[Aditya]

Exceptional, unbiased & detailed reviews of cars that don't have an official review have started going to our homepage reviews box. It's the ultimate stamp of trust from Team-BHP (as a platform) because lakhs of visitors every month check out reviews from there & make purchase decisions.

Your review has also gone here. Thank you so much for sharing .

[Tkm]

Amazing review
You have spent so much time on the research
Choosing a premium car is no joke
I am impressed by the legwork your family has put in before taking the plunge
Enjoy your car...it's a great choice
BMWs are anyways BHPans fav car
Wishing you many years of joy

[KKapadia]

Excellent review. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable car in eco pro and even sports +. Wishing you many happy miles. Good choice to opt over a Merc any day, even though mercs have better interiors. Service is a nightmare from what I hear if you are conscious and aware about your cars. The ignorants just swipe their card and carry on. Never faced any such issues with a BMW after 6+ years of ownership.

[worldcrawler]

So finally here is the beauty; our Blue Bolt a 2021 BMW X3 30i, took delivery on the auspicious day of Janmashtami:

Congratulation friend! Welcome to the family
X3 is a great companion and I can correlate with most of your feelings about the car and competition.

[CEF_Beasts]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Exceptional, unbiased & detailed reviews of cars that don't have an official review have started going to our homepage reviews box. It's the ultimate stamp of trust from Team-BHP (as a platform) because lakhs of visitors every month check out reviews from there & make purchase decisions.

Your review has also gone here. Thank you so much for sharing .

Attachment 2230625

Thank you, will surely feel happy if it can help others in their purchase!

Originally Posted by Tkm

Amazing review
You have spent so much time on the research
Choosing a premium car is no joke
I am impressed by the legwork your family has put in before taking the plunge
Enjoy your car...it's a great choice
BMWs are anyways BHPans fav car
Wishing you many years of joy

Thank You

Originally Posted by KKapadia

Excellent review. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable car in eco pro and even sports +. Wishing you many happy miles. Good choice to opt over a Merc any day, even though mercs have better interiors. Service is a nightmare from what I hear if you are conscious and aware about your cars. The ignorants just swipe their card and carry on. Never faced any such issues with a BMW after 6+ years of ownership.

Thank You! Yes Merc service is a nightmare, BMW’s BSI and BRI are much better than Merc’s service packs and service centres of Mercs atleast Mumbai overcharge by huge sums! My friend had a W212 E200 and every 6 months some or the other thing would go wrong with it and he would end up paying lakhs to get it fixed and back on the road! But more than aftersales, it was the fact that GLC wasn’t offering anything substantial other than a few features like 360 deg camera and massaging seats whereas X3 was offering a good power bump over it. Stacking both together, features vs power for a difference of 2Lakhs made the BMW worth the money. Although had their been the GLC300, then it would’ve been much tougher to decide!

Originally Posted by worldcrawler

Congratulation friend! Welcome to the family
X3 is a great companion and I can correlate with most of your feelings about the car and competition.

Thank You, glad to join the family! Read through your review, your attention to detail is phenomenal and pictures are all drool worthy, especially the one at the starting!!

[mobike008]

Congratulations and welcome to the G01 X3 Community. Fantastic detailing and nice thoughts on the competition vehicles. Finally, for a driving enthusiast usually the buck stops at a BMW in premium segment

Like many of us auto enthusiasts, I was always averse to SUV's till a few years back when I got my Mazda CX-9 which changed my opinion about how SUV's drive (Prior to that my mental image was always how I felt driving the SUV's back in India like Scorpio, Safari, XUV, Fortuner etc)

After owning the Mazda, I realized an SUV can drive almost like a sedan. But, after getting the X3 M40i, I am convinced that distinction between a sedan and SUV is fast fading

On the SUV handling topic, here is an interesting video of what they can do on a track

https://youtu.be/ncofxAMpiAE

Here is a link to my ownership just incase you are interested to read :

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-...ml#post4990969

Originally Posted by Axe77

I am really warming up to the current gen X3 actually. It’s a perfectly sized car and seems like a particularly sweet product, specially in petrol. The Phytonic blue is by far the best color and combined with that mocha interior, the combination of choice in my view in the X3. Your car looks absolutely dope in that combo!!

