Showing blog posts for BMW X3

Moving On: First details of BMW’s new X3

By Ben Foulds
Freelance Contributing Writer
16 July 2010

Take 2: BMW's latest X3
BMW don't do bad cars. Not normally anyway.

Everyone has off-days, though, and the day on which the last X3 was conceived was evidently one of them. As BMW's first crack at a compact 4x4, the X3 has been constantly blighted since launch by such issues as shoddy interior quality and even shoddier ride quality.

But now there's a new one - an X3 'Take 2', if you like - which gives the Munich company a chance to iron out those niggles.

So what's new? Well, it's bigger for a start. That's to enable the X3 to slot more comfortably into a gap that's been made smaller in recent times with the introduction of the X1.

The styling is pretty standard Beemer fare, if we're honest - bar a couple of surprising details such as the etch-a-sketch headlamps (Audi A3, anyone?) and a rather strange interpretation of the famous Hoffmeister kink. It's generally a lot better resolved than the outgoing model, though.

BMW claims that the X3 will be "the lowest-emission four-wheel drive model in the sector", whatever that 'sector' is. Helping its cause here will be an optional eight-speed automatic gearbox, with Stop-Start tech being rolled out across the range.


X3: bigger and greener
Also making its debut on the X3 is Variable Damper Control, which, through the medium of wizardry (probably), allows you to adjust the driving experience at the touch of a button. Hopefully this will make traversing our potholed roads less spine-shattering than in the outgoing model.

Noises from Munich suggest that the 2.0-litre diesel-powered xDrive20d will take most of the sales - roughly 80% of them in fact. This variant will start at £30,490, which represents a £115 drop in price over the old car.

And as for that thorny issue of interior quality, Munich is boasting of a "significantly upgraded cabin". We can but hope.





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