2020 BMW X3 M In-Depth Driving Review | A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

This episode is sponsored in part by Armadillo Tech. Looking for a cool phone case? Gotta be tough, right? How about drop proof? Well, look no further because these guys make some pretty hardcore cases for both iPhone and Samsung. Just ask our resident race car driver what he thinks. Plus, they're from Texas and they donate a portion of their profits to unicef. So even more reason to check them out in the link below. Let's get started with the show. So this is the 2020 BMW X3M. But unlike everybody else, we're not going to be covering the range, top and competition model. Nope. This is the base X3M with only 473 brake horsepower. As if that wasn't enough for an already overpopulated compact SUV segment. But the truth is, there's actually no real mechanical difference between this and the extra $7,000 you would spend on the cop model. The additional 30 horsepower basically comes from a revised tune with extra boost and an improved exhaust system, both of which could be had for probably much cheaper in the aftermarket. So really you're just paying for fancier wheels and black trim. Might be worth it to some people, I guess. But you know what, I'm actually in the market for one of these things, so. Pretty curious. Let's drive it today and see what the hype is all about. All right. So, I mean, I've driven this car for the good part of like yesterday and I think I have a pretty good grasp of it. But I feel like you can probably spearhead this a little better than me because, you know, you daily something in this segment.

Right. So I drive a Jaguar F Pace SVR, which as we know, is a 5 liter V8 supercharged with 550 horsepower and 501 foot pounds of torque. That car has all the drama that I need and makes the right amount of noises. I can't say the same about this car. I know this thing's down on power, but it's not bad.

But is it really down on power though? Because if you think about it, When Jaguar says 550 horsepower, they make 550 horsepower. But when BMW says 473 horsepower, it could mean anything.

It could mean like 800 horsepower. Yeah, we don't know.

There's like a dyno out there. I think it's like 505 all wheel horsepower stock. And you know what, that basically is 600 horsepower. And that kind of makes sense because this car puts down some insane performance times.

Yeah, they do. A lot of the videos and numbers I've seen online are Just insane. It's not of a car that makes 473 horsepower, I'll tell you that. Because my Jaguar with 550 horse is not even touching numbers close to this car.

In terms of power delivery, though, like, it's different because your Jaguar supercharged. This is turbos linear versus a little bit of buildup. How do you feel when you drive it then?

Obviously the lag is there in this car from 1 to 3,000. It's just a little bit of lag and then it all kicks in, which in my Jaguar, I don't feel any of. Cause down low all the torque is right there and it just goes.

But I feel like this car maybe has more high end. What do you feel?

Yeah, okay, I can see what you're saying. My Jaguar, everything obviously comes in low and then towards the end of the rev range, it starts to die down a little bit.

Well, I mean, overall, I'd say, like, I drove the M340i and that strangely feels faster simply because I feel like because of the single turbo, there's a little bit more lag. And that kind of lag gives you that perception of speed. Like, oh, I'm going really fast once the. But this doesn't lag too hard. So what ends up happening is you're going really fast and you don't feel it, which is a good and bad thing because it's good because you have confidence at high speed, but it's bad because you just probably end up getting a speeding ticket.

I think one of the biggest things is the car doesn't make enough noises to let you know how fast you're going. Whereas in my Jaguar, when you're doing 100. Yeah. You know you're doing 100.

Yeah. This thing, I mean, it doesn't have the competition exhaust, which I don't know how much better it sounds, but as you put it earlier, like you were saying, this thing sounds like a blender.

They do. And we've seen it with the F80 M3s and such. I don't think this car sounds good at all. And no exhaust you put on it will change that fact, I don't think.

At least I feel like they still pipe in noises. I'm not sure. I didn't really read on it too much, but when you press this exhaust button, it feels like they're piping in noises from like a subwoofer somewhere.

Yeah, it gets very bassy, right? It gets super bassy. Especially if you're just idling.

Yeah.

And it goes from Quiet to bass.

The other thing is, like, you know what they do? They kind of, like, fart on purpose in this car. And it kind of gets annoying because you fart at every part of the rev range. And it's just, what is the point?

I've noticed that every time you downshift, it just burbles, whereas my Jag doesn't really do that on downshifts. Yes. When you accelerate and let off, you're gonna get a bunch of firecrackers in the back.

The thing about that is, though, that the Jaguar, like, in the Jaguar, my Z06, all these other cars, I feel like it's natural, like, you have to work for those crackles versus this is you're crackling at, like, 1,000, like, idle.

Basically.