My only gripe with the X3 is the level of rear seat comfort but that is a typical issue in almost all SUVs. I hope the seat at least reclines decently enough to make it more comfortable.

Are your FE figures off the MID or actual tank to tank measure. 9 - 11 in Mumbai traffic is excellent efficiency. I’ll wait till you give updates on your hard driving as well.

BMW has achieved some magic on FE numbers. Despite a 6-liter engine & ridiculously fast SUV, I am so amazed at the fuel efficiency which is usually around 20mpg in city and spirals up to a crazy 27-28mpg on highway drives. None of the competition can match these fuel efficiency numbers here in US.

My X3 rear seats have the recline feature and as CEF mentioned is probably an important feature they skimmed for India market. It does make a lot of difference in rear leg room and comfort.

Also agree on your comment about perfect size car (In my wife's opinion, its small..LOL!) but, that's what makes it more pleasurable to throw into corners and overall handling compared to say an X5 which we have in the family too.

[Axe77]

Originally Posted by mobike008

BMW has achieved some magic on FE numbers. Despite a 6-liter engine I am so amazed at the fuel efficiency which is usually around 20mpg in city and spirals up to a crazy 27-28mpg on highway drives. None of the competition can match these fuel efficiency numbers here in US.

Wow! I did a quick google search and in desi speak, that translates to 8.5 - ~11.5 kmpl. Incredible for a refined and powerful 6 cylinder petrol engine. Even if I discount the Seattle to Lower Parel factor for “in-city” figures, that’s still phenomenal.

Originally Posted by mobike008

My X3 rear seats have the recline feature and as CEF mentioned is probably an important feature they skimmed for India market. It does make a lot of difference in rear leg room and comfort.

Yes - I realised after that post that they have skimped this feature in India. It’s logic defying considering it is our market in particular where an X3 is much more likely to be chauffeur driven than a western market. Surely this is not the feature of choice to be eliminated in a market like ours, even if cost cutting.

On an OT note, I just realised your location is Seattle WA. I have only ever visited the US once - for literally 3.5 days in and out for the Chicago marathon in October 2019. But if I ever visit for a family vacation (I hope to in the next few years) my base will 99% be my very close relative’s home in Seattle. Would love to meet up if and when the trip materialises.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by Axe77

Wow! I did a quick google search and in desi speak, that translates to 8.5 - ~11.5 kmpl. Incredible for a refined and powerful 6 cylinder petrol engine. Even if I discount the Seattle to Lower Parel factor for “in-city” figures, that’s still phenomenal.


Yes - I realised after that post that they have skimped this feature in India. It’s logic defying considering it is our market in particular where an X3 is much more likely to be chauffeur driven than a western market. Surely this is not the feature of choice to be eliminated in a market like ours, even if cost cutting.

Absolutely. The worst FE that I got (Incidentally couple of tankfuls before was 17mpg) and best I got was 30mpg on a highway drive with 80% of time on Ecopro mode. In short, for such a beast of an engine, I am thrilled at FE figures as I see some of the American muscle counter parts return horrendous mileages in range of 10-12 mpg and competitors are slightly better (Audi SQ5, Merc GL63 AMG, Porsche Macan's return around 17-21mpg) which is way below.

As you may know, in US unlike in India MPG figures quoted by manufacturers is almost 80% accurate.

Therefore, I never hesitate to dig into the gas pedal

Originally Posted by Axe77

On an OT note, I just realised your location is Seattle WA. I have only ever visited the US once - for literally 3.5 days in and out for the Chicago marathon in October 2019. But if I ever visit for a family vacation (I hope to in the next few years) my base will 99% be my very close relative’s home in Seattle. Would love to meet up if and when the trip materialises.

Nice to know you visited US for a Marathon. But, I think you should have done the Boston or NYC Marathon which is way more popular than Chicago.

