F15 X5 - ownership experiences
Discussion
The (very) shortlist for the next family charabanc has an F15 X5 on it - any experiences on here of owning one? Living with it, driving, problems, things to watch for? General reliability. There isn't as much info as I though across the usual internet areas, hence the post.
Will probably be 2015/16'ish and petrol, which means x35i - will stick to I6 rather than V8. I know there are a lot of diesels and people rave about how much a diesel suits a big, heavy car, but I really don't like diesels.
Our cars do a lot of urban kms, with a few long-haul family trips each year. Over the past 7 or so years, the family cars have been a couple of turbo Subarus, a turbo Volvo (V70 T6) and a Mazda CX9 so any argument about fuel economy is lost on me, and the petrol engines in those cars have been just fine. I prefer petrol.
Anyway, all thoughts and guidance gratefully received.
Will probably be 2015/16'ish and petrol, which means x35i - will stick to I6 rather than V8. I know there are a lot of diesels and people rave about how much a diesel suits a big, heavy car, but I really don't like diesels.
Our cars do a lot of urban kms, with a few long-haul family trips each year. Over the past 7 or so years, the family cars have been a couple of turbo Subarus, a turbo Volvo (V70 T6) and a Mazda CX9 so any argument about fuel economy is lost on me, and the petrol engines in those cars have been just fine. I prefer petrol.
Anyway, all thoughts and guidance gratefully received.
I've a 2018 x40d m-sport and honestly can't complain about it.
The heads-up display works really well and gets clearer in bright sunlight which surprised me. The digi-dash is a bit lame compared to the VW / Audi stuff, i mean it works well enough but it's not very configurable, the dials change design and colour in different modes and that's about it. The sound system is utterly brilliant although it's actually wasted just playing music. I popped in a DVD just to try it one time and was blown away with the surround sound, genuinely better than my living room setup, crap screen for watching a DVD though, plus the world has gone 4k these days and when would you actually watch a DVD in a car. The heated seats work really well, best i've had in a car. The heated steering wheel is ace. The memory seats and mirrors thing is brilliant, we went down to one car so this has been ace. Mine didn't come with carplay, the BMW system is really good, the maps work well, the online stuff is good but i always hankered after carplay, i ended up doing the retrofit a couple of days ago - £35 for the key file from ebay, just plugs into usb and a couple of reboots and you're golden. Mine didn't have the wifi antenna so that's £5 from ebay and 40 mins to pull the head unit out and plug it in the back, job done, works a treat now. Ride quality is surprisingly good even with the bigger wheels. The screen clears really quickly in winter but it's not a heated screen, i don't actually know what the magic is that they're doing but it clears faster than any AC i've had before and warm air appears quickly even though there's no aux heater and it's a diesel.
Practicalities wise, I'm 6'3 and can sit behind myself with plenty leg room. It's really economical on fuel. Servicing has been fine. Tyres are £350 a corner, had 2 punctures and both places refused to repair, pirelli say these tyres can't be repaired even though if it was none runflat these would have had a mushroom plug and would have been fine. Annoying. There's no spare wheel but to be honest having had to use the runflat feature before, i don't think i'd want to go back to changing wheels. Just drive to a tyre place. Insurance is cheap, £350 the first year, £380 this year, both with Tesco. VED is £500 so there's that.
It's surprisingly quick for a car full stop never mind for a car of this size and weight. Steers well, brakes feel nice. Turning circle is ace.
It's a bit wide and it took me a good 9 months to stop thinking of it as too wide. There's tight car park barrier exits i sometimes use and there's an inch to spare with the alloys either side. There's a bridge near me with a width restriction that i've seen transit vans go through and yet both my front wheels where running into the front of the little steel bollards preventing wider cars using that bridge.
The bad bits? The steering doesn't self-centre very convincingly and It doesn't sound good, i was hoping the 6-pot would make diesel sound better.
All in all, a no brainer. Definitely would buy again, probably going for the xDrive 45e version next.
