Web Spin: BMW X5 3.0d
BMW: Bloody Marvellous Wagon
This Bavarian Stands Out Amongst Prestige Pretenders
Test Vehicle:
- BMW X5 3.0d
- 3.0-litre 24-valve six-cylinder direct-injected turbo diesel
- 6-Speed Auto with permanent All-Wheel-Drive
- $84,500 as tested
If you’ve been following OUTthere’s string of diesel 4WD reviews, you’ll have realised there is a veritable plethora of decent offroad machines available at less than real estate prices. Yet even amongst this array of impressive machines by the world’s best manufacturers, one must stand out. We reckon it’s the BMW X5.
My first drive of an X5 was back in 2002 aboard the mighty 4.4 V8. Clearly, this was something quite special and most critics agreed. Out of the box, it won Overlander Magazine’s 4WD-of-the-year in 2001. Astounding road holding, bags of power and living room comfort, all with that intangible prestige tag only a BMW knows.
In mid-2003, the Bavarians trotted out a 135kW 3.0 litre turbo diesel variant that maintained all the appeal of the X5, while slashing fuel consumption. Then, in 2004, a revised diesel was introduced churning out 150kW, but even more impressive was the new torque figure of 480Nm, up 110Nm, and available at a lazy 2000 rpm.
BMW speaks glowingly of its new, second generation diesel engine and how they were able to extract more power, deliver it more smoothly and use less fuel in the process. They explain it in terms like “This second-generation diesel engine is managed by a new Digital Diesel Electronics (DDE5) engine management system. This operates with a 32-bit architecture, a 1.5 megabyte memory and an operating cycle frequency of 40 megahertz. With DDE5, the car selects the ideal operating conditions at all times from over 6,000 control ‘maps’.“ I’m happy to take their word for it.
Most of our test miles were conducted in familiar BMW territory; suburban roads, shopping centre carparks and expressways. Our brief departure from the bitumen was along unsealed secondary roads and laneways, all well within the comfort zone of our test vehicle. Having said that, the X5 has, on paper, all the tricks for real adventure. The new xDrive traction control system manages power distribution to all four wheels simultaneously, intelligently allowing for variations in grip, vehicle angle and steering input. Not only does this deliver almost foolproof road holding on both tar and dirt, it can correct sloppy, dangerous driving up to a point by varying power to front or rear wheels in the event of over- or understeer.
Drawing on the experience of other exerts, the only real limiting factor in the X5’s offroad ability was ground clearance and tyre/wheel choice. In reality, not too many X5s will be asked to ford swollen creeks, climb dizzying mountain trails or traverse the parched expanses of our cruel deserts. So, in tailoring the vehicle for the vast majority of customers (30% of whom buy diesels), BMW have designed a vehicle that exhibits near flawless road manners in a wide variety of surface conditions (read: rain, dirt, gravel, steep etc) while cocooning its occupants in a reinforced cockpit protected by ten airbags.
To achieve accolades such as “best car ever tested” by the American Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and five stars in the world’s toughest independent crash test (the European New Car Assessment Programme), BMW’s list of driver and safety aids reads thus; Automatic Stability Control and Traction (ASC-X), Dynamic Stability Control (DSC-X), Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS), Dynamic Brake Control (DBC), Automatic Differential Brake (ADB-X), Hill Descent Control (HDC), and Corner Brake Control (CBC).
Purists may scoff at this roll of artificial aids designed to bolster the modest ability of regular drivers like me, but when your vehicle is full of your precious children and surrounded by other “regular” drivers in questionable machinery, you begin to think more pragmatically about 21st century vehicle design. As a wise old race driver once told me, “I remember when sex was safe and driving was dangerous!”
We liked:
• Fabulous
road manners
• Frugal
fuel consumption (around 11 litres/100km city cycle)
• Impressive
acceleration
• Exemplary
passenger safety
If we had to be picky:
• Characteristic
turbo lag when urged
• Good,
but not great, serious offroad ability.
Standard Features:
•
Accessories available:
•
Report by Rod Eime.
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