During this drive I just decided to try Sport + for the heck of it and I was quite surprised with the results.

The car just seemed to accelerate faster. Now, I've configured Sport mode to alter just the chassis and steering. For the transmission to go into Sport mode I need to move the shifter to the left. So even with the transmission in D , Sport + felt quicker than regular Sport. There's a yellow 'DSC off' that lights up in the cluster. The power surge was definitely more. I felt as if something that was restricting power delivery has now been lifted off and the engine is now allowed to deliver all its power to the wheels. I never got any wheel spin (probably did not give enough throttle), but it felt as if the wheels were digging into the tarmac and shoving the car forward. It felt so good that I almost drove for 250 kms out of a 500 km journey on Sport + . In comfort or Sport (with transmission in sport or D) there is a tiny hint of lag and a controlled acceleration that makes you feel "there's something missing". Its all controlled and linear. Sport + fixes that and makes the car brutal. Driving mode in Sport + and transmission in Sport just brings out the monster in this car.

Now my worry is if I end up driving in Sport + a lot , I lose out on DSC. How bad is it without DSC? I am actually turning a safety feature off and driving fast. This thought made me quite uncomfortable during the journey.

[Santoshbhat]

Did a bit of reading on the subject of DSC and DTC and I must admit BMW has managed to confuse a lot of people. There is a separate button next to the drive mode selector which shows a car skidding and OFF written below it. This switch has 3 modes.

1. DSC full on DTC off. THis is the mode it is in normally , as in whenever you start the car
   
2. Press the button once and you turn on DTC and the stability control becomes more lenient. i.e. it allows for a bit of wheel spin and skid before kicking in. THis is what the manual says about DTC. "The DTC system is a version of the DSC where forward momentum is optimized.The system ensures maximum headway on special road conditions or loose road surfaces,e.g., unplowed snowy roads, but with somewhat limited driving stability. Activating the Dynamic Traction Control DTC provides maximum traction. Driving stability is limited during acceleration and when driving in curves. Therefore drive with appropriate caution.You may find it useful to briefly activate DTC
   Under the following special circumstances:
   ▷ When driving in slush or on uncleared, snow-covered roads.
   ▷ When freeing vehicle from deep snow or driving off from loose grounds.
   ▷ When driving with snow chains."
   
3. Press and hold the button for 10 seconds for completely turning off DSC. You are on your own with no stability control.

Sport + turns on DTC with sport mode. DSC is scaled down and as per the manual "Sporty driving with optimized suspension and adapted engine control with limited driving stabilization.Dynamic Traction Control is switched on. The driver handles several of the stabilization tasks."

Even with DSC turned completely off I believe the stability system still kicks if it detects too much wheel spin and sideways drift.

Well all I can say is that I am glad that Sport + still gives me some amount of stability control and also good to see that BMW have catered to the needs to enthusiast with so many configurable driving mode permutations and combinations .

[karan561]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

The Chrome and satin grill was looking a bit out of place on the M Sport with 'shadowline' elements. Shadowline is basically gloss black window surrounds and roof rails instead of chrome/ satin. I wanted to replace it with an all gloss black grill. So when my sister told me she is visiting us from the US I told her to get me a pair from getbmwparts
Total cost = $ 130.00

Hey Santosh,

Your X3 looks so good after the black grille upgrade

Totally worth the money & the DIY effort

[Santoshbhat]

Originally Posted by karan561

Hey Santosh,

Your X3 looks so good after the black grille upgrade

Totally worth the money & the DIY effort

Hey thanks Karan. Black grills look great on these white BMWs. Your F30 too looks hot with them

You wouldn't believe if I told you that BMW quoted me upwards of Rs. 40K for the same black grills which they sell officially as 'M Sport Accessories'. Makes the DIY effort even more satisfying .

[karan561]

Originally Posted by Santoshbhat

Hey thanks Karan. Black grills look great on these white BMWs. Your F30 too looks hot with them

You wouldn't believe if I told you that BMW quoted me upwards of Rs. 40K for the same black grills which they sell officially as 'M Sport Accessories'. Makes the DIY effort even more satisfying .

40K for the official black grilles

I remember when i had asked at the service centre for my F30 M Performance grilles they had quoted me around INR 14.5k, hence i got mine from ebay for around 5.5K

But 40K for X3 is simply bonkers.