52,000 km with my BMW X3 m40i: 13 pros & 6 cons

February 11, 2024

32,500 Miles (52,000 kms) later, there is not a single rattle in the car. Absolutely and deathly silent inside the cabin. Love the build quality.

BHPian mobike008 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

3 Years Ownership Review after completing 32,500 Miles (52,000 kms)

Blau Rakete came home in January 2021 and it was a brand new leased car and my intentions were to enjoy it for 3-years and return it. But, during the course of these 3-years of ownership which as you may noted was absolutely flawless there was a bonding that developed that made me hard to let go of it after the lease completion period.

So, I went ahead and bought it.

Fun Fact : If I sell this beast now, I can make a cool profit of $10K.

Not a single car that I owned in the past made me grin like the Blau Rakete.

Even after 3-years, every single time I am behind the wheel of this car, I feel like a small kid in a candy store as the pleasure this car gives is indescribable.

Hence, I decided my time with this beast is not over yet. Now it’s time to make it even more fun by doing some basic mods which will happen over the course of this year.

This post is just a refresh of Day 1, check if anything significant has changed over the 3-years ownership and also after living with it for so long, time to “Hit Refresh” on my thoughts of “What I liked “and “What can be improved”.

Touchwood, there has been not a single issue with the car mechanically, cosmetically nor with tires till date so it’s obvious that the list of Pro’s are going to be longer than the Con’s.

X3M40i’s flaws are rather insignificant as listed below.

BMW X3 M40i (3-Year Update- Pros):

6- Cylinder Engine that screams gloriously to 7000 rpm that makes you forget everything about this nasty world.
Having driven this in treacherous conditions on stock OEM tires, I’m beyond surprised and impressed with it’s grip as never a moment of slip, skid even when
taking cornering at good speeds in the mountains on icy or rainy roads. Reminds me of a mountain goat clinging on to slippery mountain ledges. LOL!!
I perform well at work when I hear the cold start sound in enclosed spaces (in my garage). It’s a sound to die for. Days that I don’t hear the B58 sound, I
seem to lag at work related tasks.
ZF gearbox never misses a gear and most importantly, never lets you even guess when it’s changing to a higher or lower gear. Brilliant piece of engineering.
Well, it’s a traffic signal race magnet. Every other BMW wants to race with me at the signal. I find it childish but, I do indulge “always”
Even after completing 3 years with minimum to zero TLC, its interiors don’t look dated.
32,500 Miles ( 52,000 kms) later, there is not a single rattle in the car. Absolutely and deathly silent inside the cabin. Love the build quality.
Even till date, the brakes have awesome bite and can get this beast to a stop from crazy speeds to a standstill in a jiffy. These are stock brakes on stock pads
and rotors.
Ride quality is firm but, not unpleasant thanks to excellent road conditions.
This never ceases to surprise me, Despite my hard style of driving, tires are still stock after clocking 52,000 kms. This may surprise you even further. They
have never been rotated nor have any alignment done till date.
Convenience features (Keyless Entry, Flawless connection to CarPlay, HUD is an amazing feature,
Excellent Boot Space (No Spare Wheel so it gives even more space and depth below) and with seats folded, we carried 10 feet X 6 feet carpets, mattresses
back home.
Biggest icing on the cake, I have spent $0 on its maintenance till date ever since I got this beast out of the showroom 3-years ago.

BMW X3 M40i (3-Year Update- What can be improved) :

I had to really scratch my head to come up with below list of CONS as they are so insignificant, considering they are so minor :

Couple of buttons next to the shift selector doesn’t feel new. When pressed, it feels aging.
Music system quality sucks. BMW needs to really need to up their game here.
Not a fan of the steel rims (19”) that came with the car. It was my mistake when configuring. I would have loved a 20” and black design wheels.
While this car is touted as a 5-seater, but, only 4 large sized adults will be super comfortable from a width and leg space perspective.
Wish BMW had made more distinctive changes to this car as it looks similar to X3 30i except the rear badge and exhaust tips. Makes it a proper sleeper.
B58 is like Jekyll & Hyde- It returns an amazing mileage of 26-27 miles/gallon which is roughly 10kmpl to terrible low of 18 miles to a gallon ( 6kmpl) so the
range is pretty wide depending on which mode (Ecopro or Sports+) you drive on. Heck, I didn’t buy this car to drive on Eco-Pro so I don’t care much about
the FE while I like to track it religiously.

As an ode to this amazing car, I picked out a few pictures over the last 3-years (Mind you, it was difficult as I click too many pics of the car which is a bad habit of mine) and it has traversed nearly 1/3rd of America which is quite a feat and still perform flawlessly which tells a huge story about it’s reliability.

Some of the states I have driven it are :