BMW iX3 reviewed (again)

Instead I went for two reasons. First, the car is too damn important to simply pass by: to have the opportunity to drive it but not be bothered to do so would suggest to me it was time to find something else to do for a living. Second, it has often been the case that cars behave rather differently when confronted with the usually rather more challenging environment of UK roads than on whatever routes were carefully selected for them at their initial launch on smooth-surfaced European highways. The most notorious example of this was the original Aston Martin DB9, launched in 2003 in the South of France. Those of us who attended duly goggled at how well it rode and handled, while those who waited to drive it in the UK concluded we’d all gone mad. To this day dark rumours of perhaps not entirely standard shock absorbers continue to circulate, but I expect the car simply lacked the bandwidth to cope as well with the rather different conditions in its homeland.

So what I’m not going to do here is a deep dive assessment and simply use different words to say the same things the other Andrew did a few months back. But I’ll make a few observations nonetheless about some things that either struck me as being important, or not obvious.

The first is that range: the car I drove came fully charged and displayed 443 miles on the dash, so not even BMW believes the official figures. It wasn’t cold that day but perhaps were it properly warm you might get closer to the magic 500 miles, but I doubt it. But even if you give yourself 40 miles to find a charger, that’s still London to Edinburgh on a single, albeit gently driven charge. And you’re going to want to take a break after that.

Inside BMW has finally dispensed with its once infamous iDrive controller but the fully configurable, full width strip of data and information above the main IP and HMI is really good, though if you use the optional head up display having three layers of information glaring back at you can at times feel a bit much.

The car feels quick, quicker than the numbers suggest, the synthesised electric noise it makes when you put your foot down is ridiculous and I’m already struggling to see the point of the yet faster version we know to be coming down the tracks. Indeed I’m far more interested in the cheaper, lighter, single motor car we also know to be on the way. If also available with the 108.7kWh (usable) battery (and there’s no engineering reason why not), that will likely be a real range monster.

But it was the chassis that was of most interest to me. And what surprises me most is that in a car of such brain boggling electronic sophistication, the suspension is entirely passive. No air springs nor any sign of them, no active roll control, and not even any adaptive dampers though they should be available before the end of the year. Or early next, depending on to whom you talk.

So what BMW is demanding from a car that is not only heavy – to the tune of 2295kg heavy – but quite high up too in terms of body control, is really quite something. But to an extent at least it has succeeded. Even on the standard 20in rim, the iX3 settles nicely into quick corners and is both unfailingly accurate and stable. I don’t judge it for having little or no steering feel for what other similar car does? But I don’t like either of the steering wheels I tried which were both too small, too thick of rim and too squishy, nor that the car feels rather cumbersome in slow corners. But perhaps I’m expecting too much, even of a BMW.

But I don’t think it unreasonable to hope such a fabulously spacious family bus should ride well too and while it does at times, too often it does not. Indeed it feels for all the world like a car that remained a stranger to British roads throughout its development. Perhaps that’s to be expected but I know Audi always used to include UK driving in its development programmes (and still might) because our roads are just different to most others in Europe (aka, worse).

Regardless of whether it came here or not while being signed off for production what you find on the standard wheel is a car that copes really pretty well with the smooth stuff but which is too easily caught out by all manner of lump and bump that so liberally bestrew our roads these days. Swap to the 22in rim (there is a 21in too but I timed out before I could try it) and a certain restlessness is introduced to your progress even when the going is visually as smooth as can be.

So what conclusions can be drawn from this? Firstly, and most importantly, our original verdict stands. Andrew English will shortly be reviewing its newest, closest and currently likely best rival, the electric Mercedes-Benz GLC, but we already know the Benz is heavier still and has a smaller range, so it’s got all the work to do. So for now the iX3 remains the class leader, and at least until that Merc review is in, I’d say by a distance.

But driving it in the UK has revealed a further truth about the iX3: however good it is – and it is very good indeed for this category of car – it should be even better still. And the frustrating thing is I suspect it’s only a well-tuned set of adaptive dampers away from fully realising its maximum potential. So while you can buy one now and enjoy a truly capable, interesting, innovative and in some ways ground breaking car, were it my money I’d hold off a few months more and get one with the trick dampers. I can’t promise they’ll fill in the last piece of the iX3 puzzle but I think there’s a damn good chance they will. So personally, I would wait.

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