2022 iX50–> Tesla Model 3–> 2024 iX M60. A review and my experience.

I bought my 2022 ix in 8/2022. Loved it so, so much. Then someone rear-ended it in 5/2023. Now I’ve leased a 2024 ix60. Here are my thoughts and experiences for your information and amusement. They answer some of the questions posed in recent posts as well.

2022 ix50

Pros

-Having had zero EV experience, I wanted to maximize range and went with the base model with 20″ wheels. They’re hideous. So much so that I had them powder coated black. With that, I think they look halfway decent now. BMW started making them this way for base models a couple months after I bought mine, which saves the buyer from having to pay $500 to do it themselves. But I was always annoyed about not being able to get the improved looks of the sport package. Regardless, there was a very welcome, unexpected benefit: the ride quality. The combination of high profile tires with narrow width (which flies in the face of the industry trend of increasingly ultra-wide, ultra-low-profile tires on gigantic wheels) and the air suspension system resulted in the best quality ride I’ve ever experienced. I had no idea a car could even be that comfortable, and this is compared with my friends’/colleagues’ Rovers, S-classes, etc. Coming from a 2016 X5m, the difference was stark.

-The HK sound system is outstanding. It’s the best available factory installed sound system I’d heard prior to the BW

-I’d never experienced any ADAS system for any significant amount of driving until my wife’s Cayenne arrived in 4/2022. It has InnoDrive, which is okay at best, but it’s best described as glorified cruise control. I wouldn’t pay for it again. TJA, in contrast, was amazing. I used it for about 8000 highway miles, and it never made a mistake. It behaved as a non-aggressive human driver would. Once traffic would die down, it would require the hands to go back on every 20 seconds or so while still driving the car perfectly. It was a tease for what the future would hold: hands free driving at highway speed. That future irritatingly came less than half a year after I bought the car with highway assistant, and my desire to trade the car was strong. [side note: I think this general direction is more appropriate than what other companies are doing with their ADAS, as the number of variables on a divided highway is far lower. I wouldn’t want to assume the liability of errors/accidents made by a system driving around pedestrians, cyclists, dense traffic with intersections, etc (looking at you, Tesla).]

-Carplay is just amazing. It works perfectly in this car, and the giant wide screen is perfect for it.

Cons

-The doors sound hollow when you close them. And the frameless windows add to a cheap/cheesy feeling overall. Luxury cars should have a satisfying and solid “thunk” when you close the doors. Minor point, but it’s something you experience every time you use the vehicle.

-This is another minor point, but the car has an undefeatable startup sound and undefeatable, loud, and very cheesy-sounding pedestrian warning noise at low speed. It sort of sounds like the noise made when UFOs fly in 1950s movies – perhaps made on a theremin? Not the biggest deal, but again, it’s something you experience every time you use the vehicle.

-This is for basically all EVs now, unfortunately: the touch panel HVAC controls are insufferably bad. This will never, ever, ever be okay. They’re hard to navigate and frankly dangerous to use while in motion. While buttons and dials had grown out of control with late model German cars, having almost ZERO buttons is much worse. I’m sure the market will correct for this over time, and I can’t wait for that day to come.

-There’s no alcantara option for the roofliner. This is completely unacceptable for a $100k-range car.

-The natural leather is so incredibly luxurious. It feels more luxurious than the merino leather in my X5m. It’s very fine grain, and it’s worth every penny. Even after they increased the price by $1k. If forced to, I’d consider paying $10k for it over the sensatec, which my father has in his iX (yeah, we’ve now owned 3 iXes in my family). Sensatec is rough and just feels cheap. Sensafin’s another story. I’ve since test driven a couple 2024 X5s with it, and I have to say it’s quite nice. I still prefer real leather, but if BMW moves completely away from real leather, Sensafin’s really not bad at all, and I prefer it strongly to the cheapo Dakota and Vernasca leathers on lesser BMWs.

-The mandatory panoramic electrochromic roof. It works just fine, but when it breaks, the repair costs over $10k. Others have posted about it on this forum. It’s specifically NOT covered by BMW’s windshield repair program. The repair isn’t a simple replacement, but it requires a huge disassembly that involves removal of much of the body underneath. I constantly lived in fear of this happening, and it’d end up being an expensive hit to my insurance. I’d much prefer the car to be cheaper and have the option of a regular roof. I don’t care about a sunroof at all, and even if it were a zero-dollar option, I’d choose a regular metal roof over this thing.

-This brings me to the biggest con of all: repair times. All cars break, and all cars need repairs. I was fortunate to have an iX that didn’t have any major intrinsic problems, so I didn’t have to suffer a stop sale or a lengthy factory replacement of anything. But out of 14 months of ownership, I only drove my car for 6 of them. Why? In 9/2022, about 1 month into ownership, I side swiped a low-set parking pole at work. It’s only like 2 feet tall, and it was in a weird place right by the front of the parking spot. I’d never driven a car with IAS before, so I wasn’t used to the tank-like steering, and I swiped it. Oh well. $hit happens. Minor body damage to the front fascia and quarter panel. Normally, this sort of thing would take a week or so, but no. This took 2 months. I get it….there’s a parts delay, but that’s nuts. I got my car back and enjoyed it for 6 months, but I started shopping for a 2024 iX to get highway assistant. Trade in values were still reasonable in March/April 2023, but then I test drove a 24 iX50, and the ride without air suspension was distressingly worse. It was about as uncomfortable as my X5m. My wife, who doesn’t pay any attention to cars, started getting nauseated and asked what’s wrong with the car. I drove a few more, across the range with 20″, 21″, and 22″ wheels. The test drives were standardized on the same route, including a pothole-ridden side street by my workplace that REALLY tests a suspension. All the rides were terrible. If my 2022 iX with 20″ wheels and air suspension gets a 10/10 for ride comfort, my dad’s 2023 iX50 (with air suspension) and 22″ wheels gets an 8, and all the iXes without air suspension get between a 2 and a 3. I gave up on the 2024 at that point, since I liked my car and couldn’t get air suspension. Then in May, a guy rear-ended me at about 40 mph in a giant dually in stop-and-go freeway traffic. The iX kept me safe and even remained drivable afterward. There was no damage to the drivetrain or battery. I took it to the biggest BMW collision center where I live (in DFW), and then chaos ensued.