Yes, I live in Seattle and moved here a couple of months ago. Pacific North-West (PNW) is one of the most gorgeous places in US and you will love it here when you visit as the outdoors here is simply breathtaking.

Imagine this place to be a combination of Simla/Manali/Goa/Munnar/Ooty. All that landscape rolled into a single state. Weird analogy but, I hope you got the drift. Lol!

Please keep me posted and I would love to host you whenever you make the trip.

[CEF_Beasts]

Just returned from a morning-evening Lonavla trip, since we left around 7:30AM roads were pretty empty and the highway + ghats section was a blast to drive on.

On the return leg traffic had increased so just let the car calmly cruise at 100kmph throughout the expressway.

[samarjitdhar]

Congrats on your X3 30i. Its a superb SUV but just be aware of the costs you incur with the run-flat tires given driving on Indian roads can cause a lot of damage to them. I had to get my front tires replaced recently and cost me close to a thousand dollars.

That said I have owned the X3 30i for almost 3 years now and am in love with it. Like somebody said, it almost drives like a sedan. I have done numerous road trips up and down the Australian east coast many of them being 2 lane winded ones and the X3 handles curves with style. I have never ever felt any body roll with it. It is a breeze to drive on long highways and with adaptive cruise control on there is absolutely no fatigue. I have done trips close to 1000 kms in a single day. I have driven it at 110-120 KMPH in pouring rain and not once did it feel out of control. The extra power on inclines is really handy and with a 6.3s odd 0-100 KMPH speed, most of the time I am able to get extremely good head starts on traffic lights.

But sad to see that BMW has skimped so many features in the Indian version that too in 2021 . I have the 2018 version and I got the dealer demo car which was fully loaded. It came with panoramic sunroof, traffic assist, M-sport package, adjustable suspension, heated seats and a tons of other bells and whistles. Dang, I should have put up an ownership review but have been too busy with work. Some day.

The main gripe I have is with the bluetooth connectivity which randomly drops connection in the middle of a call. Apple Car Play option was another couple two hundred dollars which I passed but it sounds like BMW has not really done a great job about it.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

Congrats on your X3 30i. Its a superb SUV but just be aware of the costs you incur with the run-flat tires given driving on Indian roads can cause a lot of damage to them. I had to get my front tires replaced recently and cost me close to a thousand dollars.

What happened to your front tyres and why did you have to replace them and after how many miles? I have run flats (Pirellis) and have no issues with them at all after clocking close to 9000 miles on my X3.

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

That said I have owned the X3 30i for almost 3 years now and am in love with it. Like somebody said, it almost drives like a sedan. I have done numerous road trips up and down the Australian east coast many of them being 2 lane winded ones and the X3 handles curves with style. I have never ever felt any body roll with it. It is a breeze to drive on long highways and with adaptive cruise control on there is absolutely no fatigue. I have done trips close to 1000 kms in a single day. I have driven it at 110-120 KMPH in pouring rain and not once did it feel out of control. The extra power on inclines is really handy and with a 6.3s odd 0-100 KMPH speed, most of the time I am able to get extremely good head starts on traffic lights.

Agree with you on this one. Infact, I have done unmentionable speeds in heavy rains and the car sticks like a glue to the road thanks to the amazing xdrive.

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

Dang, I should have put up an ownership review but have been too busy with work. Some day.

You should. The forum is already flooded with X3 reviews and another perspective is always welcome.

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

The main gripe I have is with the Bluetooth connectivity which randomly drops connection in the middle of a call. Apple Car Play option was another couple two hundred dollars which I passed but it sounds like BMW has not really done a great job about it.

Absolutely no such issue with my car (2021 model). Infact, I still get amazed at the seamless Bluetooth connectivity. When I enter my car wearing my Power beats Pro earbuds, the call auto transfers to car and vice-versa. I tried switching between multiple devices (my wife's Airpods, Switching from one phone to another and every transition is butter smooth) and never had any issues with Bluetooth connectivity.

