First Impressions
 

Lurked on here while I was deciding between a Cayenne S and an X5 4.8. Bought the X5, which I picked up yesterday. A few impressions:

1. Drives quite nice, a good deal like my father's 7-series. Feels a little bit bulkier, which is to be expected, but not bad. I have the sport package and like the way that affects the handling.

2. The milage is not good, but not absolutely horrible. Yesterday I drove from Denver to Estes Park, down through Rocky Mountain National Park and back through Winter Park to Denver. About 40% mountain roads, 35% regular highway and 25% city. ~17 MPG combined.

3. Unfortunately, I suffer from the 6FL dropping-to-FM problem. Let my sales guy know and that I'd be bringing it in once one of us has heard there is a fix.

4. Wavered on the Comfort Access, but I'm glad I got it. Sort of silly, but it's kind of a cool feature.

5. Don't know why people rag on both iDrive and the navigation system so much. I thought iDrive was a cinch to figure out after about 20 minutes of screwing with it, and I much prefer it to a phalanx of buttons. I thought the navigation system was fine. It navigated and gave accurate directions. Don't ask much more from my navigation system.

6. Got the navigation system, but not the technology package and the other stuff that goes with it. Kind of wish I had gotten the technology package, as the proximity detector and the rear view camera (even with its limitations) would give me more confidence when parallel parking or otherwise backing up.

In all, I'm happy with the purchase. Hope that sentiment continues.

Good Write up. What made you decide on the X5 4.8 over the Porsche? I am looking at EXACTLY what you were looking at although I am opting for every option on both vehicles, now to pick.
Thanks in advance for your input.

BMW vs. Porsche
 

Several factors went into that decision:

1. My other car is a 911 convertible. Owning two Porsches seemed a bit much, and I have always driven and liked BMWs.

2. The 4.8 with the Sport Package is just the right amount of firmness in the suspension. The Cayenne S without PASM is too squishy (although note that I like pretty stiff suspensions; it was great on the highway though), and with the PASM in sport mode was a bit too stiff. If I didn't already have a sports car I might have liked that, as the Cayenne S in sport mode is a lot of fun to drive. Acceleration was about even, maybe slight edge to the BMW, which surprises me a bit.

3. As all of my music is digitized, the 6FL option was a big selling point. Once they have the glitch worked out, I'm sure I'll like it as it's a great integration.

4. Go back and forth on the styling of the Cayenne. Some days I like it, some not. Really like the styling of the BMW.

5. A comparably equipped BMW was slightly ($5K-8K?) cheaper, although I never really engaged a Porsche dealer on what kind of deal I could get.

In all, fairly close.

Since you mention the nav... how real-time is the real time traffic information (RTTI) anyway? Anyone know? Here in the NYC/LI area I know I'll be depending on it a ton.

Don't really use it so can't comment--traffic in Denver is problematic in a bit more of a predictable manner than the Tri-State area--really only rush hour on the main arteries that I've found to be a problem.

im in the same situation as you, but im looking at X5 3.0 vs. Cayenne base

the 4.8i gives you 17mpg?!?!?! WOW that's unbelievably good. my 3.0i e53 gets around 18mpg. i tested two pre-owned e53 4.4i, on gets 16mpg and the other only gets 11mpg.

It's dropped down to about 16.5 driving around Denver, about half city, half highway. May also have to do with me driving like a wimp during the break-in period (I have about 500 miles on it so far). I plan to keep it 10+ years, so I want to make sure the break-in is done right. Will likely drop more once I lead-foot it more.

The 6FL thing is really annoying. I was pretty excited about having all my songs on board, but it can't even get through one song without switching--totally unusable. Hope they devise a fix soon. Can't stand having spent $400 on a useless option.

I would think they'll fix it, or refund the $400.. it's that simple. Don't let them get away with less.

How are your songs encoded...the lit states that it will not accept any files above 256kbps. Could it be your files are encoded higher and this is causing the problem??

Try some experiments with songs encoded at a lower bit rate and see if that is the problem or not.