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I spent an hour with a Lux Line 35i this morning, and put 20+ miles on it. This was a fairly basic car - $63-ish sticker. Overall - really terrific. First thoughts:
1. Steering is significantly easier to manage at parking lot speeds. Far better for my wife, who is the primary driver of this vehicle in our family.
2. The ride was almost perfectly dampened and less harsh in the basic suspension form. My route was around town and highway, so I'm not sure how it corners, but I really liked this balance for 98% of our driving.
3. The sport mode remaps throttle and steering significantly. Hold throttle position on the highway at 75mph, hit sport mode, and the rpm immediately goes from 1800 to 2800, and X5 starts to accelerate. Also much more crisp and anticipative around town. Didn't over-hold gears at light throttle much.
4. Ah..the iDrive screen. You could probably make the case to buy this car just for that screen. The operating system & processor is also very responsive. The text input by touch pad, again very fast & responsive.
5. Interior materials are top notch. Way better than Acura's improved new MDX.
6. Start/stop was far less intrusive here. On the 3 series it's just ridiculous. Probably a combination of better tuning/tweaking, and the mass of the vehicle makes it less noticeable.
7. Base seats were nicely comfortable, though the leather did seem very stiff. I'm surprised how hard it was. I thought it might stop a 9mm round. Maybe it just needs broken in.
Those are my early impressions.
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