BMW X3 M40i - pictures and specs

[ghost83]

Wills2 said:

I'd look on Bimmerpost if you want more details and info, most people have left PH for the relative calm of the brand specific forums, there is a thread running there on a newly delivered M40d in the F30post UK section.

The BMW section here is like a ghost town these days.

Yeah I’m on there, cheers mate

[ghost83]

gizlaroc said:

Why would you when you can have the M40i?

Genuine question?



I have had loads of bigger engine cars in petrol and diesel guise and there is no real financial saving, maybe 2-3% at best, and all the petrols have felt so much more special.

Because on average ppl are getting 20-25mpg out of the m40i and the m40d ppl are getting 40mpg might not sound a lot but over 20k-30k miles it is

Edited by ghost83 on Sunday 6th January 19:25

[ghost83]

gizlaroc said:

Why would you when you can have the M40i?

Genuine question?



I have had loads of bigger engine cars in petrol and diesel guise and there is no real financial saving, maybe 2-3% at best, and all the petrols have felt so much more special.

Also

Petrol - 1.15 per litre = £5.22 per gallon

Diesel 1.25 per litre = £5.67 per gallon

20k miles @ 40mpg = 500 gallons

20k miles @ 20mpg = 1000 gallons

Diesel cost for 20k miles per year £2,835

Petrol cost for 20k miles per year £5,220

Difference -£2,385

Projected over 4yrs £9,540

Now the m40d can be had slightly cheaper after discount but still has a gfv the same as the m40i near as dammit (£100 in it) the m40i has a higher first year tax as well

So I’d rather put £9,540 into something else! I could buy a nice weekend car with that money or put it into the house

Edited by ghost83 on Sunday 6th January 19:36

[aeropilot]

gizlaroc said:

I would be interested to hear what MPG the M40i owners are getting?

I had the 30d for a few days recently and that was struggling to get 26mpg average over the few days and 600 odd miles I did in it.

Crikey....I'd expect a lot more than that, as I'm averaging 30-31mpg in my F15 40d X5, and that's with 50% of my mileage within the M25....!!

[VerySideways]

Yeah, those figures are just plain wrong, sorry.
Like-for-like use, M40i should be seeing 26/28 and M40d around 36/38.
Both will do better on the motorway and both will do worse in short journeys and with hilly terrain.
On a fast run the 40d gets 31mpg and the 40i gets 23mpg, on a long motorway trek the 40d gets 41mpg and the 40i gets around 33mpg (from my not-very-scientific testing) which means a real world difference of around 10mpg.

Which still means a £4.5k difference over your 80k mile projection, but it'll take me more than 6 years to do 80k miles!
Personally i don't like the power delivery on the diesel, i hate filling up with diesel, and i don't like the smell of it burning either, and i also don't want to have to deal with DPF's or paying more for entering or parking in certain cities.

But the world is an interesting place because we're all different

[ghost83]

VerySideways said:

Yeah, those figures are just plain wrong, sorry.
Like-for-like use, M40i should be seeing 26/28 and M40d around 36/38.
Both will do better on the motorway and both will do worse in short journeys and with hilly terrain.
On a fast run the 40d gets 31mpg and the 40i gets 23mpg, on a long motorway trek the 40d gets 41mpg and the 40i gets around 33mpg (from my not-very-scientific testing) which means a real world difference of around 10mpg.

Which still means a £4.5k difference over your 80k mile projection, but it'll take me more than 6 years to do 80k miles!
Personally i don't like the power delivery on the diesel, i hate filling up with diesel, and i don't like the smell of it burning either, and i also don't want to have to deal with DPF's or paying more for entering or parking in certain cities.

But the world is an interesting place because we're all different

I don’t like diesel either

BUT I do like money and I’d rather have it in my pocket than in the local petrol stations

[VerySideways]

ghost83 said:

I don’t like diesel either

BUT I do like money and I’d rather have it in my pocket than in the local petrol stations

Fair comment - but then shouldn't you be driving a Prius or a Tesla?

Sorry, just playing devil's advocate

Mind you, there's an iX3 coming in the next 12 months i think... best of both worlds?

[gizlaroc]

aeropilot said:

Crikey....I'd expect a lot more than that, as I'm averaging 30-31mpg in my F15 40d X5, and that's with 50% of my mileage within the M25....!!

OBC was reading 30.6mpg over the 600 miles, but calculated it was well out, it was only just hitting 26mpg calculated.

It was much better on a run, but I was doing loads of sub 10 mile trips in it.

