It wasn’t hard to get the kids to enjoy the BMW X3: They became fixated on, and fought over, the heated second-row seats. Or, as they called them, the “butt warmers.”
As for my wife and I, we loved the interiorand the X3’s look, but thought it was just a little small for ourfamily of five. Still, for the X3, maybe we could ship off one of thekids…
Having driven plenty of BMW sedans over the years, all the usualmarkers were in place. The beautiful interior, the nice attention todetail in the upholstery, the snazzy looks. There are plenty ofcreature comforts as well, although BMW doesn’t have the best icons to tell you each button’s function.Whoever decided the power door lock button should be located under thehazard lights button, and not on the driver and front passenger doors,ought to be smacked. That little mystery took me more than 90 minutesto figure out; at one point, I wound up using the key fob to unlock thedoors — from inside the car!
There were some other little annoyances:
The navigation system isn’t a touch-screen, and having the interface control so far removed from the screenwas not intuitive either. In addition, to make choices in the interface— which is a different setup than the much maligned iDrive — you turnthe knob to the left (counter-clockwise) to move down the options. I’mpretty sure most U.S. drivers would expect to turn the knob clockwiseto move down the list. Oh well.
Really,the worst thing about the X3 was the transmission in slow-speedsituations. Since I was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic going home, Ifelt the problem a lot. The transmission really stuttered when shiftingthrough first and into second. It would rev up, then sputter just a bitbefore kicking forward when it moved into second. I don’t know if itwas just this vehicle (always a possibility) or something more endemicto X3s. By the time I’d spent an hour in the X3, the habit was drivingme nuts. Even my daughter could sense it whenever we started from ahard stop.
Still, the ride was very smooth and the huge sunroof was impressive,letting in a ton of light on a gray January morning. When I needed topass at highway speeds, the X3 responded quickly and nimbly.
The Wife: She found the ride extremely comfortable and didn’tnotice the transmission lag as much as I did. She liked how thecontrols were laid out, but wondered, “What makes this car worth 50grand?” To her mind, yes, she’d buy it if we were in the market for ahigh-end small SUV with the BMW nameplate. But she said she wouldhappily give up the nice interior, sharp looks and nav system inexchange for a new RAV4 or CR-V…and the extra dough.
The Kids:OK, I could list them one-by-one, but really, as far as this car isconcerned, what would be the point? The talk was all “butt warmers,”all the time. The kids admired the X3 for its comfort and looks, butwhat they really loved were the heated seats. “Dad,” Teen Son observed,“my butt is sweating.” The 10-Year-Old Son weighed in with, “If we everget this car, we have to get them to put a butt warmer in the middle.”In fact, that lack of a third (middle) heated seat led to a bitterbattle between the Tweener Daughter and the 10-Year-Old. They might notbe over it yet.
Would we buy this car? There’s a lot to be said for it, and otherthan the transmission and the limited space in the backseat, I’d voteyes. It likely already does well with suburban parents of smallfamilies, especially considering it has a ton of space in the cargoarea for groceries and whatnot. For those who want the BMW nameplateand are willing to pay for the fancy extras, this could be their car.
