BMW

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BMW X5 – How Many Owners Actually Go Off-Road?

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Just back from Stow. A man in the town centre wanted to talk X5 with me but he turned his nose up when I explained this was the new, rear-wheel drive version, not a four-wheel drive.

No idea why he got so uppety. I reckon less than one per cent of X5 drivers actually use the standard 4×4 ability of the car. It’s a road machine and is exceptionally good at it too.

With CO2 emissions of 149g/km and starting prices around £43,000, the 25d is really the model all sensible X5 buyers should be looking at. OK, it might be a tad less grippy on a wet road but how fast do you want to drive your SUV anyway?

There’s plenty of torque available for overtaking too. It’s obviously not as quick as the 3.0-litre diesel model but just try the 25d – I think you might like it…

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BMW X5 – Quite Possibly The Best SUV Money Can Buy?

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There are some cars I can’t wait to wave goodbye – others I want to keep. As much as I moan about SUVs clogging up our cities (so often driven by people who couldn’t drive off-road if their life depended on it) the X5 is quite simply, the dog’s doodahs.

I’ve clocked up 800 miles in six days, driving to Belfast and back to see my pals around Strangford Lough and remember what the Cotswolds must have been like 50 years ago. Untouched and not spoilt.

You get to know a car pretty well driving that sort of distance. Especially at 3am in the morning, when the M6 is shut and you are in a bizarre traffic jam with 1000 lorry drivers.

There hasn’t been a moment over the last week when I haven’t wanted to own this car. It sips fuel, looks great, has plenty of performance and is just so well built.

I’m a Land Rover man through and through but the X5, even in two-wheel drive form, gives the Range Rover Sport a serious run for the money…

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BMW X5 – How To Lose A Filling On A Motorbike

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The X5 has just had an outing on Oulton Park racetrack. Sadly this was no faster than 30mph in pursuit of British Superbike rider, Jenny Tinmouth. If you haven’t heard of her before, she’s the first and only woman in the series – and the fastest girl around the Isle of Man TT course.

Jenny isn’t used to taking passengers on the back of her 1000cc Honda Fireblade but I can’t say that I have been more scared since I did the bobsleigh in Switzerland a few years back. I did the same sort of track ride with super bike star James Toseland a few years ago but Jenny didn’t ease off the throttle during our ride!

Consequently, I seem to have lost a filling, thanks to our helmets smashing together under extreme braking. My arms are also a few inches longer from hanging on for dear life.

Jenny drives her transport van like a lunatic too.At least I could keep up with her in the X5 when she was at the wheel, although she did have to ease off a bit because her racing bike was in the back…

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BMW X5 – 2WD 25d Sips Fuel Like A Parsimonious Scotsman…

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A lengthy 336 miles in to my journey from Gloucestershire to Northern Ireland and the fuel gauge on the X5 is finally registering under half full! That means I should be able to squeeze almost 600 miles out of the BMW – how the hell does it do that?

It’s because the 25d simply throws the rule book out of the window. Okay, it’s the first X5 to be powered by a four-cylinder engine and the first to be offered with two-wheel drive only. However, it feels every inch as good as the big brother six cylinder.

The entry-level X5 is powered by a 2.0-litre twin turbo that sips fuel but still pulls well. 0-60mph takes just over eight seconds, although there is plenty of torque there for overtaking when required. Unless you really need 4×4 for off-load driving, I’ll bet that you would never know the 25d is rear-wheel drive only anyway.

The eight-speed gearbox feels perfectly suited to the engine too, smooth, fast and efficient. A pseudo all-wheel drive? Maybe but you won’t regret it at the filling station…

 

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BMW X5 – A Poor Relation At Posh Daylesfords…

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I’d like to think a £50,000 BMW wouldn’t look out of place in any car park – that was until I went to uber-posh farm shop Daylesford yesterday. The place is owned by the Bamford family, of JCB fame, and is on the edge of the Cotswolds.

David Cameron and his cronies come here (when they are not sending images by email) and the car park is packed with auto exotica. Lots of it. The X5 looked like a poor relation parked next to a Bentley and a 911 Turbo.

I soon realised Daylesford isn’t the kind farm shop I would visit on a regular basis. Apart from the comedy  prices (£1.99 for an Eccles cake!) it’s totally devoid of ‘farm’ atmosphere and packed with customers straight from a Harvey Nics catalogue.

It’s like all the character has been sucked out and replaced with Botox – eek! To be honest, I couldn’t wait to get back in the Beemer with my expensive coffee and head off to a proper farm again.

