{"id":2115777,"date":"2026-08-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2115777"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T21:00:00","slug":"bmw-ix3-50-xdrive-m-sport-long-term-review-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2115777","title":{"rendered":"BMW iX3 50 xDrive M Sport – long-term review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I\u2019m aware that, despite it being our reigning Car of the Year, the iX3\u2019s had a bit of tough time on TG\u2019s fleet so far. So let\u2019s keep that going, as there are some other faults to discuss\u2026<\/p>\n

The head-up display \u2013 part of the \u00a31,700 Technology Plus Pack, which also includes the (good) three-zone air-con and (good) Harman\/Kardon audio system \u2013 has been off since day one. Well, almost off since day one, as occasionally the HUD decides it\u2019s needed and comes back on when I start the iX3. But I turn it off again, for three reasons: first, the HUD graphics feature a horizontal line, and because the secondary ride is a little busy, all I see is a strip of blue light bouncing at high frequency right in my eyeline. Second, the graphics appear rather low-res and\/or out of focus, so just looking at them makes my eyes hurt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Third \u2013 and praise where it\u2019s due \u2013 the panoramic strip of screens reflected up from the top of the dashboard into the base of the windscreen are bloody brilliant. So even if the HUD was any good, all the info you need is sitting right below it anyway.<\/p>\n

My other major gripe is with the steering wheel, or at least the controls on it \u2013 and given the iX3 was the first car from the ground-up, clean-sheet, all-new Neue Klasse family, I don\u2019t know how they\u2019ve messed this bit up so badly.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re holding any steering wheel at quarter-past-nine or ten-to-two, you should be able to rotate your thumbs 90-degrees down and touch every button. But in the iX3 you can\u2019t. Now I\u2019ve got big hands, big enough to palm a basketball, and yet I cannot reach the part of the controls (and it\u2019s a pad, not an individual button) that lowers the volume without some awkward upward-and-across reach. And if you place your hands further up the wheel to ease that, you can\u2019t press the controls to skip tracks.<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, because all the controls are on one pad, and because BMW has placed the area of the pad that controls calls and the area of the pad that skips forward a track (or 15 seconds on a podcast) right next to each other, too often I go to skip through a minute-long ad with four presses, and suddenly I\u2019ve brought up the telephone menu, dialled a number, cancelled a number and re-dialled it all in a couple of seconds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s because all the controls are mounted up against the central boss, not out on the spoke. If they just moved it an inch to the right, to fill that random styling gap, all might be well, but no, someone in the design department overruled sense and put a few oft-used controls just\u2026 out\u2026 of\u2026 reach. Oh, and just to irk you more, next to nothing ever happens on the left-hand touchpad, so that\u2019s more or less a blank for 99 per cent of the time.<\/p>\n

Other niggles, that at least haven\u2019t seemed to reoccur, was the initial Android Auto takeover that wasn\u2019t sure whether it wanted to leave a strip of BMW shortcut controls at the bottom of the touchscreen, or 100 per cent fill the screen and have them pop-up when your fingers got close. And the random 48 hours where the iX3 connected to my phone, would stream music and the like, but then wouldn\u2019t play phone calls through the car\u2019s speakers.<\/p>\n

Still, we\u2019re off to Cornwall to end the summer, and because of the 400-mile real-world range, I\u2019ve not even bothered to look at charging points, which is a plus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m aware that, despite it being our reigning Car of the Year, the iX3\u2019s had a bit of tough time on TG\u2019s fleet so far. So let\u2019s keep that going, as there are some other faults to discuss\u2026 The head-up display \u2013 part of the \u00a31,700 Technology Plus Pack, which also includes the (good) three-zone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-2115777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2115777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2115777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2115777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2115777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}