You downshift it to idle and you, like, crack.

But that's the beauty of the displacement. Right. The higher the displacement, the more your car is going to pop and crackle versus these little three liters. You have to literally force it to do that.

Yeah, I mean, that just feels artificial to me. But how do you feel? What would you score this segment?

I would give this. The engine noise and everything, a total score of eight.

Okay, that feels pretty fair to me. Say eight.

So.

All right, the next topic is transmission and paddles. Paddles. Because I like paddles. But anyway, this is a ZF8 speed. It's tried and true, but I always wonder, like, it's not that much torque. So why didn't they just put a DCT in this car?

Well, theoretically, the DCT can't tow. Right. This car has to be able to tow. It's an suv.

I kind of get that. But are you really towing with an X3?

I know what you're saying, but, you know, you're gonna get those five people out of the hundred that buy it, that will to of it. And if there's a DCT on it and it fails, they're gonna throw a whole fit. So I get why BMW does it, but at the same time, the ZF8 speed is a great gearbox, so why even complain?

Yeah, you can't really go wrong. Like I said, with this gearbox, it's quick up downshifts both happen like that. It feels almost like a dct. The only way I can tell is a little bit is when you kind of listen to it. Sometimes I feel like the dash actually shifts faster than. Well, the dash happens like the digital change happens faster than the gear change, which gives you the illusion a really good gear change. Yeah, it's kind of what happened in the M340i. You know, you kind of notice that after a little bit, if you really analyze it, but for the most part, you're not going to know.

I mean, that's going to happen with all these digital dashes versus like a, you know, gearbox that's obviously mechanics and gears. It's not going to translate to digital.

Right. So in terms of paddles, though, this is the same problem. The M340i where the paddles, they're just kind of too. You know, they're not in the right place. No, they're not dinky. I don't think they're bad. I think they're okay. They give decent engagement for what the car is. They could, but it's just. It's not like it feels like they're too far from your fingers. You know what I'm saying?

Look, I'm not gonna lie. I own a 2011 BMW M3. And the paddles in there, the stock paddles were phenomenal. Cause they were like metal. These nice feeling and the clicks were nice. And BMW. This is like pla. This is plastic.

This is plastic.

Yeah, it's full on plastic. It doesn't even feel that satisfying as the E60M5 or the E90M3S. So I can understand your issue with the paddles here.

Yeah, like I said, I'm not too. I don't even care about the materials at this point. I just don't like where they'.

Right. They're not low enough or they should extend it at least.

You know, like you have to really stretch your fingers to hit them. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's. It's not pleasant. So what do you think we should give this.

Look, you know, me and the ZF8 speed, I love it.

Okay.

I would have to give it an 8 just because of this paddle issue. I would even go as far as saying I'd give it a nine.

Nine. I don't know. I think eight. I think we should stick with eight.

Eight. I'm down with eight. Eight.

So that's an eight. So this next section here is handling, steering and brakes. There's a little bit of curviness going up, up here. So why don't you give a little bit and see what it looks like. Just take it easy because, you know, there's a lake over here, so.

Yeah, okay. I think it handles better than my Jaguar and I'll. And I'm saying that because this has less body roll like my Jaguar Has a lot like there's body roll. Right, right. This doesn't give me that. So I feel more confident in this.

Yeah.

But the thing is the Jaguar is very good at handling.

This car is also about 150 pounds lighter if I remember correctly.

Right, right.

Because the Jaguar's 4650. This is like 4500 and change.

And on top of that I'm running on all season Pirellis and This is on PS4S.

No, no 4S.

Oh, sorry. This is on Michelin 4S's so there's obviously a difference there. I've taken some turns in the Jaguar pretty hard and it does, but the systems will let the back slide out a little bit so you can gauge your control there. But like the thing is, to a normal guy doing that, you're gonna shit your pants. Right.

Does the Jaguar have lsd?

Yeah, it does.

Okay. This car is LSD as well. I think it's the same LLSD as the M5.

Yeah, it does. It just doesn't have the decoupling feature on the all wheel drive system.

There you go. Yep. How about, I guess steering, I mean we can change the steering from just being in comfort, Sport plus or you know, all those settings electronically. But how does it feel right now you're in comfor different, right?

Yeah. Right. So here's my thing. I'm always going to leave the suspension in comfort. I'm always going to leave the steering in comfort because the thing is the steering. Right. Once you put it into Sport or Sport plus or whatever. Yeah. It, it's kind of fake because now you're just tightening it electronically.

Right.

