2020 BMW X4 M Competition: What's the point?

Welcome to everyone's a critic, the show where we take some manufacturer comments and your comments and respond to them in kind. I'm Emme Hall, this is? I'm Antuan Goodwin. My pal Antuan Goodwin, and we are in the 2020 BMW X4 M Competition. Yeah. Thanks for letting me drive, dude. Yeah, well, I mean technically I've already driven From this card twice, because we review the egg three m competition.Late last year the video just went live recently on the roadshow and we're going to be looking at your comments on that because they're also applicable to this. But first let's see what BMW has to say about this vehicle. I can't wait. They say that it's not just a BMW. It's an M legendary motorsport lineage. Reaches new heights in the BMW X4M. set the tone with M quad exhaust m rear diffuser m rear spoiler m mirrors air m air side vents and aggressive bumper air intakes. I'm surprised they didn't call it an M bumper M there it is. So is this like a full fledged M car. It's one of the fullest being the competition model, It's got the same engine that's going to be in the upcoming M three and M four. Which means a twin power turbo inline six three liter that makes in this spec 503 horsepower. So Amount of pure energy you can get. Yeah, totally. A fact from the Chasi Totally [CROSSTALK] This is it takes into new heights, because also it make you alittle bit taller Totally [CROSSTALK] This is the thing they say it takes, into new heights because, also takes alittle bit taller the average [CROSSTALK] We are,I do I feel like Her,like way high of the ground cause we are essentially in a crossover. Yeah. Mid-sized crossover. Essentially, we're actually- [LAUGH] In a mid-sized crossover. All right, what do people have to say? All right, well, let's see what people have to say. Well, when I drove this car earlier, the question that I asked Was with why. And then after driving it I asked why not? Yeah, it's that fun. dl DJ l 66 says no intro and the correct answer is just one word Why? And that I think that sort of speaks to the sort of absurdity of weird I mean, the fact that this is such a high powered highly drivers crossover, I mean, there's not a lot out there. We can You can look at the Alfa Romeos Delvaux in the quadrifoglio trim. Yeah. Or the GLC AMG GLC 63 s I mean, those are all midsize crossovers that will like Put your face back when you put on when you hit the gas. You got your Porsche Macan turbo. Yeah. And so it's, it's a small class but it's so small class of this little vehicles. It's a small class of people though that would want that because, honestly, like, if I could afford this vehicle, what does it start at like? 69 $70,000 In competition. Yeah. 80 Grand $85,000 and because there's not many options to get, but it starts at 80 grand. I mean, if I knew that I could have if I could afford an $85,000 car I could probably afford another car so I could have a small Zippy car for the weekends and then I could have Of my like family mobile during the week Right This is like kind of built for people who wannna have their cake and eat it. Well, this is what RoguedogX says, I think he's committed a bunch of times or she? I will say this being the smallest and lowest m-SUV it makes more sense Of the SUVs that make the least sense. [LAUGH] That brings in the X5M and the X6M, which we've had for a couple generations now. But yeah this is of a class of vehicles that are a little bit weird. But I think you lose so much of the SUVness. Well, especially in thisX4, right, because it's got that sloping roof line. So there's Head room in the back, and your storage capacity is severely limited. But I do have a question for you. Is this considered mid size or compact SUV? I would call it a compact. You think is compact? With the X5 being mid size. Yeah. I guess that's true. What is the mid size SUV streches, upto damn near navigater. Okay? [LAUGH] [LAUGH] That feels so great. So, it's it's pretty interesting, but I think that when people buy SUVs are looking for space, right? But I think when when people buy SUVs, right, they're looking for they're looking for space, they're looking for a tall right But I think there's also on some level a comfort and maybe not necessarily overlanding ability but definitely some sort of off road ability. sure cradle loading, Right. Yeah.>> Your suspension we're in comfort mode right now. We're comfort mode?. I feel like we're like bouncing around I can feel like every little challenge to the steering wheel. Yeah. And the suspension on this car is so firm. Yeah this is.