[Harsha89]

Originally Posted by mobike008

1. Michelin Pilot Sport 4S

Thank you for your advice. I’m not sure if Michelin Pilot Sport 4S is available here. I checked online and found the regular Michelin Pilot Sport 4 - but a trusted local tyre shop confirmed it’s a grey market tyre and quality is a doubt, a risk I’m not ready to take given the high cost here in India.

Pirelli RFT are readily available at 26,000₹/tyre. Looks like RFT is my only option now. If it lasts me for 30,000 km, then I’m all for it.

My Best

[CEF_Beasts]

Originally Posted by Harsha89

Pirelli RFT are readily available at 26,000₹/tyre. Looks like RFT is my only option now. If it lasts me for 30,000 km, then I’m all for it.

Congratulations on your X3

Do check out the Michelin Latitude Sport 3, they are specifically for SUVs. They have the same 105W load rating as the stock Bridgestones RFTs.

Other option like you said is Pirelli RFTs only. 245/50/R19 for sure has very limited options in the tyre market.

[CEF_Beasts]

With the X3 30i discontinued by BMW India, my appreciation for the B48 + xDrive combination just went up multi-fold! Ofcourse the B48 + sDrive (RWD) continues in other cars like the 330Li, 530i and 630i.

But with the X4 permanently discontinued and B48 + xDrive gone from the X3, this combination is no longer available in India!

B48 + RWD no doubt gives a strong pushback into the seat in the sedans, in comparison the B48 + AWD doesn’t give such a strong kickback instead it gives acceleration in a very linear but strong manner!

I realised the JoyTown events were to show people what real BMW cars were (not are), because everything has only gone downhill from there for BMW as a brand in India! The Sheer Driving Pleasure that BMW stood for is slowly yet steadily disappearing:

- G20 SWB 3er discontinued
- 530d discontinued
- 630d discontinued
- M5C discontinued
- U11 X1 and it’s puny engines
- X4 discontinued permanently
- X6 discontinued permanently
- X3 30i discontinued

I had thought of keeping this car till the 5 year mark, after which the car will be out of BSI+ and BRI, the discontinuation of this engine in the X3 will definitely make me hold the car for a longer duration of time than actually intended…

Meanwhile the car has run a lot less than it ought to, just 56xx kms in a year and a half. The car was bought thinking we would be using it as a daily, but my dad changed jobs and the original daily driver (Fortuner) was retained.

Also, I realised that these cars just do not like traffic, they need open roads which are not possible to attain anywhere in Mumbai other than the freeway and BW Sea-link!

Waiting for my final-year at college to finally get over in May-end / early-June, and then finally start putting some serious kilometres under the B48’s belt

Some pictures till then:

[Harsha89]

@CEF_Beasts Thanks for your update. I follow your posts regularly and have read your ownership thread countless times. I was about to go for a 2023 BMW 530i, but dropped the plan since I scraped the underbody quite a few times during the test drive and also due to the multiple feature deletions.
Later, I found an ad online for a BMW X3 2020 March registered and has run 15,000 km. Vehicle was pristine and felt as good as new. I went ahead with the purchase and it’s been a month. It’s a bliss to drive the X3. It feels so nimble and agile - almost like a performance hatchback and doesn’t feel one bit like a large SAV. The overall interior ambience, noise insulation and drive comfort are akin to the 530i rather than the 3 series. Like you said, the 30i engine has made it a rare breed and god knows if it even be released again in the same guise in future cars. Probably watered down with a hybrid motor. Some pictures of my X3 :

[CEF_Beasts]

Originally Posted by Harsha89

I found an ad online for a BMW X3 2020 March registered and has run 15,000 km. Vehicle was pristine and felt as good as new. I went ahead with the purchase and it’s been a month. It’s a bliss to drive the X3. It feels so nimble and agile - almost like a performance hatchback and doesn’t feel one bit like a large SAV.

Is your X3’s colour Sophisto Grey? Or are my eyes playing with me and it’s the Sapphire Black?

[Harsha89]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

Is your X3’s colour Sophisto Grey? Or are my eyes playing with me and it’s the Sapphire Black?

It is indeed Sophisto Grey. Under shade and later parts of the day, it appears black. Another USP is it hides scratches and dust very well due to being a metallic grey.

[Srinivas C]

Originally Posted by Harsha89

Hello X3 Owners,
I recently bought a pre owned BMW X3 30i (2020). The tyre currently are Bridgestone Alenza RFT which make a loud droning noise and significant cabin vibration beyond 100 km/hr which I concluded was due to heavy tyre wear at the rear.

