BMW 330 xdrive loaner review (G20)

[wdc330i]

Originally Posted by kognito

I have no words

They are definitely getting grill happy. Looks like hell.

[robg]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Cool. I’d be very interested in your thoughts.

+1

I’ve also read various complaints about the seats being too stiff.

[SARAFIL]

Originally Posted by robg

+1

I’ve also read various complaints about the seats being too stiff.

Does it have the ventilated seat option? Those are apparently much firmer.

[SARAFIL]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Good points. Just have to get out of the “spec it exactly as I want” mindset—and into “find the lowest tolerable spec” mentality. Even these low-ish mileage lease limits would be fine if I keep the 2. The 2 just turned 10k miles after 2.5 years+ of ownership. I would put even fewer miles on it with a foul-weather, highway hauler in the mix.

The broker deals seem a little risky though. Do you just look for the dealer direct ones?

Are insurance rates higher on a lease?

You can definitely still look for a deal on an ordered car to your specs. Discounts on a new one are probably in the 8-10% range where you might see as deep as 15% on a demo/loaner. But the loaner will also have a ~$1k mileage adjustment to the residual for a 4-5k mile car. Figure net-net you’re saving $2-3k on a lease for a $50k car.

Lease impact on insurance rate - really shouldn’t be any.

Broker vs dealer - guess it depends. Would be skeptical to travel in person to far away dealer but if they’re sourcing it locally you don’t have much to lose. Some of the brokers also have better track record than others.

[robg]

Originally Posted by SARAFIL

Does it have the ventilated seat option? Those are apparently much firmer.

Think you meant to direct that to Josh?

But yeah, I’ve read that the ventilated seats are stiffer (although people complain about the non ventilated ones as well).

[wdc330i]

Originally Posted by SARAFIL

You can definitely still look for a deal on an ordered car to your specs. Discounts on a new one are probably in the 8-10% range where you might see as deep as 15% on a demo/loaner. But the loaner will also have a ~$1k mileage adjustment to the residual for a 4-5k mile car. Figure net-net you’re saving $2-3k on a lease for a $50k car.

Lease impact on insurance rate - really shouldn’t be any.

Broker vs dealer - guess it depends. Would be skeptical to travel in person to far away dealer but if they’re sourcing it locally you don’t have much to lose. Some of the brokers also have better track record than others.

Gracias!

[Josh (PA)]

Yes, it had the ventilated seats. They were firm and flat, my biggest complaint is they didn't contour forward at my upper back to support it as well as BMW seats historically did. I have the car tomorrow too, so I may get more thoughts before I give it back. Overall, it does most everything really well, and compares very favorably to my 2013 (e70) x5. I couldn't imagine wanting more power than this car has. The engine suits it great. It doesn't have the awful hesitation or jerkyness when starting out that the x5 does. They got the transmission tuning much better than the last few iterations of the 8sp I've driven. The steering is weighted much better than the f30 and early 2er cars I drove. It still feels artificial at times, but it is much less darty than recent BMWs, very liveable.

The tech (as has been mentioned often in this thread) is very intuitive and easy to use. Once again, the voice prompts are a home run. I found little need to use the I-drive controller. The hand gestures are dumb, but seem to not be needed for anything, so who cares.

I like that the active safety features can be tuned to be minimally intruisive or completely off. They seem to work well, but the lane departure warning could get VERY annoying if left in the aggressive setting.

The ride tuning is great. Much less hars than the e70, yet flat and as transitional as you can get in corners with a ?4000+?lb SUV.

The hood is very prominent from the drivers seat. In the X5 you can't see the hood (in my seat setting), just everything in front of the car. In the X3, you see the hood above the bottom of the windshield and it seems to go on forever.

Overall, it is a really solid offering. 99& chance this replaces the x5 next year, with the e63 wagon still hanging on to 1% odds.
I met my wife for dinner (we were coming from different directions from work) and we swapped the x3 and x5. She liked it quite a lot as well and had similar comments to me. We may have learned that the x3 is about 2 car lengths faster to 60mph, but I can't say that for sure..
Pic of Mabel in the trunk to follow. She fit fine, and would be totally comfortable back there if we took the retractible cover out. Smaller than the e70, but minimally so.

