Pricing is up on build your own bmwusa.com

[Eurosport]

playing with it, starting price is nice but when you do configure it's still a little more expensive than i thought/should be...
they really need to let you pick your options right like they promised lol
online not at dealer that is,
for example some configs wouldn't let you pick heated front seats w/out heated steering wheel wtf.
no option for black rails? aluminum rails on black window trim???? wow they need to fix things ;p

[genemish]

cant be correct.. where's M-sport? where's the wheel selection? i dont think these are 100% correct.

[Meiac09]

I don't care until M-Sport comes out.

[MINIz guy]

No manual, no care.

[LeMansX5]

Fully loaded

[JCL]

Originally Posted by LeMansX5

Fully loaded

I was playing with the configurator today, it isn't up on BMW CA, but I built one on the US site.

I asked my wife (who drives our X3 most of the time) how she would like it configured. I really liked the look of the deep sea blue, and oyster leather. She wanted white, with black leather (same as she has now, and she had it special ordered). We put the premium package on it, and the cold weather package (although that will be standard in Canada when it comes here). No convenience pack, dynamic handling pack, sport activity pack, or technology pack. No heads up display, smartphone integration, or automatic headlamps. No satellite radio or premium sound. I did put PDC on it, and roof rails. All the other options are just things that break IMO. So, it was looking pretty good, and then she found out she couldn't get a 6 spd manual. She would rather have her current vehicle.

I'll try again in a few years.

[LeMansX5]

Pure manual is slowly getting out of BMW fleet....more like manumatic or DCT. Demand and supply economics plus keeping the fuel consumption low. Even the new M5 will not have manual, from what I have heard.

[Thunder22]

I built a comparably equipped X5 2.8 and a Q5 2.0T and the BMW is $4k more expensive.

Audi execs are pretty happy right now.

btw- A Subaru Outback 2.5i Limited is $30k

[mtech8]

Originally Posted by MINIz guy

No manual, no care.

Ok. Gonna get my head chewed off for this question. I've never owned a manual car, but know how to drive one (at beginner level) and have driven one for a few months.

But for those that LOVE manual, please explain why this is so important given that the newever manumatics (as LeMans put it) have improved so much?

I'm just curious because we have a new 5, it has the shift levers on the steering wheel and it's pretty darn fast at letting me keep the car in the gear I want and getting up and down fast. I can't imagine myself getting into a gear any faster with a stick and having to deal with the clutch. Even in my X5 where I shift manually with the lever, it seems faster too. What am I missing? Besides the joy of fiddling with the stick and clutch or the coolness of the complexity of driving a manual (all things that I envied in my college days).

As for the new X3, love it. But will have to wait for LCI when they get rid of the amber on the front corners. Why couldn't they just add reflectors like the new LCI 3 sedan, 5 series or X5? Saving it for LCI is kinda stupid. That's probably the only real smart thing Mercedes got right in their cars. From the get go, it looks acceptable (to my standards).

[JCL]

Originally Posted by mtech8

Ok. Gonna get my head chewed off for this question. I've never owned a manual car, but know how to drive one (at beginner level) and have driven one for a few months.

But for those that LOVE manual, please explain why this is so important given that the newever manumatics (as LeMans put it) have improved so much?

I'm just curious because we have a new 5, it has the shift levers on the steering wheel and it's pretty darn fast at letting me keep the car in the gear I want and getting up and down fast. I can't imagine myself getting into a gear any faster with a stick and having to deal with the clutch. Even in my X5 where I shift manually with the lever, it seems faster too. What am I missing? Besides the joy of fiddling with the stick and clutch or the coolness of the complexity of driving a manual (all things that I envied in my college days).

I enjoy driving. I enjoy the feeling of being connected to the car, and to me a manual transmission is just more engaging (no pun intended). You are involved, you are making decisions about what gear to be in, what revs you want now, and coming up. I remember my Mom saying, back when I was a teenager and she didn't want to take my Dad's company car out one day, that it wasn't like driving, what was the point, because you just sat there and steered it. Yes, she always had manual transmissions.

I find that with an automatic it is easier to zone out, and I would rather not do so. I drive BMWs because I like the level of involvement, and I get more of that with a manual. I have had an SMG, with paddle shifts, and while it was better than an automatic it wasn't the same, because there was no clutch and no need to match revs.

A well-executed double-clutch downshift, even though unnecessary with modern transmissions, is just cool. Driving without using the clutch after starting off, and matching the revs properly, is also cool.

People want different things from their cars. Some want lots of stereo and even video capability, for example. I never understood that, it seems like sometimes we are trying to make cars into living rooms. I would like a manual transmission, and a small, free-revving engine with low hp that requires me to use all of the gears. I recently rented a Fiesta, in Europe. It had 1400 cc, and on the winding roads in Italy I needed to use every gear it had. Great fun.