>> I don't know if an SUV buyer would get in this car and think, yeah. Yeah, this is what I was looking for when I decided to go with the x four instead of the M four. I mean normally when I get into any car that has a comfort sport Sport Plus mode like I immediately just switched to sport because I want to have I want to feel a little bit more, you know, connected to the road and have a little bit of a stiffer ride with this comfort mode. It's actually really uncomfortable. I would hate to have to commute in this every day. I mean, I'm kind of digging the seats. They're really supportive, but they're not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination. It's needed a little bit of breaking in for me. Yeah I am not a narrow dude. I'm not the widest dude I know either. But I found that the the bolsters on the actual seats of the bucket were very supportive but they also meant that I had to keep my legs a little bit closer than I'm probably a little bit used to, yeah, but I definitely appreciated the The amount of grip that you get in the corners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the amount of support you get. Absolutely. And then the X3 that we had, we actually had the suede inserts on the seats. Kinda with the seat? Which was was even better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wish that the seat back on this was a little bit softer. Right. Because this is so harsh. [LAUGH] Let's get back to some comments. All right, what's our next one? The Real Cigar Jefe says, we did not need this. This, but we got it anyway. I think that sort of speaks to the core of what BMW is as a brand. For the last decade, they've been kinda just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Yeah. And that's resulted in some interesting hits. Some cars that I probably wouldn't have thought were good sellers that have, Created new classes and some cars that maybe don't do super well. Mm-hm. Cars that I don't think anybody really likes, like the five series GT, for example. [LAUGH] My God, those are so terrible. I don't understand where those fit and I don't understand BMW's business model. They have so many We need different like nice little models and I know they're a worldwide Corporation and they're sell cars all over the world, but I'm just like, how do you guys make money offering all of these different vehicles where they're pretty much the same but not quite?>> Well that's the thing. That's your platform show me sharing your modular design. That's the beauty of automotive engineering these days is that the double edged sword is that Yeah, you're. 5 and you're X6 through for set your X3m competition and your X6 and competition are 80%, maybe 90% of the same car. But that also means that you don't need to reinvent the wheel you can offer them. Similarly without being very cheap. It means your brand gets a little bit better. Blend but you can also inject a different kind of flavor. But do we really need coupe overs in our world? Nobody needs coupe overs. Nobody needs a coupe overs. I know and this is what we have is this coupe over. Not only do you lose storage space. Which is the all point. Wolf headroom on the same row, it looks goofy, when you look at the profile of this. Vehicle the proportions just don't look right. For some reason it looks even more rearward balanced than its weight than the X3. This car. I mean, the X3 has a taller roofline in the back, which means it should look like it's heavier like a head. But this looks really. Look at this. Unbalanced. Yeah, and it looks very, very spastic, I mean, I feel like all the weight in this car is in the back. And frankly, if I'm gonna, like we said before, if I'm gonna buy an SUV, I need something. I'm buying it for a reason because I got people or pets or gear or something that I gotta haul around, so don't deny me my cargo space. I mean, you can haul, I mean To be fair, you could make the argument that a lot of SUV buyers and wagon buyers also don't use a lot of vertical space in their vehicles. The floor space is really what you're looking for, for groceries, for boxes, for bits of furniture, things that are gonna lay flat in the vehicle. A lot of people don't use a lot of the. The vertical space of their Golf GTI. So, on some level, some people maybe aren't losing that much, but on another level, it just looks so stupid that I don't really feel like it's worth it. Let's hit a one two punch Comments here because I think it's interesting. This is flagged, Gabor says, pointless car followed by Sir friendzone. Fantastic name, it says if I had 90 grand and could only have one vehicle, it this would be near or at the top of my list great review. And I think that's interesting, that's third sort of speaks to the sort of- I mean, if you had 90 grand, you could only buy one One vehicle would this be it? If I had 90 grand and I could buy one vehicle? I mean, for starters, nobody has 90 grand and only has to buy one vehicle. I know but let's just say this is a fantasy world here and one let's just say you have 90 grand you won the lottery 90 grand and you need a new car. Would this be it? No. The x3m won't be it either ,and I just feel like it's kind of like a car