Actually, thinking about it, when I first got it I went to Greenwich and back, from Norfolk, and the OBC read 35 something when I got home and filled up. That was when I reset it and after the next few days it was showing 30.6 on the OBC but calculated it was 26mpg.
I think it was 430 something miles and I got 75 litres back in it. That was the only reason I calculated it, because I thought 75 litres for 430 miles seemed incredibly low compared with what the OBC was saying.
I only really noticed as I get 75 litres in my E350 petrol and pretty much hit just under 500 miles every tank, which is a smidge over 30mpg.I probably wouldn't have noticed if it was similar figures.


I guess if I did a few more longer runs it would have crept up a bit more.


My point was however, if the diesel gets say 5-7mpg more than the petrol the overall ownership costs are going to be so minimal for someone doing 12,000 miles a year that it really doesn't come into it.

[VerySideways]

gizlaroc said:

My point was however, if the diesel gets say 5-7mpg more than the petrol the overall ownership costs are going to be so minimal for someone doing 12,000 miles a year that it really doesn't come into it.

Definitely agree with this - although it would appear that the M40d is getting better fuel economy than the plain jane 30d... which is also interesting. Admittedly both 3.0 six cylinder diesels, but different turbo configuration and/or state of tune.

[aeropilot]

VerySideways said:

ghost83 said:

I don’t like diesel either

BUT I do like money and I’d rather have it in my pocket than in the local petrol stations

Fair comment - but then shouldn't you be driving a Prius or a Tesla?

Sorry, just playing devil's advocate

Depends......

I hate diesel as well, and if it was an only car (as it was when I owned my E82 135i) I'd happily have a X3 M40i (or a V6 petrol Macan) instead of a 30d/40d X3/5.......
But, for me the saving in fuel by having the oil-burner goes straight into feeding the 6.3 litre V8 weekend toy sitting in the garage

[gizlaroc]

VerySideways said:

Yeah, those figures are just plain wrong, sorry.
Like-for-like use, M40i should be seeing 26/28 and M40d around 36/38.
Both will do better on the motorway and both will do worse in short journeys and with hilly terrain.
On a fast run the 40d gets 31mpg and the 40i gets 23mpg, on a long motorway trek the 40d gets 41mpg and the 40i gets around 33mpg (from my not-very-scientific testing) which means a real world difference of around 10mpg.

Firstly, just realised, I'm being a tit, it was an X5 30d I was in not an X3.


The X3 I borrowed after that, and I don't know what it did. Sorry.



Having said that....

I reckon real world there is more like 5mpg difference, or roughly 20%.

On all the cars where I have owned both diesel and petrol version this has been the case for me.

E39 530i vs 530d
E46 330i vs 330d
E91 335d vs 335i
E61 530i vs 530d vs 535d (535d drank more than the 530i)
A6 3.0tdi vs 3.2fsi
E350cdi vs E350

And on the short 6 mile school run the petrols were often more economical than the diesels, definitely in the colder months.

I put that at around £2300 over 80k miles, or for someone doing 12k miles a year that is around £25 a month in fuel.

When you consider you probably spend £600 a month in depreciation, £50 on tyres an servicing, £50 on insurance, and you are spending £200 on fuel whether diesel or petrol anyway, is the extra a decision maker?
£900 a month vs £925 a month?

I know it is a decision maker, I fall for it myself, time and time again, but the reality when you really crunch the numbers means it shouldn't be.

Sure, when it is 10 years old and £10k it makes a bigger difference.

[VerySideways]

Hey, i'm with you - i went for petrol even if it was going to cost me way more than £25 a month

[ghost83]

aeropilot said:

Depends......

I hate diesel as well, and if it was an only car (as it was when I owned my E82 135i) I'd happily have a X3 M40i (or a V6 petrol Macan) instead of a 30d/40d X3/5.......
But, for me the saving in fuel by having the oil-burner goes straight into feeding the 6.3 litre V8 weekend toy sitting in the garage

And this is my point I will be starting a Porsche Cayman track car build in the next 24 month so going to be towing that and our speedboat so for me it’s about cost saving torque and a good tow car!

As for Prius my dad has one of them as well as a Range Rover and it was dreadful in every single way and a Tesla costs a lot more than a x3

[Ranger 6]

VerySideways said:

Ranger 6 said:

Saw the pics on FB - looking very good!

When do you want it? I'll look after it until then

You may just have to keep it for a bit longer after all - we've got a new 'performance' V8 SUV in the household........
My son tells me I've got to keep it until he's old enough to drive, then it's his!

[Webber3]

gizlaroc said:

I would be interested to hear what MPG the M40i owners are getting?

I had the 30d for a few days recently and that was struggling to get 26mpg average over the few days and 600 odd miles I did in it.