You should have got the Carplay as it's brilliant and equally seamless. As you may know, BMW is partial to Apple and HUD and Instrument Cluster displays Apple Maps. If you use Google Maps, only the iDrive displays maps as BMW does not support Gmaps for HUD.

[samarjitdhar]

Originally Posted by mobike008

What happened to your front tyres and why did you have to replace them and after how many miles? I have run flats (Pirellis) and have no issues with them at all after clocking close to 9000 miles on my X3.

Just normal wear and tear. The treads had gotten almost near the admissible limit and wouldn't have lasted till the next service. At least that is what I was told at my last service. My X3 has already run for about 15.5K miles. I guess it was time and I did not want to take any chances with run flats.

Originally Posted by mobike008

You should. The forum is already flooded with X3 reviews and another perspective is always welcome.

Hopefully over the New Year break if I can get some time. Fingers crossed.

Originally Posted by mobike008

Absolutely no such issue with my car (2021 model). Infact, I still get amazed at the seamless Bluetooth connectivity. When I enter my car wearing my Power beats Pro earbuds, the call auto transfers to car and vice-versa. I tried switching between multiple devices (my wife's Airpods, Switching from one phone to another and every transition is butter smooth) and never had any issues with Bluetooth connectivity.

You should have got the Carplay as it's brilliant and equally seamless. As you may know, BMW is partial to Apple and HUD and Instrument Cluster displays Apple Maps. If you use Google Maps, only the iDrive displays maps as BMW does not support Gmaps for HUD.

That's interesting. I had the issues earlier and most likely it was due to the firmware. Haven't driven that much in the past 18 months due to COVID except for 2 or 3 long trips hence haven't encountered this issue in the recent past. Maybe the service center already upgraded the firmware. I am not entirely sure if Apple Maps is fully updated for Australia and Google Maps tend to work better out here. Currently it costs a whopping 330 dollars as an add on so will think about it later when I have cash to spare.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

Just normal wear and tear. The treads had gotten almost near the admissible limit and wouldn't have lasted till the next service. At least that is what I was told at my last service. My X3 has already run for about 15.5K miles. I guess it was time and I did not want to take any chances with run flats.

Replacement of tyres at just 15.5k miles? That's unusual. Maybe the area that you live in has really bad roads but, most people don't change tyres till atleast 30K miles out here in the States. Mine after 9K miles feels and looks as good as new.

Originally Posted by samarjitdhar

That's interesting. I had the issues earlier and most likely it was due to the firmware. Haven't driven that much in the past 18 months due to COVID except for 2 or 3 long trips hence haven't encountered this issue in the recent past. Maybe the service center already upgraded the firmware. I am not entirely sure if Apple Maps is fully updated for Australia and Google Maps tend to work better out here. Currently it costs a whopping 330 dollars as an add on so will think about it later when I have cash to spare.

Which year model is your X3? It's actually quite frustrating to drive such an expensive car and not have the basic features like Car Play. I would recommend you to get the car play installed whenever you get a chance.

Mine was exactly opposite with respect to clocking miles. Since the pandemic (March 2020), I have clocked nearly 35,000 miles (55,000kms) in last 18 months as I have done just too many long road trips.

[el lobo 6061]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Replacement of tyres at just 15.5k miles? That's unusual.

Not at all.

In India RFT don't last more than 25,000 kms.

If you really enjoy the BMW and drive spiritedly 20,000 kms is max life for RFT.

Which is why most people upgrade to tubeless. Cost less, last longer and most importantly increases overall comfort.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by el lobo 6061

Not at all.

In India RFT don't last more than 25,000 kms.

If you really enjoy the BMW and drive spiritedly 20,000 kms is max life for RFT.

Which is why most people upgrade to tubeless. Cost less, last longer and most importantly increases overall comfort.

Darn! Wish I knew this before, I would have not bought a Bimmer

Jokes apart, this is news to me and I will clarify this with the dealership here when I go for my 1st service on December 10th and will update the findings on my ownership thread.