Category: Sporting 4x4s 
Price Range: £40,820 to £54,155
Class-leading blend of performance and economy, excellent ride quality, refinement.
Quite expensive, optional third-row seats for children only, less fun to drive than the original.
A thoughtful and effective replacement, but some of the charm has gone.
Bigger the new X5 may be, but it is also quicker, more economical and an insignificant 10kg heavier than the car it replaces. BMW has achieved this through a careful and clever programme of weight reduction, using aluminium for items such as the bonnet and suspension and advanced lightweight steels elsewhere in its construction. Add to this BMW's usual diligent suspension tuning and the result is an SUV with a blend of ride and handling that stands comparison to any other on the market. Drive it hard and it not only covers the ground with unlikely haste, it also exhibits great stability and authority even on very challenging roads.
It's not perfect, though. Pull the gearshift over into its sports plane and its change quality, until now a paragon of smoothness, becomes rather less than seamless. And the brakes require a firm shove if their undoubted strength is to be felt. And should you be minded to turn off the electronics and really hoof it around, you will discover that the ultimate degree of driver involvement exhibited so readily by the old X5 has gone missing. These are not big criticisms but together they do suggest that BMW's focus of driving pleasure above all has softened a little, in the undeniably admirable pursuit of greater passenger comfort.
In this regard - and so long as you spend the extra £1,500 required to get adaptive damping and active ride control - the X5 is an almost complete success, riding across even very rough roads with a fluency its predecessor simply would not recognise.
On paper, a relatively modest 3.0-litre diesel engine should be overwhelmed by the vastness of the X5, especially if you start to fill it up with people and bags, but behind the wheel it rarely feels like that. It will hit 62mph in just 8.3sec, on its way to a top speed of 134mph. Overtaking acceleration feels stronger still.
Head down the motorway at a steady cruise and your passengers will struggle to tell which pump you filled it from. Even at speeds that would get you into a whole lot of trouble in the UK, the engine never becomes vocal or coarse
The other engine we've driven is the 4.8i. It's a fine thing, but its performance is ultimately a little disappointing. The 4.8i seems to suffer more than the 3.0d from having to shift such a high, wide and heavy vehicle, and it's painfully thirsty.
The 4.8i goes from zero to 62mph in 6.5 seconds, which is half a second faster than the more powerful of the diesels, which is in turn 1.3sec faster than the lesser diesel, or 1.1sec quicker than the petrol six. Top speeds range from 134 for the entry diesel to 150mph for the V8.