I've had my M40i for about 5 weeks now. I traded in a Porsche Cayenne S and a BMW 650i, so anything was going to be better than those two gas guzzling V8's.

So far short trips around town are averaging about 21mpg, combining that with some fast motorway driving gives about 29mpg. If I reset the counter and put it in Eco mode, sitting behind a truck on the motorway at 60mph, I can get just over 40mpg. Which I thought was amazing given the size of the vehicle and engine.

I didn't buy the car for its fuel economy, I only do about 10k miles per year, but it's good to know that on a long slow motorway trip it will exceed 40mpg if I need it to. This is something my previous two cars never came close to.

[VerySideways]

Welcome to the club

[Luke.]

How's everyone still enjoying they're M40i's?

Got a newish XC60 for the next year or so then the X3's definitively next on the list.

[Chris Hinds]

Luke. said:

How's everyone still enjoying they're M40i's?

I've done 2500 miles in my M40i now - picked up on 1st March. It's in Phytonic Blue with Folding Mirrors, HK Audio, Adjustable Rear Seat, Acoustic Glass and HUD. My commute is a 24 mile mixture of A/B/C roads with little urban but quite a few junctions on the way. It's the first SUV I've owned and I came out of a 330d Touring after 5 years/80k. Overall I wouldn't change what I specified as options.


So good points

• It's smooth, very smooth in most circumstances
• It's exceptionally quiet compared to the 330d - some of which is engine, some of which is probably the acoustic glass
• LED Headlights are so much better than Xenons
• It's averaged 28.7mpg so far - which is better than I was expecting
• Something this big shouldn't be this fast
• Handles long distance well
• Nice balance to handling
• Included SatNav updates
• Modes (EcoPro/Comfort/Sport) are much more usable and Eco and Sport have configurable settings
• Petrol power instead of diesel means Sport is usable instead of just sounding like you're overrevving
• HUD Works really well and I find it useful
• Latest iDrive is superb

Room for improvement

• The HK Audio is way better than stock but not as good as the HK Audio in the 3-series... I haven't yet tuned to a point that it's sufficiently punchy for my liking but also clear despite a lot of effort
• If you drive in EcoPro (which is the only mode it will freewheel the transmission in) and use cruise control it will let the speed drop 2-3 mph before picking up again to the set speed which is really annoying
• Wing Mirror covers show dirt/rain instantly and it's hard to keep them looking neat
• Digital Dashboard is a solution looking for a problem
• Engine delivery (MY2019 - with Particulate Filter) isn't very linear... bit of lag from rest then it hits 3500rpm and goes mental

I think the biggest thing about the car for me is that it has limits so far beyond what you can use every day and it's so easy to exploit that you actually end up driving really quite serenely most of the time. It's quicker than my V8 Vantage for sure, but much less of an event to do anything in it. For me it feels a bit over engined for the car if I'm honest. At the same time as I picked up my X3, my wife picked up a Countryman Cooper S. On paper its massively slower than the X3 as a car it's a bit noisier and you can tell it's based on the old iDrive immediately, but from a performance point of view it actually feels more in keeping with the car style and what you need - as in still quicker than most things and feels more of an event working it too.

As it stands currently I'm happy with the X3 but not "in love with it" if you see what I mean. I think if BMW confirm the X3 xDrive 30e PHEV variant available for order later this year in all honesty I wouldn't necessarily wait until the end of my (4yr) finance term to change it.

[london_v]

Enjoying mine. I think it’s the perfect do-it-all car and importantly Mrs London V and our little puppy both love the car. Comfortable when it needs to be and more than capable of pushing on when you’re in the mood for some fun (which is often with me). As people have noted the exhaust has been muted with the newer models which is a shame, however there are fixes.

I’ve had lots of people complimenting the colour. The blue really pops in the sun and goes quite dark when overcast. The blue definitely makes the car a more fun looking car.

Ride quality is lovely even with the 21s. I live in west London which is speed bump / pothole central, and I’ve been very surprised at how comfortable the X3 rides.

This is my first suv having come from driving sports cars over the last 10 years. I do miss the lower driving position and the sense of occasion, but I guess that’s inevitable with this type of car. However BMW have done a fab job on the suspension and handling ... this thing is quick around the twisties!

[Gren]

Luke. said:

How's everyone still enjoying they're M40i's?

Got a newish XC60 for the next year or so then the X3's definitively next on the list.

Missus is loving her X4 version. The ultimate mile muncher and a big step up (in all ways!) from her 340i. Especially likes the HUD and all the tech although that 'Star Trek' key is a bit daft!

She's looking to try the X3 M40i in the autumn when she's due to change it again - I'm assuming she'll hardly notice the difference unless the boot is open.