It's not like the car is naturally like that. Right. Whereas like back in the day BMWs, they had the hydraulic right steering. So it was just everything was heavy and tight at low speed speeds and most people complain about it, but no, that felt good.

I like that.

Yeah, right. I like that a lot too. Now with all this electronic stuff, I'm not a big fan. But this in its normal comfort setting, I like it.

It's better than you think. It's better than Sport Plus. Yeah.

Because then it gets too heavy.

Right. It's too artificial.

Yeah. And it's like, wait, how did that happen? So I'm not a big fan of it. So I just like to leave it in comfort. Same with the ride.

Now brakes, I think they're a little bit touchy, but you feel like they're okay. Right.

I actually don't think, think there's anything wrong with these Brakes whatsoever. Just because in my Jaguar the brakes are too touchy and every time you hit the brake, the car like dives down. It's. I don't, I personally don't like it. And in this car, I think the brakes are just fine. It's not too touchy and it doesn't give you that jerky feeling that my Jaguar does.

That's fair enough. I mean, it is an suv. You do need some pretty heavy brake system to kind of.

Right.

Make sure you're not gonna crash into a wall.

Yeah, of course, let's not talk about that.

But. Okay. What do you think? Score wise?

Handling, steering, everything. I would give this car an eight.

Nine. Yeah, I think nine.

Nine.

Cause give it, you know, like it handles better than pretty much everything else. You know, like the brakes will stop you. Like, even though, like I said, you know, we have different like, opinions on the brakes, but they do their job and they did the job well.

Fine, then in that case, I guess you were right. So I would give it a nine as well because it's way better than my Jaguars. And in those, I think the only.

Thing you want to, you want to take away from it is the steering. But you can adjust that with electronically so it's not a big deal. So nine. I. Yeah. So this next topic here is ride and suspension. When we think about like great handling cars in the back of our minds, we're often like, oh, it's gotta handle like.

Yep.

Like we're riding on some rocks and stuff. But not so in the case of modern performance vehicles now with all the adaptive technology and whatnot.

Yeah. I mean, suspension technology has gotten really far, but I still don't think we're at the point where you can have, for example, this X3M. We're in comfort right now, still slightly stiff. And then once we put it into sport and sport plus it just gets stiffer and then even more stiffer than that. Right. So the thing is, I'm expecting this car to already be stiff because it has an M badge on it. It's supposed to handle. And the history of M cars is, yeah, they ride a little bit stiff. But you know what, it's not where it's going to break your back stiff.

For me, I feel like, because it's like a really. What this is, is like a mom car if you think about it, you know, like an entry level. Like, you know, I've just became a mom and you know, you want to.

Go fast at the grocery store.

I get it. Yeah. So it has to be a certain level of comfort. And I feel like comfort mode isn actually that comfortable. But the biggest problem is the disparity between comfort and Sport plus is not that great. You know, I wouldn't mind it if comfort was, you know, like, okay. But then you put in the Sport plus and I'm. Now I'm riding on rocks. I like that.

Yeah, I'm not a whole fan of all this adaptive suspension stuff because Even in my M3 or any of my other cars, I've never touched it. I've never used the button.

That's funny because in my, when I drive my cars, the first thing I do is I set the suspension to the Sport plus. Setting, track setting, race setting, it's my favorite.

Leave it in comfort and the. The only thing I'll probably change is the throttle response to sport or Sport plus. But other than that, I just leave everything in comfort.

Soft ass bitch. So what do you think? What do you think of the score here?

I would give this a seven.

Yep, seven sounds good. Okay.

Yep. Camera system in this car, really cool.

Yeah, that's pretty dope, honestly.

And I didn't even know it had augmented reality. I've never seen that before.

Totally not necessary. But that is a pretty crazy tech for something that's really just an entry level luxury SUV. I mean, for $76,000, it's pretty well appointed.

Yeah, BMW is definitely headed in the right direction with its technology for sure.

The overall kind of cabin layout is pretty gorgeous. Like I'm not gonna like when you bring somebody in here or you sit in here for the first time, you're not gonna be disappointed at all.

Somebody's gonna assume this is an expensive car. And I mean, look at the color.

When I first got to this thing, I thought this was like a really deep red. But it's not red.

No, it's not. It's actually secure orange. And I'm assuming this is probably a pretty decently expensive option.

In order to get this color, you actually have to get them with the comp seats.

Right.

Which is like a two or three thousand dollar option. I forgot. But.

So the seat doesn't just come in the car?

