BMW X3 Review: Did BMW Find The Shrink Ray?

We’ve always been Bond fans. Even though we love Matt Damon’s Bourne with his perpetual amnesia and kickassery, we’ve always really loved Bond’s gadgets, and the ease and effortlessness with which he goes around saving Her Majesty’s knickers – they both happily co-habit our noggin. Unfortunately for BMW, when it comes to cars we are a little more conservative. We drive slowly past the metro diversions just so we can hear the engine work. We like the sound of the tyre on loose gravel, and we love the pick-up, but above all, we love to hear an engine pull.

The X3 doesn’t do all of that. Sure it’s got the pickup, but you’d have to buy a hearing aid and crank it up to hear the engine grunt. So much so that the good folks over at Autocar say, “there is very little tyre roar” and that the car is sometimes so silent you can hear “wind swishing over the mirror and ‘A’pillar” – so definitely not the car to get if you’re planning on taking long drives with the girl who wants to have a conversation about where you are in the relationship. But then again, we’re probably the second worst magazine in the world to invite over for a test drive because we have only one agenda – can we actually have fun with it? Unfortunately, trying to have any fun in an X3 is like thinking that convincing an investment banker to go paintballing in an Armani suit is a great idea.

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On paper the X3 has pretty much everything you would ask for in a car apart from a rocket launcher – it’s got an electronic hill descent control for steep downhill descents so it’ll no longer look like you are driving a skateboard, and a cornering break control for when you are negotiating tight bends, plus of course the 4WD, a start-stop system that turns the engine off on red lights, and a stability control system. Alas, there aren’t too many hills in the hinterland of UP, urban Delhi or Madhya Pradesh where a chunk of these cars will undoubtedly be added to the entourage of bahubali politicians. On the road though, it’s the kind of a car that will get you where you want as long as you are in no particular hurry to get there. And that’s pretty much our only grouse with the X3 – It’s too grown up for us. It’s competitor on the other hand – The Q5 isn’t so.

STATS

BMW X3

2.0L 130bhp 4cyl. In-line

4 Cylinder

6 speed, Automatic

Price: 41.20 ex showroom Delhi

From the November 2011 issue of FHM India.