Category: Small 4x4s 
Price Range: £27,870 to £39,170
Remarkable roadholding and handling, smooth engine, covetable looks, surprising off-road ability.
Inappropriately cheap-looking fittings, unacceptable ride comfort, overpriced.
Intriguing entrant to the ranks of soft-roaders, but BMW is stretching its premium credentials a little too far here.
Three stars for a BMW? You get the sense that BMW has tried to save money in the X3, because there are many hard plastic parts inside, the fit of the body panels is not very consistent and there's an aura of cheapness by BMW standards.
For example, the interior door handles are thin, black plastic ones where you would expect metal. The body structure creaks under twisting loads, too, such as when driving gently up a kerb. Some owners have reported squeaks and rattles from around the windows and doors, but other than that, the X3 is pretty dependable.
BMW has tried to lift the perceived quality of the cabin for the 2006 facelift by adding a decorative strip that runs across the width of the dashboard. It's not much, and the overall feeling is still somewhat cheap, and certainly not on a par with the bigger X5.
Latest Readers' Drives About the BMW X3
wrote on 25 11 2007