wobbles
Well-Known Member
Well, I never for one, thought I'd be in the market for an SUV of any kind. With my well known dislike for over-bearing Angmoh car park space robbers in their beat up Volvo XC90s (sorry, maximizer) and banged up Hyundai Santa Fes, I never once thought of an SUV as a choice for wheels.
Then, over Christmas, I had something like a dozen well-meaning, free-loading relatives turn up at my house (yes, the one with the humpbrokebackwhale in the imaginary Olympic sized swimming pool) - and I suddenly realised that:
a. kids can't really sit on the floor of the F02, no matter how freaking long the wheelbase is
b. the F13 is truly a 4 seater, the hump in the middle can give a hernia to anyone desperate enough to ride on it
c. it might actually be pretty cool to cart the extended rellies in an SUV (and the ones you like least can all squash themselves in the 2 perfunctory seats in the 3rd row)
d. maybe I can do like an Angmoh start robbing car park lots @ Holland Village with my bad ass SUV too!
And so, when I received a call from my SE late Sunday night back on January 5th, and when she whispered conspiratorially these 3 words: 'X5, here, now', I wolfed down my dinner and ended up over at everybody's favourite King-Kong-Buddha-Palm-on-table-to-get-any-after-sales-service company PML to view the new F15 X5.
We didn't get to test drive the beasts - PML brought in the xDrive30d & xDrive50i, but we got to sit in the car for an hour and contribute significantly to the rising CO2 levels in the car park. For what it's worth, here are my impressions:
a. It's fugly. Man, if ever there's a fugly car, this is it. But, strangely, it's loveably fugly, if such an oxymoron exists. It's like how you can't resist pinching those succulent, chubby cheeks on an otherwise drooling, snotty baby... I reckon if I were in the market for an SUV, I'd want something as fugly as this. Fugly is good. Fugly says "get the fcuk out of my car park space... NOW". With fugliness comes road stance and a mean attitude - and the F15 X5 has spadesful of both.
b. It's loaded to hilt, filled to the brim, my cup runneth over with features as "standard" (well, for fcuk's sake, if PML was gonna price the 'base model' xDrive30d/xDrive35i at $382,800, it jolly well should come with everything AND the kitchen sink. Comfort seats, full color, extended display HUD, adaptive LED with high-beam assist, GPS (of course), reverse camera, side view camera, top view (including front view display) - fan-bloody-tastic when manoeuvring a car this size, roller sunblind for the 2nd row seat passengers, air-conditioning with 4 zone control, soft close, panoramic sunroof bigger and wider than you can say "Aaaah" at your dentist and Harman Kardon 600W sound system. And oh, the iDrive now accepts finger-writing input.
c. The materials and finishing are excellent. The Dakota leather (standard in the xDrive30d/35i) is of a smoother and finer grain finish than that on my F13. The comfort seats are as good, and as supportive, as that of my F02 (and way better than the F13's) and the perceived build quality is top notch. Everything felt well put together, as a car befitting this brand should. The free-standing 10.2" LCD screen dominates the dashboard; although - sad to say - the dashboard display is still the older black panel technology, as opposed to the all-digital version found in the face-lifted 7 series.
The only thing that was missing was a test drive of the truck itself, and that opportunity came nearly a month later, right after another horde of Angpow hunting relatives had finished vacuuming my wallet dry during the Chinese New Year weekend. The xDrive30d (the 35i had yet to be available for a drive) was taken on an extended test drive which included a highway blast from Alexandra towards Tuas and back for a spirited drive up and down South Buona Vista road (the twisties) and a jaunt up Kent Ridge Hill via Vigilante Drive. The car acquitted itself with great aplomb, and handled everything my right foot willed it do like a true professional. Body roll was, alas, unavoidable for something that looked like a cross between a truck and a minibus, but the Adaptive suspension package "Comfort" with self levelling air dampers more than held up its end of the bargain.
The car felt planted (granted, it ran on 19" shoes), road noise, although perceivable, was never deafening, and there was no wind noise at the A pillars. The pull of 560Nm's worth of torque was more than adequate to mask the heft of this 2 tonner, and at normal highway speeds (a.k.a licence preserving velocities), the 258 horses the xDrive30d offered didn't feel out of breath.
I can certainly imagine taking this car/truck/minibus/behemoth for a long drive up north, and road-bullying every Mat Rempit out of the NSHW in the process!
However, despite the threatened sensory overload by the enjoyable drive experience, the impressive and generous standard features as well as the excellent interior finishing, there are a couple of issues that were found wanting. Firstly, for a car this tall, I reckon running boards should be included as standard, to help with entry and egress. You could fit them as optional items (an additional $2000), but not if you've ticked the M-sport package.
Secondly, the 3rd row seats are really perfunctory, and in all honesty, a bit of a tight squeeze. To make matters worse, there isn't air-conditioning to the 3rd row; there's an air re-circulator (basically a fan) that helps draw some of the air-conditioning from the 2nd row over, but on a hot day, I can imagine the passengers at the back can and will get quite hot and bothered.
Finally, for those who would order their trim in the M-sport variant, you'd be disappointed to learn that the "enlarged air intakes" in the front apron are covered by 2 pieces of faux-honeycomb plastic coverings. This is so in the xDrive30d and xDrive35i, and in the xDrive50i, the RIGHT air intake is real honeycomb (i.e opened), but the left air intake is still covered by this cheap, fugly fake honeycomb piece of plastic. In the M50d, the LEFT air intake is opened, but now the right side is cursed by the plastic tupperware cover. Don't ask me why, but that's just wrong.
Nit-picking and fault-finding aside, the new BMW F15 X5 is a very well built car, with lots of technology put into a well-designed package. Would I pull the trigger and bite? Well, time (and whether the COE will drop or not) will tell. However, if I had $382,800 in spare change jiggling about in my back pocket, I would have signed on the dotted line in a jiffy.