The driver was an undocumented worker. Fortunately, I took video of the event, and it showed him in a tee shirt advertising the company to which the vehicle was registered and insured. The owner was in Mexico and took almost the entire time allowable by law to respond. He finally did, which allowed HIS insurance company to start paying the tab, since his worker was responsible. Prior to that, it was on MY dime and MY deductible. The collision center estimated damages around $25k (that bill is now around $40k, despite there being zero drivetrain/battery damage). State Farm got me into a rental, and amazingly, they consider a TESLA MODEL 3 as “comparable” to the iX. A model 3. A 40k piece of garbage. Ok. Fine. If it’s for a couple weeks or so, no big deal. But no. This wasn’t a couple weeks. May turned into June, and then July. The parts were delayed indefinitely. I started to inquire about just trading the vehicle as is, but I didn’t like the deals I was seeing, and I was told things would move “any day now”, so I continued in this way for an ADDITIONAL THREE MONTHS. The general story went like this: “hey we got most of the parts, but we’re just waiting on this one additional thing.” Then that “one additional thing” would arrive, and they’d realize they needed another “one additional thing.” Then some bull$hit glue would be needed, and that needed to come from Detroit, then go to Germany for approval, then come to Texas. I gave up. 3 weeks ago I asked the dealership to make me an offer on the vehicle as is. They did, and with the money insurance paid for diminished value and time lost from work, it was good enough for me to just end this nightmare. I took advantage of the lease deal and leased a fully loaded iX60. The 2022 iX STILL isn’t repaired as of today.

2023 Tesla Model 3

I drove this mobile toilet for 6 months, so here’s my review.

Pros

-green light chime. It should be standard on all cars.

-Autopilot doesn’t require hands-on very much. It functions almost like highway assistant, just not as good.

-The screen is nice

-The energy usage display is absolutely fantastic. This is just so very well done, and it enables me (obviously an obsessive guy, per this post) to feed my addiction to quasi-meaningless data

Cons

-The build quality is a joke. Everything pops, squeaks, and rattles.

-The fake leather is truly one of the worst materials I’ve felt. It wears quickly, looking like 20-year-old cracked leather in about a month.

-The ride quality is a joke.

-The NVH is off the charts. I’d bet Elon’s Space X rockets have less cabin noise than this.

-The windshield. This thing rejects zero heat, and it made me appreciate the iX’s slightly orange thermal shield on the windshield. It makes me wonder if Elon secretly designed it this way to try to burn us peons like ants in the sun under a magnifying glass.

-Because I was in a model 3 for 6 months, I kept having to exchange for new ones at Hertz once every 60 days (per policy). There’s a saying: “no 2 Teslas are the same.” I can verify this. They all had their weird foibles. And they weren’t overused cars. They all had <10k miles on them.

-No CarPlay. This stopped me from even considering a Model S or X in the first place, before I test drove them for fun a few years ago. CarPlay is just so much better than any other interface, including BMW’s.

-And my friends’ newer Model Ses are the same as the Model 3: low quality cars built by a really interesting tech company that happens to build cars.

2024 ix60

Pros

-The quality. I can’t stress enough how jarring it is to go from a Tesla to an iX. It’s just SO, SO, SO much better. The fit and finish are amazing. Zero things rattle. I think this is actually a little better put together than the 2022 iX I had. At 70 mph, I measure 61 dB(A) in the cabin, which is 1 decibel quieter than my last iX. This brings me to the next point:

-21″ wheels. I was afraid that the bigger wheel and 255/50 tires (compared to the 20″ wheels and 235/60 tires) and stiffened suspension in the m series would result in an uncomfortable ride. They didn’t. On the scale I described earlier, I give this car a 9.5/10 for comfort when driving that standardized test-drive route I mentioned. This was a huge, huge relief, since I’d never driven an m model with 21″ wheels.

-The startup sounds/pedestrian warning noise are different on the m model. The startup sound is a very satisfying growl, and the pedestrian noise is both much better-sounding and quieter. I wish I could just disable all these, but at least now I actually like the noises. (and yes, I’ve disabled the stupid iconic sounds)

-Highway assistant. It’s perfect. I’ve driven about 500 miles now with it, and it just works. It reminds me of the big tech leaps I’ve experienced in my life, like the transition to HDTV, the introduction of the iPhone, the switch from PC to Mac around 2008, fiber internet, etc.

-Storm gray. This is my first non-black car I’ve ever owned. It’s just gorgeous, and the color is a bit different depending on the lighting. In direct sunlight, it’s especially fantastic.

-BW sound – wow! I used to install car stereos a million years ago, so I have an ear for quality sound, and this is the best I’ve ever heard in a factory system

Cons

-Despite the lease deal, this thing is still expensive.

-I didn’t really want or need the m60, but this was the only way to get all the features I want without placing a special order. And once you spec out a 50 similarly, it’s almost 110k anyway.

-Fear. I live in constant fear of something happening to this car, and then it’ll be the same bull$hit all over again with the repair shop.