I have both active steering and adaptive drive on my X5 SD and I can compare it to my father's X5 without any of these features. I can tell you one thing for sure: these are completely different cars. Active steering gives you a very direct respons and is very light when parking. It's not only the fact it's light, but you have to turn like 2-3 times less than without active steering. It feels like the car is mucher smaller than it really is. Adaptive drive limits body roll and with the sport mode it gives you better grip on the road. I have 20" and the other X5 is on 18". When the road gets bad, the 20" with adaptive drive feels more comfortable than 18" without. I would take these 2 options above any other.