Can you describe the 'loud droning noise'. My X3 started some kind of a 'rolling noise' after 5K. I showed it to the service guy who drove the car at various speeds and then claims it is normal and happens with all X3s and is caused by the tyres. Unfortunately the sound does get heard by someone sitting in the passenger seat. Only the person driving seems to hear it. It also does not get captured in a phone recorder. I told him it sounds like the low level wheel bearing sound or differential sound that used to be made by other cars. His response: " I have not seem wheel bearing problems in an X3" !

[Harsha89]

Originally Posted by Srinivas C

I told him it sounds like the low level wheel bearing sound or differential sound that used to be made by other cars. His response: " I have not seem wheel bearing problems in an X3" !

My X3 had uneven tyre tread wear between the front and rear wheels - rear being more worn out due to the rear wheel bias. When I accelerate hard or cross around 90 km/hr, the tyre generates a noise of comparable to a worn wheel bearing. This is especially evident in bad roads and concrete highways due to the coarse surface. After the tyre change, vehicle has become pin drop silent even at triple digit speeds.

Hence I suggest you examine the tyre tread and change if required. X drive system is extremely sensitive to tyre tread difference between front and rear and the sound which you experienced may even be the mechanical differential noise generated by the X drive system.

[el lobo 6061]

Originally Posted by Harsha89

After the tyre change, vehicle has become pin drop silent even at triple digit speeds.

Which tyres did you go for?

[Harsha89]

Originally Posted by el lobo 6061

Which tyres did you go for?

Pirelli P7 Cinturato RFT 245/50/R19

[KKapadia]

Originally Posted by Harsha89

My X3 had uneven tyre tread wear between the front and rear wheels - rear being more worn out due to the rear wheel bias. When I accelerate hard or cross around 90 km/hr, the tyre generates a noise of comparable to a worn wheel bearing. This is especially evident in bad roads and concrete highways due to the coarse surface. After the tyre change, vehicle has become pin drop silent even at triple digit speeds.

Hence I suggest you examine the tyre tread and change if required. X drive system is extremely sensitive to tyre tread difference between front and rear and the sound which you experienced may even be the mechanical differential noise generated by the X drive system.

You should try and rotate the tyres front to back. Then check if the droning sound persists. If it goes then it’s the tyres. If it’s there then it’s a wheel bearing. I have had a rear wheel bearing replaced at 4 years.

[CEF_Beasts]

A Visit to Club Mahindra Tungi, built along the Pawna Lake, Lonavla

The last highway drive was done 5 months ago, so naturally not only the car but we as well were longing for a highway drive.

Usually we do these drives on a Sunday, but I was returning back to college on Sunday (had come for a short week), so decided to do the drive on Saturday. Initially the drive was supposed to be a city drive, since my mother didn’t want to go outside city limits.

My college placements are ongoing (finally were for me) and the morning was going to be busy, since I had planned to apply off-campus as well. In the morning I woke up around 8:30AM and was doing some chores when my phone started going berserk around 9AM. Long story short, I got placed in a company and then even my mother couldn’t say no to the Highway Drive that I had already planned. Finally I can start paying for my own fuel atleast . And in the near future welcome home my own hard-earned car as well, can’t wait for that day to come.

Returning back to the excursion, we left home around 11:30AM. With not much traffic on a Saturday surprisingly, quickly reached the toll exiting the city limits into Navi Mumbai.

Stopped for some cold coffee, at the McDonalds, just after the Kalamboli (Kamothe) Toll Plaza, where I had an interesting encounter with the same ramp where last time around I had noticed some wheel slippage https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-...ml#post5272230 . This time I decided to reverse up the ramp to park. While doing so, as soon as the car’s bumper reached the ramp, the car auto-braked hard. It’s so hard that everyone inside the car gets jolted! In my initial review, I had mentioned that the auto-braking while reversing works 8/10 times. I thought it must have braked by mistake, put the car in drive straightened out a bit and tried reversing up. Again the car auto-braked very hard, other cars had started honking by now and were clearly frustrated, I quietly put the car in D and moved out from there. Now, I know I could’ve switched off the auto-brake feature but that would’ve unnecessarily held the traffic, since the setting is deep inside the menus. Parked elsewhere on the road and grabbed the required items and quickly joined the expressway.

The most deceiving ramp I have ever seen, even this photo is not doing any justice to it:


Like always, I put the car into Sports mode to stiffen the suspension out on the expressway to arrest the bounciness of the rear end that is usually felt at higher speeds in comfort mode. I always praise the engine and gearbox, won’t do it again, because it’s just splendid at what it does best. Getting to drive at 90-115kmph is something I had longed for.