Then, over Christmas, I had something like a dozen well-meaning, free-loading relatives turn up at my house (yes, the one with the humpbrokebackwhale in the imaginary Olympic sized swimming pool) - and I suddenly realised that:
a. kids can't really sit on the floor of the F02, no matter how freaking long the wheelbase is
b. the F13 is truly a 4 seater, the hump in the middle can give a hernia to anyone desperate enough to ride on it
c. it might actually be pretty cool to cart the extended rellies in an SUV (and the ones you like least can all squash themselves in the 2 perfunctory seats in the 3rd row)
d. maybe I can do like an Angmoh start robbing car park lots @ Holland Village with my bad ass SUV too!
And so, when I received a call from my SE late Sunday night back on January 5th, and when she whispered conspiratorially these 3 words: 'X5, here, now', I wolfed down my dinner and ended up over at everybody's favourite King-Kong-Buddha-Palm-on-table-to-get-any-after-sales-service company PML to view the new F15 X5.
We didn't get to test drive the beasts - PML brought in the xDrive30d & xDrive50i, but we got to sit in the car for an hour and contribute significantly to the rising CO2 levels in the car park. For what it's worth, here are my impressions:
a. It's fugly. Man, if ever there's a fugly car, this is it. But, strangely, it's loveably fugly, if such an oxymoron exists. It's like how you can't resist pinching those succulent, chubby cheeks on an otherwise drooling, snotty baby... I reckon if I were in the market for an SUV, I'd want something as fugly as this. Fugly is good. Fugly says "get the fcuk out of my car park space... NOW". With fugliness comes road stance and a mean attitude - and the F15 X5 has spadesful of both.
b. It's loaded to hilt, filled to the brim, my cup runneth over with features as "standard" (well, for fcuk's sake, if PML was gonna price the 'base model' xDrive30d/xDrive35i at $382,800, it jolly well should come with everything AND the kitchen sink. Comfort seats, full color, extended display HUD, adaptive LED with high-beam assist, GPS (of course), reverse camera, side view camera, top view (including front view display) - fan-bloody-tastic when manoeuvring a car this size, roller sunblind for the 2nd row seat passengers, air-conditioning with 4 zone control, soft close, panoramic sunroof bigger and wider than you can say "Aaaah" at your dentist and Harman Kardon 600W sound system. And oh, the iDrive now accepts finger-writing input.
c. The materials and finishing are excellent. The Dakota leather (standard in the xDrive30d/35i) is of a smoother and finer grain finish than that on my F13. The comfort seats are as good, and as supportive, as that of my F02 (and way better than the F13's) and the perceived build quality is top notch. Everything felt well put together, as a car befitting this brand should. The free-standing 10.2" LCD screen dominates the dashboard; although - sad to say - the dashboard display is still the older black panel technology, as opposed to the all-digital version found in the face-lifted 7 series.
The only thing that was missing was a test drive of the truck itself, and that opportunity came nearly a month later, right after another horde of Angpow hunting relatives had finished vacuuming my wallet dry during the Chinese New Year weekend. The xDrive30d (the 35i had yet to be available for a drive) was taken on an extended test drive which included a highway blast from Alexandra towards Tuas and back for a spirited drive up and down South Buona Vista road (the twisties) and a jaunt up Kent Ridge Hill via Vigilante Drive. The car acquitted itself with great aplomb, and handled everything my right foot willed it do like a true professional. Body roll was, alas, unavoidable for something that looked like a cross between a truck and a minibus, but the Adaptive suspension package "Comfort" with self levelling air dampers more than held up its end of the bargain.
The car felt planted (granted, it ran on 19" shoes), road noise, although perceivable, was never deafening, and there was no wind noise at the A pillars. The pull of 560Nm's worth of torque was more than adequate to mask the heft of this 2 tonner, and at normal highway speeds (a.k.a licence preserving velocities), the 258 horses the xDrive30d offered didn't feel out of breath.
I can certainly imagine taking this car/truck/minibus/behemoth for a long drive up north, and road-bullying every Mat Rempit out of the NSHW in the process!
However, despite the threatened sensory overload by the enjoyable drive experience, the impressive and generous standard features as well as the excellent interior finishing, there are a couple of issues that were found wanting. Firstly, for a car this tall, I reckon running boards should be included as standard, to help with entry and egress. You could fit them as optional items (an additional $2000), but not if you've ticked the M-sport package.
Secondly, the 3rd row seats are really perfunctory, and in all honesty, a bit of a tight squeeze. To make matters worse, there isn't air-conditioning to the 3rd row; there's an air re-circulator (basically a fan) that helps draw some of the air-conditioning from the 2nd row over, but on a hot day, I can imagine the passengers at the back can and will get quite hot and bothered.
Finally, for those who would order their trim in the M-sport variant, you'd be disappointed to learn that the "enlarged air intakes" in the front apron are covered by 2 pieces of faux-honeycomb plastic coverings. This is so in the xDrive30d and xDrive35i, and in the xDrive50i, the RIGHT air intake is real honeycomb (i.e opened), but the left air intake is still covered by this cheap, fugly fake honeycomb piece of plastic. In the M50d, the LEFT air intake is opened, but now the right side is cursed by the plastic tupperware cover. Don't ask me why, but that's just wrong.
Nit-picking and fault-finding aside, the new BMW F15 X5 is a very well built car, with lots of technology put into a well-designed package. Would I pull the trigger and bite? Well, time (and whether the COE will drop or not) will tell. However, if I had $382,800 in spare change jiggling about in my back pocket, I would have signed on the dotted line in a jiffy.