The heads-up display works really well and gets clearer in bright sunlight which surprised me. The digi-dash is a bit lame compared to the VW / Audi stuff, i mean it works well enough but it's not very configurable, the dials change design and colour in different modes and that's about it. The sound system is utterly brilliant although it's actually wasted just playing music. I popped in a DVD just to try it one time and was blown away with the surround sound, genuinely better than my living room setup, crap screen for watching a DVD though, plus the world has gone 4k these days and when would you actually watch a DVD in a car. The heated seats work really well, best i've had in a car. The heated steering wheel is ace. The memory seats and mirrors thing is brilliant, we went down to one car so this has been ace. Mine didn't come with carplay, the BMW system is really good, the maps work well, the online stuff is good but i always hankered after carplay, i ended up doing the retrofit a couple of days ago - £35 for the key file from ebay, just plugs into usb and a couple of reboots and you're golden. Mine didn't have the wifi antenna so that's £5 from ebay and 40 mins to pull the head unit out and plug it in the back, job done, works a treat now. Ride quality is surprisingly good even with the bigger wheels. The screen clears really quickly in winter but it's not a heated screen, i don't actually know what the magic is that they're doing but it clears faster than any AC i've had before and warm air appears quickly even though there's no aux heater and it's a diesel.
Practicalities wise, I'm 6'3 and can sit behind myself with plenty leg room. It's really economical on fuel. Servicing has been fine. Tyres are £350 a corner, had 2 punctures and both places refused to repair, pirelli say these tyres can't be repaired even though if it was none runflat these would have had a mushroom plug and would have been fine. Annoying. There's no spare wheel but to be honest having had to use the runflat feature before, i don't think i'd want to go back to changing wheels. Just drive to a tyre place. Insurance is cheap, £350 the first year, £380 this year, both with Tesco. VED is £500 so there's that.
It's surprisingly quick for a car full stop never mind for a car of this size and weight. Steers well, brakes feel nice. Turning circle is ace.
It's a bit wide and it took me a good 9 months to stop thinking of it as too wide. There's tight car park barrier exits i sometimes use and there's an inch to spare with the alloys either side. There's a bridge near me with a width restriction that i've seen transit vans go through and yet both my front wheels where running into the front of the little steel bollards preventing wider cars using that bridge.
The bad bits? The steering doesn't self-centre very convincingly and It doesn't sound good, i was hoping the 6-pot would make diesel sound better.
All in all, a no brainer. Definitely would buy again, probably going for the xDrive 45e version next.
Edited by disago on Sunday 1st November 16:47
disago said:
[Lots of useful stuff, and...]
All in all, a no brainer.
Thanks for that. All in all, a no brainer.
I’m not worried about the toys and goodies, but nice to know it all works well. I would need a spare wheel though as it can be a long distance between tyre places here and run-flats may not be in stock!
Need to drive one next...
Disago has summed it up nicely and are similar views to us.
Good luck finding a petrol F15, the only ones I can see are the 50i. Whilst it'll be a beast of a 4.4 Turbo V8, the Diesel 6 is a cracking engine in 40d or 50d variety. Or just get an X5M if you don't care about fuel
We had a 2016 M50d for 2019-2020 and became quite attached to it, mainly as it was like a damn Starship!!!!! Bought used from BMW and the paint was a bit of a mess (even after a 4 day detail!), but she looked great in Carbon black (metallic blue tinge in the sun), but it always looked dirty! The cream interior with American wood was a stunning place to be, but the seats turned blue from denim transfer, so I was constantly having to wipe that away with special leather cleaner.
