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SUVs BMW X3 & X5 BMW Performance Driving School for the X
29 messages, Last post on Oct 11, 2006 at 9:46 AM
You are in the BMW X3 & X5 Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & tidester
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Sep 11, 2006 11:54 am) This one started out being "this is impossible, the hole's too small, cones will be sprayed all over and NO WAY!" However, I'll throw the cards over and tell you we all were much improved from the beginning to the end of this exercise and I now feel I could make a 90 degree left hand turn followed by a 90 degree right hand turn, followed by a full-on ABS panic stop. Did I mention that this was at a terminal velocity of 45MPH?! Sure, yep, you betcha -- no kidding. The instructor whips the X5 to some 40+MPH down a straightaway to an abrupt left hand lane change followed by an abrupt recovery followed by an abrupt slamming on of the brakes and you are not permitted to wander outside of your designated cone area. Imagine you are in the far right hand lane of a four lane (two in either direction) road and that you are travelling at 40 - 45MPH and POW a bus "magically" appears in front of your car and you have to swerve left into the lane, one to your left (and not overshoot into on-coming traffic) and immediately slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the person pushing a baby carriage right in front of your car. First you do it at 20, then 25 and so on until you are at 35 -- which seems challenging but "possible" at least. Forty-five? Forty-five miles per hour?!? No way. Way. You are pooped at this point, and there are still two more events before your first day is over. Onto the "putting it all together with ALL cars on the course at the same time" exercise. "Faster, Mark, faster, get on the gas, give it all its got, now, oops, too late with your braking, now you've got to scrub off more speed and as soon as you come out of the corner give it full power followed by full braking followed by a quick lane change a swooping 180 and back on full power, push it, push it, push it." And, guess what? They aren't stingy with the number of times you get to do this before swapping drivers. Talk about wearing my 55 year old body out! Whew -- even with the A/C on full blast, I had worked up a major sweat! My wife, she who decided I should go first, now is behind the wheel and she must've figured out what to do WITHOUT the need for two or three warm up laps, for she started out, just about as I finished up. . .at FULL THROTTLE in a V8 powered X5. Um, how do you spell "whoop de doo?" "Mother! We're all going to die! Whaaaaaa! Yahooo!" Etcetera. What a blast. On the actual "proving grounds" is an artificial torture track -- obviously ONLY for X3's and X5's, since you start out with a two foot deep water hazard that demonstrates just how road (water?) worthy an X car is. Other rough and ready sections including a 45 degree hill climb and 45 degree descent down a rock covered "mountain" where we are told to engage "hill descent control" and take our feet off all the pedals and "let the car drive itself down" round out the off-road portion of our "performance driving day." Even on this completely controlled road and artificial facility, I thought the X's "must be pretty much as good as Jeeps and a heck of a lot better than I would have thought possible in any BMW." Little did I know that day two would really be challenging -- for the car, at least. ======== end of part three.
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Sep 11, 2006 11:55 am) How bad could it be, I thought. After that torture track yesterday afternoon, "give us your worst, mountain -- bring it on!" Famous last words. To call this rutted, muddy, narrow, narrower, narrower still, rock (boulder) and tree limb covered "path" anything that even hinted it was a road would be generous. One lane wide? Sure, if you were driving a toy car. There is no way we can make it up this hill any further my wife and I exclaimed to each other after we had driven perhaps 15 minutes into "deep country." "If you hear a banjo, whatever you do, DON'T stop," we heard our instructor's voice crackle on the walkie talkies. He's killin' me! Or he's killin' himself. We all laughed, that kinda nervous laugh you laugh when you're, well, NERVOUS! Remarkably the X's, with regular suspensions, regular street All Season tires on 18" wheels with 55 series tires, walked up and down, fording streams, gingerly stepping over jagged, steep "stairs" made of rock and covered with moss, goo and god knows what else that is slimy in North Carolina's mountains -- we did hit bottom (one time on the way up and once on the way down.) These cars made the journey without breaking a sweat -- which is more than I can say for the rest of us even though as we climbed we lost 10 degrees of temperature, seeing our final temp drop from a morning 74 to a mountain top 64. During the trip up, our radio interrupted the almost eerie silence as our instructor says, "I missed a turn back there, we need to back up." Back up?! Back up!? who is he talking to? It is bad enough going forward, he wants us to back up to some "wider spot" in the wilderness and then attempt to figure out how to turn the car around? Does he really expect us to back up and do a 180 here? There is NO here, here. Well, yes he did and we did back up and we did mange to get the vehicles going in the opposite direction -- "an' nobody got hurt!" an' no tow ropes ever left their storage bins, and no one even got their shoes muddy (that came later and was, frankly, voluntary.) At the top of the mountain the view was breathtaking and some of us found a mud covered foot path for a view somewhat closer to the edge of this magnificent waterfall (404' drop, don't you know.) We took a group photo at the top and then mounted our trusty steeds (with a driver swap) with new found confidence -- we were all certain these X's would take us back to civilization (with hill descent control, of course) safely. Equally challenging, equally fun and, in hindsight, too short, we "walked" our $65,000 BMW's down the rutted, muddy mountain "clearing" (euphemistically speaking of course.) We drove to a small town at the bottom of the waterfall and ate lunch looking up at where we had just been and saying "no one would ever believe we did this in a car, let alone a BMW." Ya think? $995, two airplane tickets, $350 hotel bill, $300 "fine dining," $100 auto rental, $92 at the BMW boutique. Money well spent. We now want to return and try it with the new X5's with "active roll stabilization" which our instructors seemed quite taken with. Money very well spent. It played like a vacation and we left Thursday morning and returned Sunday afternoon -- all in all, both money and time well spent indeed. I heartily recommend this to your attention. Kliky Here Boys and Girls ======== end. 