[robg]

Originally Posted by Josh (PA)

Yes, it had the ventilated seats. They were firm and flat, my biggest complaint is they didn't contour forward at my upper back to support it as well as BMW seats historically did. I have the car tomorrow too, so I may get more thoughts before I give it back. Overall, it does most everything really well, and compares very favorably to my 2013 (e70) x5. I couldn't imagine wanting more power than this car has. The engine suits it great. It doesn't have the awful hesitation or jerkyness when starting out that the x5 does. They got the transmission tuning much better than the last few iterations of the 8sp I've driven. The steering is weighted much better than the f30 and early 2er cars I drove. It still feels artificial at times, but it is much less darty than recent BMWs, very liveable.

The tech (as has been mentioned often in this thread) is very intuitive and easy to use. Once again, the voice prompts are a home run. I found little need to use the I-drive controller. The hand gestures are dumb, but seem to not be needed for anything, so who cares.

I like that the active safety features can be tuned to be minimally intruisive or completely off. They seem to work well, but the lane departure warning could get VERY annoying if left in the aggressive setting.

The ride tuning is great. Much less hars than the e70, yet flat and as transitional as you can get in corners with a ?4000+?lb SUV.

The hood is very prominent from the drivers seat. In the X5 you can't see the hood (in my seat setting), just everything in front of the car. In the X3, you see the hood above the bottom of the windshield and it seems to go on forever.

Overall, it is a really solid offering. 99& chance this replaces the x5 next year, with the e63 wagon still hanging on to 1% odds.
I met my wife for dinner (we were coming from different directions from work) and we swapped the x3 and x5. She liked it quite a lot as well and had similar comments to me. We may have learned that the x3 is about 2 car lengths faster to 60mph, but I can't say that for sure..
Pic of Mabel in the trunk to follow. She fit fine, and would be totally comfortable back there if we took the retractible cover out. Smaller than the e70, but minimally so.

Thanks for the detailed review! Jealous that your dealer has X3 40s as loaners.

[Josh (PA)]

A bunch more notes. I'll edit this later w more thoughts and pics.
1. it has a real turn signal stalk. That is nice.
2. The exhaust is droney. The pops and baubles in sport plus are pretty dumb.
3. Having a speed limit sign in the instrument cluster is nice. Having it highlight how much over the speed limit you are going is educational. This thing cruises at speeds much more effortlessly than it should.
4. The heads up display is really nice, but why can't they make it work with polarized glasses? I need to tilt my head at least 30 degrees to see it.
5. I still haven't figured out how to shut it off completely besides locking the doors.
6. Auto stop start sucks, I am very glad they make it so easy to shut off
7. The back seats are more comfortable than the fronts.
8. I like how much redundancy they have put into the co trols.
9. Oil measurement takes 30 mins of running the car... wut?

[robg]

Originally Posted by Josh (PA)

A bunch more notes. I'll edit this later w more thoughts and pics.
1. it has a real turn signal stalk. That is nice.
2. The exhaust is droney. The pops and baubles in sport plus are pretty dumb.
3. Having a speed limit sign in the instrument cluster is nice. Having it highlight how much over the speed limit you are going is educational. This thing cruises at speeds much more effortlessly than it should.
4. The heads up display is really nice, but why can't they make it work with polarized glasses? I need to tilt my head at least 30 degrees to see it.
5. I still haven't figured out how to shut it off completely besides locking the doors.
6. Auto stop start sucks, I am very glad they make it so easy to shut off
7. The back seats are more comfortable than the fronts.
8. I like how much redundancy they have put into the co trols.
9. Oil measurement takes 30 mins of running the car... wut?

Cool- does the cruise control have a feature to automatically set itself according to the speed limit sign? I know some systems do, seems like a nice feature to have occasionally?

Regarding shutting it off, with my current (last gen) x3, I got an app and bluetooth dongle in order to "code" it such that everything turns off when you open the door. With my loaner 3 series (had idrive 7), I think that was a user configurable setting in idrive. If your loaner is similar to how my current x3 was from the factory, you either have to "double press" the start/stop or lock it (as you say).

I've never had a heads up display, but I vaguely recall that there was a way in idrive to adjust it (possibly the rotation of it) in order to deal with polarized sunglasses. I could be wrong though.

Oil measurement thing sounds wrong- hopefully that's an issue w/ that particular car.

Does ASS still stay off permanently when you shut it off? Or do you have to shut it off each time. In my last 2 cars it's stayed off permamnently, but I remember reading that BMW had changed that in newer cars for some reason.