Oh and watch out for the matriarch woman in charge of the shop floor. You’ll certainly hear her coming and then wish you’d gone to Waitrose instead…

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BMW X5 – As Good As It Gets?

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It’s terribly unfair to compare the out-going Shogun to the X5 but both cars were parked on the drive this morning. I know I’d want the Mitsubishi to plough around a field and the X5 as my everyday drive.

And although I live on a farm, there are scant opportunities to go into the rough stuff. Which means there is only one car to choose in the real world. The BMW.

While Apple seem to muck up the iPhone with every new model they release (have you heard about the ‘bendy’ iPhone 6?), BMW just make the X5 better and better with every reincarnation.

I’m already excited about driving it to Ireland next week and I’ve not even sat behind the wheel yet. Sorry Shogun, it’s time to say goodbye…

 

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Thursday – Choose Your Model Carefully!

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The X1 has just been collected and it turned out to be a lot better than I had expected. I say that because I couldn’t see the point of a premium brand mini SUV  – especially one without four-wheel drive like our test car.

Solid, classy, refined – but then you wouldn’t expect anything else from a BMW, would you? The X1 is another chip off the BMW block, although some of the plastics inside the cabin are a little below par for the German brand.

The X1 drives more like a hatchback than a sports utility vehicle, which will appeal to buyers who don’t want a high-seat position and ponderous body roll on cornering.

It’s very easy to live with and feels very safe too – no wonder it picked up a five-star NCAP rating. All X1s have six airbags, stability control and Cornering Brake Control.

I’m now wondering if I would actually opt for the xDrive, four-wheel drive model. The sDrive rear-wheel driver series we drove has exceptional fuel economy and feels surefooted enough.

That said, if you want something to cope with a snowy lane in winter, opt for the xDrive. Our test car might look like an off-roader but the sDrive is exactly the opposite! Choose your model carefully…

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Wednesday – Squeak This

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If I’ve inherited one trait from my father it is a lack of tolerance for anything in a car that squeaks or rattles. I lost count of how many times we had to stop his Hillman Husky while Dad pushed and pressed various dashboard parts, searching for the source of a rattle.

Over the years I have found Renaults to be among the worst for this, closely followed by Nissan. Which is why after owning four BMWs, I was a little surprised our X1 test car suddenly developed a gentle squeak in the centre console today.

You want to ignore it but it’s just a scratch you have to itch. On a serious note, it’s probably rather dangerous too. The car has only covered 1300 miles from new and costing almost £30k, you’d probably be heading straight back to the BMW dealership you bought it from.

The X1 is otherwise becoming more impressive by the day. I’m averaging 53.1mpg on long distance runs and that’s without the help of an eco button on the dashboard – which I only spotted because of the squeak! That adjusts all engine settings, even the air conditioning, to maximise economy. Much more fun trying to up the mpg yourself though….

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Tuesday – More Fuel For Thought

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Last week I heard from an old friend who I knew as a teenager in Ross-on-Wye. He used to service my father’s Citroen CX – a car so complex under the bonnet that not even Haynes sold a user manual!

The CX has a spinning ball speedometer, self-centering steering and was, quite frankly, bonkers. My  friend was brave enough to risk tinkering with crazy French engineering.

I just wonder what he would make of the X1 engine. Like every modern car, it’s so complex that filling the water bottle is about as far as most people go these days. Besides, it makes a mess of your warranty.

The 1.6 diesel in our X1 is a lot more lively than I thought it was going to be, at 11.5 seconds to 60mph. I’d probably opt for the 2.0d if I was buying an X1 but the 1.8 would be a good compromise.

We are currently averaging 43mpg, rather less than the 57.6mpg that BMW claim. However, I’m expecting over 550mpg from this tank of diesel, which is excellent. BMW claim 772 miles, which would be quite remarkable.

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Monday – I Lied…

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Yes, it’s true, I did. And it wasn’t in a bad way. Just a little white lie because I couldn’t own up to my rufty-tufty X1 NOT being a four-wheel drive.

I was filling up in Oxfordshire this morning when a woman in a Toyota RAV4 asked me if I liked my new BMW. She was looking for a replacement for her SUV and thought the X1 looked the perfect solution.

She lived on a smallholding near Chipping Norton and needed ‘something 4×4 for the lower field’ – whatever that means. Anyway, she wanted to know what the X1 was like on a muddy track and I just couldn’t own up to driving a car that looked like a four-wheel drive but actually wasn’t.

I advised her to avoid the two-wheel drive version (which is true!) for her muddy exploits and suggested the 4×4 model would be very suitable, if a little more thirsty.

I also raved about the driving experience, the beautifully crafted interior and a decent-sized boot. Which was all true too…