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Sep 11, 2006 11:57 am) I can just hear the Deliverance music, but I think that was a North Georgia thing.
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Replying to: steve_ (Sep 11, 2006 12:04 pm)
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Replying to: dhamilton (Sep 11, 2006 1:35 pm)
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Replying to: kdshapiro (Sep 11, 2006 5:31 pm) I have been to the Zentrum many times for lunch and seen a few auto cross events they do at the parking lot. My Son gets his drivers license in April and I will take him to the 2 day teen driving class. I have to figure out what I will do at the same time? X school or driving school. Lucky for me I live just 3 hours from the center and if I get a BMW will opt for delivery there just to get a nice taste of the performance center. BTW, the Allroad goes back to audi in two weeks. Im really disappointed by the new ownership of the dealer. I must say the 328iX is a bit smaller than the allroad but likely handles better. The X3 prices about the same. I tried Euro delivery and take the family but the center you return the car to be shipped back to the states is closed the week after new years. We were so smitten with the trip we are spending 12 days in a rental benz and going anyway. Mostly we will be in Innsbruk skiing, Salzburg and Vienna. Would have been fun to drive MY car there and ship it home! And cheaper! I'll drive my sons outback for a while and decide and shop for the right deal. Im in no hurry except to satsify the lust. |
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Replying to: bargamon (Sep 15, 2006 7:10 pm) Too, it doesn't have the creds to play in the same sandbox as most SUV's even though it does have considerable "all road" capabilities -- indeed I drove up the side of a mountain in an X5 with the chase car being an X3 that walked 10 miles up a non-road to the top of Chimney Rock NC. Now, with the new 260 HP engine, the 6speed auto or manual at the same price, improved gas mileage and the ability to equip it with virtually all the LPS goodies, it is a true alternative to a 4 door sedan. The new dash, the new exterior dress up and the switch to very fine grain vinyl makes this "car" at $47K "the BMW of all-road activity vehicles." It never was, however, a truck. The X3, when driven by the BMW instructors, literally demonstrates faster track times than an M5 -- the straightaways are a different matter, but the X3 and X5 are able to "run with the big dogs" -- few truck based SUV's can do that. The Jeep SRT-8 loses a great deal of its off road capability in its transformation from trail rated to "drag strip" kingster. Yesterday, my wife and I got behind the wheel of a new X3, pretty loaded at $47K (everything BUT navigation and Sirius.) It had not been prepped, so we could not drive it -- it seemed nicer (interior wise) than the 2006 X5 loaner we had been given for the day while the X3 was getting a new spring for the ash tray lid. With the new engine and transmission, this X3 should really be winna! Test drive results, next week. |
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Oct 01, 2006 3:24 pm) But it isn't; the E83 weighs over two tons and sits over ten inches higher than an E90. Yes, the X3 handles OK, and it is very nimble for an SUV, but even Munich can't suspend the laws of physics. You see, "almost" only counts in horseshoes and thermonuclear exchanges. The X3, when driven by the BMW instructors, literally demonstrates faster track times than an M5 -- the straightaways are a different matter Are you talking corner speeds? Slaloms? What about lap times at the Ring? If the X3 is that good you'd think that they would be the weapon of choice for SCCA and BMW CCA autocrosses. Me, I'll take any ///M car any day over any X3/X5. For an experiment, why not bring your X3 to a CCA driving school and see how many other BMWs give you a point-by? That said, if you need decent ground clearance(as we do-the downside of living on an old family farm) or RWD gives you cold chills, then the X3 is an excellent choice. And, for what it's worth, if you talk to BMW engineers off the record(as I have) they refer to the X3 and X5 as-what else? Trucks. |
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Oct 01, 2006 3:24 pm)  In my test drives of the 5, 3 and X3 were pretty much in line with what I have read. The X3 (06 auto) felt quicker and more nimble than i thought it would. The ride quality was not great, but I had just come out of a 525 auto that was quicker than I thought and like "buttah" smooth. The 330i auto was not as roomy as the 5 (naturally) but was really nice and fun to drive. No MT's available to test! What I am learning is the addiction to max out what is available and the intoxicating effect of shopping for these cars. Some sites chat up how "ultimate" the 335i is but one must consider these participants get angry at amber colored lens and pissed off that the new 335 trumps the less than year old 330i and that BMW really pulled a fast one. Having never owned a BMW and the reputation of "Bimmer owners" not being that great, I can now begin to uderstand what thats all about. One guy paid $1300 for the parts to get clear lens front lights (amberless!) There are many 22 year olds whom are really into this model and the mods are a bit much. My point is I will likely balance what is available at what price and make an intellegent choice. I hate overpaying but really hope to strike a good deal and order what I want. Its gonna be more than "off the lot", but its gotta be decent. These are all great cars and I can't go wrong. |
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Oct 01, 2006 3:24 pm) Let's see. According to BMWUSA.com, when each is equipped with an automatic transmission, the M5 weighs less than the X3; the M5 generates 500HP/383lbft torque while the X3 produces 260/225; the M5 accelerates 0-60 in 4.5 seconds while the X3(auto) takes 7.1; the M5 has a CD of .31 while the X3 has a CD of .35; and the M5, unlike the X3, doesn't sit 8 inches off the ground. So, forgive me if I am skeptical when you say the X3 outperforms the M5 on the track.
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