Unfortunately we sold the car on at the start of this year just as COVID murmerings started, but my other half left her job so the car had to go. If we'd kept the car until lockdown eased then we would have got about 3k more for selling her, but hindsight is a wonderful thing
We've had an old 2006 ML500 since then, but that's going shortly as we've just picked up another X5, and my god it's good to be back. Our local dealer had a 2018 40d in Alpine White with black interior. Whilst not as bright a place to be, we decided that it was perfectly decent, even without the extra light a pano roof would add. Looked brand new inside and the HUD coupled with the Digi dash and latest IDrive 6 was epic. She really liked the heated steering wheel and it's perfect for our cold scottish winters. During the test drive the 40d didn't feel that much slower than the 50d either, and with 313hp and lots of toque, it's more than enough to sprint to 60 in about 5.8secs (if you like that sorta thing).
Must have options for us:
- HUD HUD HUD - Means you don't have to look down much, displays speed, the current limit, and can show nav directions, flick through songs etc. Love it!
- Sun protection glass - Essentially rear windows and boot window tint. Great for security and hard to see through when outside.
- Heated Wheel - Yep, it's awesome.
- Anything but base stereo - HK Sounds good, but the tweeters sound a bit harsh. Easily replaced though for another from the likes of Audision/Hertz.
Main annoyance for me is having to run the 20" * rated BMW runflats to maintain the warranty. They are not the best and you're limited to Dunlop, Pirelli, Bridgestone & Michelin tyres, but none of the best UHP tyres. You could always get a square set of 19" wheels and run winter/all season tyres (non-RFT)
All in all a cracking car and the best 'Do Everything' SUV. Make sure you haggle and get a 2nd year approved used warranty thrown in and the obligatory set of all weather mats and boot liner. Approved used cars are fairly well priced up our way but we got another £1k off after some back and forth haggling. The BMW Used Finance 'Best' rate is still silly at around 6.9", so best to put down a decent deposit and buy it with a low 2.9" loan. Or just buy it with a direct wire transfer from the 'Powerful PH Director Account'
Good luck finding a petrol F15, the only ones I can see are the 50i. Whilst it'll be a beast of a 4.4 Turbo V8, the Diesel 6 is a cracking engine in 40d or 50d variety. Or just get an X5M if you don't care about fuel
We had a 2016 M50d for 2019-2020 and became quite attached to it, mainly as it was like a damn Starship!!!!! Bought used from BMW and the paint was a bit of a mess (even after a 4 day detail!), but she looked great in Carbon black (metallic blue tinge in the sun), but it always looked dirty! The cream interior with American wood was a stunning place to be, but the seats turned blue from denim transfer, so I was constantly having to wipe that away with special leather cleaner.
Unfortunately we sold the car on at the start of this year just as COVID murmerings started, but my other half left her job so the car had to go. If we'd kept the car until lockdown eased then we would have got about 3k more for selling her, but hindsight is a wonderful thing
We've had an old 2006 ML500 since then, but that's going shortly as we've just picked up another X5, and my god it's good to be back. Our local dealer had a 2018 40d in Alpine White with black interior. Whilst not as bright a place to be, we decided that it was perfectly decent, even without the extra light a pano roof would add. Looked brand new inside and the HUD coupled with the Digi dash and latest IDrive 6 was epic. She really liked the heated steering wheel and it's perfect for our cold scottish winters. During the test drive the 40d didn't feel that much slower than the 50d either, and with 313hp and lots of toque, it's more than enough to sprint to 60 in about 5.8secs (if you like that sorta thing).
Must have options for us:
- HUD HUD HUD - Means you don't have to look down much, displays speed, the current limit, and can show nav directions, flick through songs etc. Love it!
- Sun protection glass - Essentially rear windows and boot window tint. Great for security and hard to see through when outside.
- Heated Wheel - Yep, it's awesome.
- Anything but base stereo - HK Sounds good, but the tweeters sound a bit harsh. Easily replaced though for another from the likes of Audision/Hertz.
