Well, driving on good highways, the X3 is great and it even beats lots of sports cars (in the lass of th MB sportscoupe, BMW32x, and that kind), especially when not driven by competent enough drivers. I can turn on closed highway curves doing 180-200 km/h and feeling perfectly safe...

BUT as soon as you get on badly-paved (even city) roads, damaged with "holes" and everything, then you should be prepard for a very unpleasant ride. I never actually do hard off roading. On the snow, using Dunlops Wintersport M3, it is great too. On country/mountain roads with lots of stones, however, it is practically unbearable. Although the car CAN go uphill, it is so tiring and unpleasant that you actually feel the pain.

One cant have it all, right?