BMW X3 Review 2024

Whether you’re a previous BMW X3 owner looking to upgrade or making your first steps into the premium SUV market, the new X3 is an easy car to recommend. It’s a big old thing these days, larger than the original BMW X5, but that gradual increase in size means it’s now among the most practical cars in its class in terms of boot space and interior room, so it’s ideal for family life.

Vegans may be interested to know that BMW has banished real leather from the new X3’s cabin too (in standard form at least, Merino leather is still an option) and while there’s no all-electric model – an upcoming ‘Neue Klasse’ SUV will fill that gap – there’s good powertrain choice for UK buyers, with petrol, diesel, plug-in hybrid and performance options.

You won’t feel hard done-by if you opt for the entry-level BMW X3 20 xDrive. It’s respectably frugal and performs well, and has all the X3’s other qualities for the least outlay. Diesel still makes sense in this type of vehicle though, and while there are no real tax advantages for private buyers in going for the diesel, the prospect of averaging maybe 10-plus miles per gallon better than the petrol car will make it attractive. The plug-in BMW X3 30e meanwhile is the easy business-user choice thanks to its much lower Benefit-in-Kind rate, but for private buyers it’s a lot of extra money up-front.

And the BMW X3 M50? Entertaining to drive though it is, pricing and running costs will rule it out for most, and if BMW opts to make a full X3M at some point, its USP of being the driver’s car of the range may be diminished too. If you’re a habitual buyer of performance SUVs and it takes your fancy though, we don’t dissuade you.

The BMW X3 pretty much started the segment in which it competes, and four generations on it’s become quite a busy marketplace. Key rivals include the Audi Q5 and Mercedes-Benz GLC, but everything from the Alfa Romeo Stelvio (sporty), Lexus NX (impeccably built), Porsche Macan (off sale in petrol form, but worth a look nearly-new as one of the best-driving SUVs) and Jaguar F-Pace (off sale soon, fine-handling) are potential rivals.

BMW X3s stand out among this lot for their styling (for good or bad reasons, depending on your preference for BMW’s design direction), well-judged ride and handling balance, and smart, modern-feeling interior, while the X3 now has one of the largest boots in its class too. The outgoing Macan is our pick as the driver’s car of the bunch, but the BMW X3’s much more spacious.

Quality, both perceived and actual, has been a highlight of BMW’s recent models, and the same is true of the X3. Rattles and squeaks are notable by their complete absence. The now completely leather-free interior (everything that looks like it is artificial, but very convincing) feels great, especially in non-M Sport models with their woven fabric dash and door-top coverings.

If we’re nit-picking, we’d say the internal door handles feel slightly on the cheap side to touch (though again, they certainly don’t feel flimsy), and that BMW’s illuminated dashboard and door trim elements, whatever you think of their appearance, don’t have the tactility of some of the materials around them.

The X3 is the latest BMW to get a large curved display screen for driving information (12.3-inches) and infotainment (14.9-inches), and the first to get BMW’s Operating System 9, which promises the usual cutting-edge access to digital services, an app-based layout, and standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. And the card game Uno, which we didn’t try despite the encouragement of our German hosts.

Both screens are quick and clear. A more traditional instrument layout ahead of the driver would be nice, but the head-up-display renders it mostly moot anyway. The touchscreen meanwhile is fairly quick to respond to prods and swipes, and has the neat touch of the home button always reverting to the maps and navigation display, so you can quickly get back to it from any other screen.

Interacting with everything still isn’t without fault though in the BMW X3. Access to drive modes and the shortcuts for switching off some of the more intrusive driver assistance systems are via hard to see touch-sensitive buttons on the centre console. The drive mode screen in particular is weirdly slow to activate, and then doesn’t disappear again after a few seconds like you expect it to, so you need to actively press that home button to get your preferred screen back up. We’d still prefer more physical heating and ventilation controls too, which will always be easier to adjust than venturing into a touchscreen for every minor change.

Three of the four BMW X3s give you 570 litres of space with the rear seats in place, and 1700 litres with them flipped forwards. The one that doesn’t give you this space is the plug-in hybrid BMW X3 30e, whose battery pack chops seats-up volume to 460 litres and knocks 100 litres off the seats-down space. The boot itself gets the basics right though: it’s a big, dog-and-luggage-friendly squared-off space with a removable floor, and while its 40:20:40 seats don’t fold completely flat, there’s at least no lip between them and the boot, and little lip to hoik stuff into the boot either.

Rear-seat passengers in the BMW X3 won’t complain either as even with the front seats back by a decent amount, foot, knee, and headroom are all excellent. The centre-seat passenger gets a slightly raw deal due to the floor hump, but comfortable seats and some bottle-sized door pockets both make up for it.

Those in the front have things even better. There’s the usual vast range of seat and wheel adjustment of all BMWs and the wide centre console doesn’t hem you in too much. We’re less enamoured with the cubby holes – there are plenty, but they’re slightly daft shapes, particularly the door pockets. The space between the console and the dash has room for a pair of cups and a few phones but they can knock around a bit – the clever little rollercoaster-style bar to hold them in that the BMW X2 gets is absent here.

UK buyers get the BMW X3 in a choice of 20 xDrive, 30e xDrive, 20d xDrive, and M50 xDrive forms. The ‘20’ uses a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine, the ‘30e’ the same engine but with a battery pack and electric motor to make it a plug-in hybrid, the ‘M50’ is a 3.0-litre turbocharged petrol inline six, and the ‘20d’ is a 2.0-litre turbocharged diesel. All four use an eight-speed automatic transmission, and send power to all four wheels.