Main annoyance for me is having to run the 20" * rated BMW runflats to maintain the warranty. They are not the best and you're limited to Dunlop, Pirelli, Bridgestone & Michelin tyres, but none of the best UHP tyres. You could always get a square set of 19" wheels and run winter/all season tyres (non-RFT)
All in all a cracking car and the best 'Do Everything' SUV. Make sure you haggle and get a 2nd year approved used warranty thrown in and the obligatory set of all weather mats and boot liner. Approved used cars are fairly well priced up our way but we got another £1k off after some back and forth haggling. The BMW Used Finance 'Best' rate is still silly at around 6.9", so best to put down a decent deposit and buy it with a low 2.9" loan. Or just buy it with a direct wire transfer from the 'Powerful PH Director Account'
Edited by -Ad- on Tuesday 3rd November 09:31
Edited by -Ad- on Tuesday 3rd November 10:09
-Ad- said:
More good stuff
Thanks - appreciate the input.There are a few 3-6 year-old x35i for sale over here, but I hear you re the 40d - some friends have the 30d so I'm hoping to get a drive in that soon to help.
The stock of cars for sale here has dropped dramatically, and Australia isn't near the top of the list to receive new imports either, so for the time being it seems prices are firm, and rising... Few deals to be had.
We bought our 50i in Jan this year. Already done 8k miles in it. It replaced a E53 4.8iS. We kept the previous X5 6yrs and I think the F15 is a long term keeper too.
Our is loaded - £32k worth of options, including panoramic, HUD, B&0, cooled seats and night vision. Also, it sports the full leather interior. Sound petty, but a leather dash is a must for me, ever since my E61 M5 days. Overall it is just brilliant, and for the money nothing comes close to it.
Criticisms - it likes a drink. I thought the F15 will be better on fuel economy than the E53. Well, it’s not. It is indecently quick for a big lump. Let me rephrase this - it’s stupidly quick for a car, let alone a 2.35t SUV, but I cannot get better than 22mpg overall. And that’s with 50/50 driving mix.
Our is loaded - £32k worth of options, including panoramic, HUD, B&0, cooled seats and night vision. Also, it sports the full leather interior. Sound petty, but a leather dash is a must for me, ever since my E61 M5 days. Overall it is just brilliant, and for the money nothing comes close to it.
Criticisms - it likes a drink. I thought the F15 will be better on fuel economy than the E53. Well, it’s not. It is indecently quick for a big lump. Let me rephrase this - it’s stupidly quick for a car, let alone a 2.35t SUV, but I cannot get better than 22mpg overall. And that’s with 50/50 driving mix.
disago said:
What do you think of it, is it useful or just a gimmick? It’s not a particularly hard or expensive retrofit and i keep thinking about it
A must for me - saved my bacon just this half term. We were up in Scotland, down a dark A-road on a rainy night. The car saw the dear way earlier than I could have even imagined. Got the warning and the brake tap... Bought a new diesel X5 about 4 years ago.
Mega discount as it was a physical car in the garage, and they wanted shot - time of year.
Huge spec too - inc third row seats. Most options fitted; Individual paint (Ruby Black)
Nothing has gone wrong with it. At all. Done 20K miles in it.
Just had new front tyres, couple of services, an MOT and that's it !
(replaced all the brake pads myself for the princely sum of £150 all in couple of weeks ago - still about 30% pad left on them.)
Very nice place to be - maybe due to all the options;
Were probably going to swap it early next year.
Kids will be nearly 4 by then, lot less crap to haul !
Opens up more options for us; had a loan of a Taycan Turbo for a day - really impressed by it.
But nowhere as much luggage space
Mega discount as it was a physical car in the garage, and they wanted shot - time of year.
Huge spec too - inc third row seats. Most options fitted; Individual paint (Ruby Black)
Nothing has gone wrong with it. At all. Done 20K miles in it.
Just had new front tyres, couple of services, an MOT and that's it !
(replaced all the brake pads myself for the princely sum of £150 all in couple of weeks ago - still about 30% pad left on them.)
Very nice place to be - maybe due to all the options;
Were probably going to swap it early next year.
Kids will be nearly 4 by then, lot less crap to haul !
Opens up more options for us; had a loan of a Taycan Turbo for a day - really impressed by it.
But nowhere as much luggage space
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