No. You have to get the competition trim to get the competition seats. So that's how they get you. But I think we can both agree that this carbon fiber situation is getting a little childish.

Yes. It's actually getting really old and I wish manufacturers would start giving us something else. Hopefully we see that in the coming years. Other than that, I mean, I can't really Complain about the materials or the trim bits. I think everything is perfect the way it is.

If I had to nitpick, I'd say piano black is not my go to just because it leaves a lot of random fingerprints and it's annoying.

Yeah, but so is the silver trim. And speaking of you not liking this piano black, if it was regular matte black plastic looking stuff, you would have come complained about that and said it looks too cheap. So I think piano black is fitting and it matches with the digital screen they have. So.

You know, I'm actually a pretty big fan of this gear selector. I know you're not because you like those old chode shifters.

Yes, I do like the old chode shifter because I think it is a way sleeker looking thing to match the interior of an M car. Secondly, why is the park button down here and not up here where most cars it would be? They couldn't just place the drive logic on the center console somewhere. It wouldn't be an issue.

Yeah, that would probably make it a lot cleaner looking in my opinion as well.

This is just.

But you know what they do do right, though? They got the steering wheel right.

They did get it right. It's thick.

Listen, you can say it.

All right, well, it's girthy. Okay. It's got girth.

So what do you think overall score?

I'd give this interior a nine.

Okay.

Because it works, man. Space is there. It's there.

I feel like the storage space is okay. The trunk could be a little bit bigger.

Speaking of the trunk size, I mean, we have a full size human being in the back. If you'd like to wave at the camera for us, there she is. So I think the trunk size is big enough and also it's fully reclined too, and she's still back there.

So. Yeah. All right, so let's move on to driver engagement. Do you feel one with the machine?

Well, I know you may not feel that way, but I think it's still there. Once the car is in the right modes and settings and stuff and you're driving along and you know, making pop and crackle noise, I think it's pretty much there. It handles it. It does engage you. Okay. You're not like just automatic and just gonna go type of deal, you know? So, yeah, the engagement is still there.

Okay, so if that's the case, what would you score in driver engagement?

Seven. I'd probably give it a seven.

All right. I was hoping for a six, but I think I can. I can live with the seven here.

I think it's a fair score for this car.

Okay, seven it is. So that being said, let's. Let's hop on outside and see what's going on out there. So, actually, Sean, I'm gonna jet, but why don't you finish off the rest of the review and I'll. I'll catch you guys next time.

All right? So in terms of design, I don't think the X3M is the most exciting, especially finished in Doddington gray. Very understated. A car wearing an M badge should scream M. And unless you're looking at badges, you're not gonna know that this is an X3M. So because of that, I'm gonna have to give this car A5 in terms of design. Next thing on our list is curb value. Now rolling up to somewhere. This thing's not much stunt. No one's gonna look at you twice unless it's an enthusiast, because to the normal person, this is just a BMW suv and that's it. So because of that, I have to give it a three. Now we're going to talk about the warranty and aftermarket support for this car. BMW offers you a four year, 50,000 mile warranty, which should be enough for any. Now, the aftermarket support for M cars in general is crazy. This car already has downpipes and tunes and exhaust. Everything's already out. And this car's only been out for maybe a few months now, so that's great. And if you want M badges anywhere, just go on Google, type in M badge, and you can put them everywhere for this car. Here, there on the back, the front, wherever you want. We'll even send you some M badges if you really want. So because the aftermarket support and the warranty is really good on this car, I'm gonna have to give it a 10 in this category. So now we're gonna talk about price. This car was $69,000 starting and as optioned, 76,000. Not bad if you think about the competition, because everything that it competes with is usually 80 plus optioned out. So the price value here is definitely gonna get a 10 in that category. Now, our last category is smiles per gallon. I've driven this car all day, and I could tell you that I haven't been bored at all. There's a lot of features inside, and it's just plain fun to drive. And it gets everything done perfectly. Therefore it's going to receive the full five points. Now let's go tally off and see what we got.

B seems like a pretty low grade for a car that's been so highly praised. But keep in mind that this is the base model, not the competition, which would have probably gotten a point or two more. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. If you did, let me know by leaving a thumbs up and a comment below. Our merch store is up and running, so go check out some of the designs and if it tickles your fancy, help a brother out by grabbing a cool hoodie or T shirt. And if this is your first time on the channel, don't forget to check out some of my other stuff. I produce all sorts of high quality cinematic car content, so if that's your jam, hit that subscribe button and ring that bell. Icon for new episodes every Thursday. Thanks for watching.