The 20’s 190PS output sounds like it might be a little under-nourished for a car that creaks the scales at 1855kg, but backed up by 310Nm of torque across most of the rev range, it rarely needs working too hard to clip along at a decent pace – BMW quotes 0-62mph in 7.8 seconds, which even in a world of mad EV acceleration figures is quicker than most people will accelerate on a regular basis.

Accelerate hard and the engine note isn’t particularly inspiring, which is where the 381PS M50 comes in. Compared to other BMWs using this engine, such as the M240i Coupe or the Z4 M40i, the noise level is definitely on the quiet side of sporty, but as with the 20 xDrive you can knock it into Dynamic (well, press the awkward touch-sensitive switch and prod at the touchscreen) for more volume and ‘emotion’, as the brochure would say.

In Dynamic there’s more of a thump to the gearshifts too, which left in auto are snappy enough to dispatch 0-62mph in 4.6 seconds – not bad for 20kg under two tonnes. As with those other BMWs, this is a glorious engine, with a creamy smooth feel, power absolutely everywhere, and impressive responses. Not especially sensible in a family car, but a lot of fun.

Both the BMW X3 20 xDrive and M50 xDrive are impressively hushed, aided by both engines’ refinement and no doubt layer upon layer of sound deadening material between them and the cabin. Predictably, the BMW X3 M50 is the more vocal of the pair, BMW naturally assuming buyers of the sporty model might want a little more volume, but that’s not to say it’s intrusive – and it’s the kind of sound most people would be happy to hear anyway. The BMW X3 20 xDrive fades into the background more, though does emit a slightly strained note if you’re accelerating hard.

On a cruise, both are no more audible than the ambient wind and road noise, and there’s not a lot of either of those either. The BMW X3 feels like it has a stiff structure too, which further contributes to refinement – even on the firmer setup of the M50, you’ll feel bumps in the road but don’t notice them thudding through the cabin.

The BMW X3 is too new to have been tested by Euro NCAP, so we don’t know how it’ll fare in a crash – though as its predecessor was a five-star car in 2017, and BMW has surely made improvements under the skin since then, we’d be surprised if it didn’t reprise that rating this time around.

All BMW X3s come with the brand’s Driving Assistant as standard, which includes Lane Departure Warning, Lane Change Warning, and Speed Limit Assist, as well as Parking Assistant with its Reversing Assistant and a rear-view camera as standard. You can tick further boxes for optional features including active cruise and lane-control functions, and a further box for Parking Assistant Professional, which can let you park the X3 from outside the car.

If you want to turn off any of the BMW’s driver assist features, it’s the work of a touch-sensitive button on the centre console to bring up the appropriate menu, and individual button taps and confirmations on each relevant function – a little more long-winded than we’d like.

BMW finished a reasonable but hardly commendable 12th from 29 brands in the latest HonestJohn.co.uk Satisfaction Index, usefully ahead of rivals Audi and Mercedes-Benz but well behind the likes of Lexus, Tesla, and Porsche. There were mixed results in terms of individual models too – the 2012-2019 BMW 3 Series Touring finished a creditable 18th among all cars surveyed, but the 2 Series Active Tourer and i3 were 18th and 20th from the bottom of the list.

We’re telling you this because obviously the new BMW X3 is a little too new to have appeared in any survey itself, but you can get a general idea of how it’s likely to fare from the results of the brand and its existing models. Essentially, it’ll likely cause you less trouble than an Audi Q5 or Mercedes GLC, but not be as squeaky-clean as a Lexus NX.

At the time of writing, BMW hasn’t yet confirmed insurance groups for the X3. The outgoing model started at group 28 and maxed out at group 50, and we’d expect a similar spread for the latest car.

All BMW X3s cost more than £40,000 to buy brand new, so from year two until year seven you and subsequent owners will be pinged with a luxury vehicle surcharge, taking annual tax bills to £600 for the petrol and diesels, and £590 for the plug-in 30e. In terms of first-year rates, from most to least expensive, are the M50 at £1,095, the 20 and 20d at £680, and the 30e’s 21g/km meaning a bill of only a tenner. For Benefit-in-Kind tax for company users, the 30e finds itself in the 8% bracket, while the 20d is in the 35% bracket, the 20 in 36%, and the M50 in the maximum 37% band.

BMW X3s start in xLine trim, which comes as standard with 18-inch alloy wheels in 20 and 20d form and 19 inch in 30e spec, ambient lighting, three-zone air conditioning, electric heated sports front seats, LED headlights, cruise control with braking, a curved infotainment display with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the Driving Assistant and Parking Assistant features mentioned earlier.

M Sport gets 19-inch wheels, Shadowline exterior trim, an anthracite headliner, M interior trim and an M steering wheel, and M Sport suspension. The M50 takes most of this but upgrades to 20-inch alloys, the ‘Iconic Glow’ illuminated kidney grille, quad exhaust pipes, and M Sport seat belts.

You can go mad with the options too, with Comfort, Comfort Pack Plus, Technology, and M Sport Pro packages, and individual options including a panoramic glass roof, heated steering wheel, adaptive suspension, the Iconic Glow grille, and on M Sport models, M Sport brakes.