needs a purpose,right. Right And like I feel like when you make a compact SUV into a Purpose built sports car. You have to give up so much of what makes both classes great. Yeah, I mean, if I had 90 grand to spend on a BMW, I would Well, I mean, I really liked the MTU. But it is smaller but yeah, you could get you could get an empire for 90 grand right? The M5 is I would call the 5 probably 100 grand club member. Yeah, sure. So you'd be pushing it. I don't think you probably have generation If I've won the lottery. Now I've got the 90 grand,that I can find 10k somewhere. All right so we've been in comfort mode though, and I would like to go into full sport. So I've got these M buttons here. > Yeah. One say M1 says M2, what's the difference? So those are presets, and so they are user customizable preset, Okay. And I've set them up to my liking. So M1 is sport. Okay. Everything into sport, plus everything. So you basically tap one button to go in one mode, you tap one button to go into the other. But because I have enabled dynamic stability, which basically loosens up your stability control a little bit. Great. So you can have a little more fun. You have to double tap to confirm. Okay. So if you wanna go to either mode just double tap. So will double tap on this m2? Yeah. Alright, right away. So yeah the car The car down shifted and the throught immediately are more responsive. Exhauster is little bit lounder. Yeah, thank God coz I really didn't like the way it sounded just in comfort mode. I mean this is firmer than comfort mode I don't Notice it. I don't notice it either. It was already a pretty firm bar to begin with.>> Yep And I think that's something that Mercedes does better with is AMG vehicles is differentiation between comfort and sport. Yeah their comfort mode as well. Really cushy. I'm really hungry. I haven't driven the GLC 63 but I did do a pretty apples to apples comparison between the East 63 and the M five. And the 63 feels like two different cars when you go from sport to its most dynamic mode. The M five just feels like it's in sport mode all the damn time. [LAUGH] Which is great if that's what you're looking for. But I just feel like what's the point of modes? Yeah It's pretty good mode. I know Let's get another question then. I can read. Sorry So here's one from Bong Lim. It says a comparison review of the The X3 M competition and Mcan Turbo would be interesting. Richard Williams in the Fame Vein says-- [LAUGH] This is great, Would have been nice to mention it's direct competition. This is so great, I'm sorry This is so much. [LAUGH]. Okay, no I'm listening. THis is my listening face. Would've been great to. Would've been nice to mention it's direct competion so someone can gauge the price Points that's from Richard Williams to car lenders who are basically interested in cars that this vehicle compares to, and we kind of touched on that earlier. Yeah. I mean, honestly, if I'm looking at like, visually, I like the Porsche makaan better than anything else in this class. Right? I think it looks great. I love the colors that it's optional. It's just, it's just looks a little bit more sophisticated. And this like we've talked about already is a little bit chuncky and the Mercedes is just like this giant egg that I've never really, really liked. But I don't know how they compare price-wise. Well that's interesting the [INAUDIBLE] is down 70 horsepower on this thing. And only 435 and let me look at the price. On this bad boy. Is it lighter weight though? It might- It might be lighter weight. But feels like its a little bit smaller. Zero to 60 on the pecan is in the low four seconds, this is low threes. Low threes, yeah. So I would wager that it's probably not much lighter. This is like 4500 pounds. God. The Porsche might be lighter, but not much. Not by much no. Porsche Turbo S is let's see here. Well when you drove it earlier this year. Yeah, his was 100 and 100 100 grand hundred grand a nicely optioned for a s nomicon. So you'll get around 85 for the forces more expensive. Okay, I would say across the board. First makonnen turbo 85 grand to start on On the Macan turbo. lets say the Alfa>> Yeah, I always forget about the Alfa, it looks so good and it sounds so good but then. The Alfa sounds amazing. But then some of the tech inside, your just like my God its terrible. I would not want to live with an Alfa Quadrifoglio, not after all the horror stories that I'v heard of the Giulio Quadrifoglio being. A lot less reliable than just regular Julio and imagine that Silvia is probably get very similar issues as far as reliability since there's a lot of platform sharing going on there. Although I do have slept in the back of Stelvio. I don't even want to know what's going on with that story. [LAUGH] So I think of the competition, right, and I think that I made Maybe mentioned, this is probably 20, 30 grand more than just a regular