The resort was beautifully built, but with all these resorts the access roads are always a mess! At one point we encountered a big fat Volvo bus come at us from the opposite direction with no room for even a bike to pass. The cars behind me reversed and somehow managed, meanwhile I took the car down into a small field via a steep ramp. The approach and departure angles of the X3 definitely impressed me and had I been in a sedan there was no way I would’ve gotten into the same field and exited without damaging my bumpers. The AWD surely helped in giving some extra confidence as well!

Had a sumptuous buffet (the spread was really good with Jain, Veg and Non-Veg options for everyone) and left the Resort for the drive back home.

Time for some pictures of the property and roads…

The reception of the resort:


The view overlooking the Pawna Lake from various angles, I can only imagine how beautiful this view must be in the monsoon season! :









A nearby hill, as seen from the property, that people trek on to reach the top:



It’s late March and it was scorching outside, some pictures of the car from various angles:











An example of the roads we had to go through, to reach our destination, with sufficient ground clearance and comfort mode engaged the car negotiated the same with aplomb:



A quick stop on the way back at the food mall for another cold coffee and some dry-fruits shopping:



These European cars have really sensitive auto-headlights! Even with plenty of light on the road, the lights turn on at the first opportunity they find:



The setting sun after entering the city limits, with its reflection captured on the car’s bonnet:

Expressway Madness

My god, people have forgotten how to drive on expressways! So many road hogs, hogging the rightmost lane, even a honk or high beam flash wouldn’t make them move out of the rightmost lane. The centre lane was mostly occupied by trucks and that would only leave the left-most lane for overtaking, something which I have never liked to use for overtaking. Also people have forgotten how and when to use indicators and look at their ORVMs and IRVMs! I was already in the centre lane, overtaking a slow driver (in a Venue) who was following an even slower driver. As soon I reached the Venue’s rear bumper (with me in the centre lane with him in the rightmost lane), he pulled out of the lane into the centre lane where I was already present without giving any indicator, thankfully I was able to brake in time! Heck, even truckers use their indicators while switching lanes on the expressway, the number of cars that didn’t use them on this one expressway drive was obnoxious to say the least!

A prime example of the right-most lane being occupied by the hoggers:



One can do nothing much about it, because no amount of honking or flashing your high beams will make them move out of the lane and one has to overtake from the other lanes originally not meant for overtaking:



Meanwhile, on the single-lane interior roads after entering Lonavla, right till the resort, people love driving up close to your rear bumper. As soon as I would see a few cars following me for sometime, I would quickly stop on the left and let them pass. Better to drive with a cool mind and not worry about someone kissing your bumper. Although I must admit on the way back on the same single lane road, I lost my cool on a fully-loaded Ertiga cab driver who was driving way too dangerously behind me and was honking and flashing his high beams almost every few seconds, because he wasn’t getting enough space to overtake me and I wasn’t driving fast enough for him. There was an Alto already ahead of me and I was maintaining a safe distance from him. I gave the Ertiga driver a taste of his own medicine by stopping on the side, giving him room to overtake and then give him some continuous wind-tone honks. He didn’t expect me to honk at him at all and he scooted away in a series of very dangerous overtakes on blind corners. There was a Mercedes V213 E-Class following the Ertiga and when I stopped and let the Ertiga overtake me, the driver of the Merc laughed and gave me a thumbs up! Now I will admit I don’t lose my cool very often, but there are some idiots on the road who just get on your nerves !

————————————— X —————————————

With this ~224km drive, the car has reached the 57xx km mark comfortably. The fuel used was XP95, and fuel economy returned overall (city driving + expressway) in this journey was 9.8kmpl.

In recent drives, wasn’t able to connect with the car because all were undertaken within city limits. All it took was one such expressway drive to re-kindle the joy of owning such a beautiful piece of machinery! Any praise showered on the B48 + ZF8 is always less, they are truly a match made-in-heaven, out on the expressway it leaves people truly astonished when it shows its true potential. A single-eyed (one DRL had conked off) RR Velar put up a good fight to keep up, it just couldn’t !

[CosmicWizard]

Originally Posted by CEF_Beasts

Long story short, I got placed in a company and then even my mother couldn’t say no to the Highway Drive that I had already planned. Finally I can start paying for my own fuel atleast . And in the near future welcome home my own hard-earned car as well, can’t wait for that day to come.

Congratulations man! Wishing you a happy and successful career ahead!

This time I decided to reverse up the ramp to park. While doing so, as soon as the car’s bumper reached the ramp, the car auto-braked hard. It’s so hard that everyone inside the car gets jolted! In my initial review, I had mentioned that the auto-braking while reversing works 8/10 times. I thought it must have braked by mistake, put the car in drive straightened out a bit and tried reversing up. Again the car auto-braked very hard, other cars had started honking by now and were clearly frustrated, I quietly put the car in D and moved out from there. Now, I know I could’ve switched off the auto-brake feature but that would’ve unnecessarily held the traffic, since the setting is deep inside the menus. Parked elsewhere on the road and grabbed the required items and quickly joined the expressway.

I too have been at the receiving end of this auto-brake in my X3 a few times. Once there was this parking attendant guiding me while reversing and inspite of him being clearly outside the drive path, auto-brake will simply refuse to let me back any further. And then of course once in a similar highway restaurant parking ramp where I had to turn it off to get out.....but then again, it has also saved me a couple of times from scraping the corners in tight parking spots so it cannot be left switched off for good.

[Shubz]

Originally Posted by Harsha89

Pirelli P7 Cinturato RFT 245/50/R19

How have they been behaving? Any adverse issues? Thx

[CEF_Beasts]

Haven't updated the thread in a while so here it goes...

The car hit the 6000kms mark on 18th April, the day I got to meet @vishy76 and his Fiat President. @vishy76 drove the X3 as well. The X3 didn't see any Expressway till August '23 ever since my last update on 27th March '23, all the running was within the city itself.

May '23 was pretty much action-less other than catching a movie at the drive-in theatre in BKC.

In June '23 the car's front right tire had got a puncture, on starting the car to take it within the city-limits the TPMS system gave the dreaded warning. The front right tire was at 23psi compared to the rest of the tires which were at 31/32 psi. Had the puncture (a nail) removed at the new Indian Oil pump on JVLR.

Also got to test-drive the new U11 X1 MSport 18d in mid-June. Detailed post on the X1 has been posted in its respective thread https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post5568885 (Next-gen BMW X1, now launched at 45.90 lakhs!)

At the beginning of July '23 the car hit the 7000kms mark. One of the key fob's battery had got discharged, so duly changed it as it had popped up a notification on the instrument cluster.

A few random pictures

In mid-July just one day before leaving for a break to Australia, I had taken the car to meet my grandparents. While I had parked the car inside the gated society in the designated guest parking, someone managed to hit the car and was no where to be seen when I was leaving to go back home! This was the first dent that any of our cars has gotten while I had taken the car out alone, even if I was not behind the wheel at that time, it was a pretty sad day for me. I didn't check the CCTV camera because I was in a hurry to go back home since we were leaving early morning the next day and had several things to do as well. The same day I searched the forum for any shop which does Paintless Dent Removal, I came across a post where one of the forum member got the dent on his VW Taigun removed by Mr. Sudhir Gaikwad who has a workshop in Pune.

Since Phytonic Blue is a slightly darker colour, the shadows were hiding the dent but focus light on the right rear quarter and one could see the dent perfectly. I just didn't want to drive the car with the dent.

As soon as we were back from Australia, I contacted Mr. Sudhir in August, who told me he was coming to Mumbai on a Saturday for PDR in Mulund and I requested him to come to my place after that. Mr. Sudhir is an expert and removed the dent very professionally, I got my Fortuner's age old dent removed as well. I highly recommend his PDR procedure for both Pune and Mumbai Folks. He did tell me maximum customers mention they got his reference from T-BHP. Leaving his number (+91-9552629516) so that Pune/Mumbai folks who need to avail PDR can call him.

On Sunday, 6th August I had gone to see the Porsche Friendship Day Drive at 7:20AM, which was flagged off from BKC. Will post all the pictures in the Supercars and Imports thread.

The same day took the X3 out for a much needed drive on the Mum-Pune Expressway. A drive on the Expressway was the need of the hour because after driving in the city from March till July, I was fed-up of the traffic and with no where to exploit the power. Out on the expressway managed to extract the highest mileage of 14.2kmpl and the onboard range calculator was showing a range of 903kms on a full tank of petrol.

Since it was still raining in August, which has stopped ever since in Mumbai, the car was absolutely caked in mud and looked fantastic like this .

The cats are clearly the 2nd owners of the car, they love sitting on the bonnet and roof whenever they get a chance, since the engine runs pretty hot the bonnet stays hot for quite some time after switching off the car and it's the perfect spot for them to lay down or even sleep. These are multiple pictures over a few months.

The next major update will be staying at Igatpuri for 3 days (2 nights) with a ~200 drive to Aurangabad for lunch via the Hindu Hrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg and back the same day (post in progress right now).