Impressions: My new 2013 M Sport X5

[XMen]

Hi all, just got my X5 last Friday. Really impressed with X5. Here's the good and the bad, so far.

1) Looks. Love the carbon metallic black paint with its deep blue hue in the light. However, easy to spot dirt on the black paint. Needs more cleaning. The M Sport package gives a more hunkered down masculine look. The 20" wheels are a beauty. The meaty offset tires are nice to look at from behind.
2) Driving dynamics. Got mine with the Adaptive Drive. I'm totally smitten. AD drive works in a way I didn't imagine. I test drove the regular sport suspension that comes with the M Sport package. It was choppy on the high way and bordering on harsh in not so smooth side streets. However, the AD smooths 80 % of the choppiness and not at all harsh. It reminds of the 5 series in smoothness. Significantly more quiet and smoother than the 3 or 1 series. And on twisty roads, the sport button on AD tightens up the steering and X5 feels like it's on rails (better than any SUV I've ever driven) more like a sports sedan/coup. The compliance does firm up more but entirely acceptable IMO. The body has no significant lean on turns...again better than 1 and 3 series I've owned. Braking front end dive is hardly noticeable. Those of you contemplating AD, get it.
3) Engine. Pretty good pull once the revs get to about 2500 rpms. At high way speeds, passing is easy for 2.5 ton truck. From stop, the pull is not much to write home about. I think the Dinan tune will significantly change this.
4) Interior. Very nice. Simple and uncluttered, but the cryptic symbols on all the buttons still takes getting used to. The iDrive still confuse, but I've able to get the basic stuff down (navigation, camera, and radio functions) without resorting to the owner's manual. Not as bad as I thought given all the bad press on iDrive. The luxury seats are very welcome, especially the built in cooling fans in the seat, on hot humid summer days here in the South. The plastic on the interior B-pillar is cheap, hard, and hollow sounding, especially when the seat belt buckle hits it (couldn't the engineers figure out how to stop this by now?). The head up display...me likes especially the navigation. However, the navigation appears to be off by about 100 feet. It will tell me to turn in 100 feet when I'm literally 5 to 10 feet from the turn.
5) Mine came with couple of 1/8 inch thick scratches going straight across the outside B-pillars. My dealer is trying to replace the plastic. You can't buff this out, like hair line scratches on clear coat paint, which was also present on the A and C -pillar on the same side. I'm surprised the dealer didn't catch these. These will be buffed out.

Overall, I'm a very satisfied customer (except for the scratches).

More later....