X3 already. So you're in a class where price is kind of a little bit like [SOUND] what are you doing? It doesn't make sense. And you know, the regular X3 and X4. I mean they're fine to drive. They're still a lot of fun Have fun and let's face it, I mean, we've been out here on this back road and the pavement is such and the twisties are such and my skill is such that I'm not eking out all 503 horsepower. The only place you bring me on to do that is a track so you might as well have some Something that's a little bit less powerful so that you can actually drive it, like drive it at 90%. Well, here's what I wanna know and this is, let me know in the comments guys. I've never been too attractive. That allows SUVs or trucks. Maybe my experience is different maybe things are different in different parts of the country but Northern California, the track days that I've been to with my Miata. Uh-uh. There's always a stipulation on the, you know, the Right, right. Check or whatever you're doing. As far as what vehicles you can bring that says no trucks, no SUVs, and I would think that that would automatically discount the vehicle so it's a track car that as far as I can tell, you can't take on the track anywhere. I mean, maybe you could maybe you could go to you know, I'm sure BMW has m driving day events. Yeah, whatever, that they would let their own damn vehicles Go on, but It seems like- I mean, yeah, I see your point on that. I mean, maybe with this burgeoning class of high-performance SUV, there's some sort of- High-performance SUV track day? How are you track day club, or something like that? [LAUGH] I don't know. Family track days. I don't know. Grocery-getter track days, there you go. Sure, that be great. You can take this to the drag strip though, at Pitsonoma. Sure. But the drags are tonight, ooh the drags were last night. But it seems there like so much in this vehicle, the power, the straight line performance is only part of the picture here. I mean you've got these big grippy summer tires, you've got this really firm suspension set up really well, despite it being really firm. This car is, this SUV handles way better than it should, for its centre of gravity. To be where it is, Right. I feel like you are missing out on so much of the performance party if you just use this as a drive car, that you almost want to,you'd have to take it on the track at some point, it's the equivalent, Buying an M5 and never go into a track name, bro. Yeah, bro. You gotta quit tracking you got to put track day bro on it every time it's like a Pavlovian thing. Let's get back into some comments here. Paul M says I wish we would see more reviews of X3 with basic cylinder. I haven't seen these crazy fast versions or poverty level four cylinder turbo I'm pretty sure that I've driven the regular M3. I have driven the X330. I've driven the X1 and X2 and I'm pretty sure that was both in The two liter turbo and I'm gonna pass this guy. You know what's funny is the inside baseball is I've spent so much time going I wish they'd stop giving us pedestrian cars in the San Francisco crew. I wish we get some really fun cars in lieu and then this is what they send us. I know, right [LAUGH] Never live on horsepower SUV. Fun, guys. We're the sports cars at But yeah, it's I think it's there's there's definitely a breadth of performance options there. I mean you got the extra 30 which is fine. The extra 40 which I think most people are probably looking at as far as like when you look at reviews So X3s that are floating around the internet right now, probably because that one has been around for a pretty significant amount of time. And then of course the M and M Competition, which the X3 dropped pretty early last year around June-ish. So you see more reviews of the X3 M and M Competition. Competition and the X4 The same list. Have you ever seen one of these in the wild? No, I see a lot of X3s and not very many X4s because I think a lot of people agree with me that the X4s are the ugly duckling All right, we're almost back to HQ. Do we have anything else? We got two more comments. Okay, all right, so this is from 93remix. I don't know why BMW steered away from four liter V8s like they did with the M3. Benz was smart enough to put it in their smaller SUV, the GLC 63S And to me the X3M COMP is begging for a small 4L V8. I mean that would be nice and all but this is plenty powerful. I don't really get hung up on how the power gets made as long as it gets made in a good way. And I mean there are example there are exceptions to the rules right like for sports tourists compact sports cars, something small like an F 2000. Or Miata or arc seven? Like yeah, do I want that thing to rev like crazy for a truck I want like big displacement for pretty much everything else in between. I don't really care like if the if the my turbo the twin, turbo V V6 does as well as the V8 does that fine? