2025 BMW X3: Technology invades a fun driving experience

2025 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Italiano AWD vs. 2025 BMW X3 xDrive30i: Old vs. new.

This week: 2025 BMW X3

Price: $57,725 as tested. Premium Package added driving assistant, heated steering wheel, panoramic roof, parking assistant, and more for $3,400; driving assistance professional added $1,700; gray paint, $650; gray wheels, $600; ventilated seats, $500.

Marketer’s pitch: “Adventure is calling louder than ever. The versatile BMW X3 models deliver all-terrain performance, power, and efficiency in a rugged utility vehicle.”

Conventional wisdom: “2025 BMW X3 proves sporty and sophisticated,” says Consumer Reports. “But the futuristic cabin may not be to all shoppers’ tastes.”

Reality: Look at Consumer Reports, being all tactful and diplomatic. Let’s buckle up, kids; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

What’s new: In our last episode, we drove the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, which has pretty much hummed along without much adjustment since 2018.

Enter BMW, and when they want to whizbang us with the new X3, they really do it. So this latest generation for 2025 gets bigger and stronger than the last.

Competition: In addition to last week’s Alfa Romeo Stelvio, the Acura RX, Audi Allroad, Audi Q5, Cadillac XT5, BMW X4, Lexus NX, and Volvo XC60 are among the closest competitors.

Up to speed: Like any BMW worthy of the name, the X3 can accelerate with the best of them. The 2-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine under the hood is coupled with a mild hybrid system, for saving some pennies. The whole power train creates 255 horses, and BMW says it gets to 60 mph in 6 seconds.

It’s also fun for accelerating out of curves up hills, and it sounds great doing all of it.

If 6 seconds seems too long to wait, a 393-horsepower turbo six-cylinder is also available, and that does it in 4.4.

Shifty: An 8-speed StepTronic transmission is operated by a modest toggle switch on the console, with Park on a separate button, and shifting via the steering wheel triggers. Never mind the comment last week about the Stelvio copying the BMW shifter; that’s so last gen.

On the road: Handling is, of course, quite nice, and the X3 performed admirably along country roads, highways, and in town.

Sport mode makes everything more fun, but it’s a little touchy thing on the ebony console and impossible to find and reach on the fly, with no tactile hints. Fail. And it’s on these points that the BMW ride went downhill quickly.

Driver’s Seat: Slide into the Driver’s Seat and you’ll feel quite snug; the bolsters on the side drew me in so tight I expected to hear a pop when it was time to get out. I found this mostly pleasant, but your mileage may vary.

Less than pleasant are the gauges and controls. I’ve decried the rounded-angle gauges before as difficult to follow and unattractive. Now BMW ballyhoos a curved display, something that didn’t register even after I read about it. Subtle.

More noticeable was the head-up display, which goes down in history as the first windshield projection that interfered with me seeing the road. There may be a way to adjust it downward but your guess is as good as mine as to how.

The other controls also leave something to be desired. The cruise control buttons on the steering wheel are not difficult, but don’t ask me how to adjust the distance from the car in front. It must be somewhere in the infotainment, but it should be on a button.

Friends and stuff: The rear offers nice accommodations, plenty of room for all your extremities, with a firm seat and nice angle. On this point, it beats the Stelvio mightily.

Cargo space is 31.5 cubic feet in back, 67.1 with the seat folded.

In and out: It’s a little bit of a step up into the X3, so it may not be for every body. The door handle cluster also left me and the Lovely Mrs. Passenger Seat baffled when it was time to exit.

Play some tunes: There’s a spiffy new infotainment screen (isn’t there always?), and like most, this is designed to look supercool, not operate with ease.

The main screen is actually the easiest to get around, but further in, I got stuck. For those just tuning in, scoring is based on how easy this stuff is to figure out on the fly.

Sound from the system is mostly good, but it failed the tough-song test. Nothing above $50,000 should fall short like this, so that’s a B+. And, no, I’m not adjusting for inflation.

Keeping warm and cool: A little icon in the screen opens up the heater controls. I’ve seen nicely done, clearly visible pixel-based heater controls on BMWs, but this isn’t one of those.

And even the vents can’t just take the easy way anymore. There’s a row of lighted buttons next to each vent with a 0 on one side and a 1 on the other. Swipe right for more air and left for less, and watch the lights turn on and off as you go. I suppose now we are so evolved that we must not sully our hands with plastic vent controls. Oh, the repair bills someday.

Fuel economy: This was one of the nicest parts of the X3 — 29 mpg in a vehicle that gets to 60 in 6 seconds.

It’s key: The final indignity of the future was the X3 key fob. There was no hole to add my key ring to it.

Where it’s built: Spartanburg, S.C.

How it’s built: Consumer Reports predicts the X3 reliability to be a 3 out of 5.

In the end: The X3 was once a nice, svelte, fun midsize SUV, with intuitive controls and attractiveness inside and out. It’s now become so bloated and whizbang futuristic that the current X3 is to the mid-2010s models what the Nissan 300ZX was to the Datsun 280Z. And, no, that’s not a good thing.

The fuel economy and performance almost make it worthwhile, but I can’t get behind the too-clever gadgetry. Check out a Genesis GV70 or Audi Q5 for something more manageable. And, heck, I’d even buy a Stelvio before the 2025 X3.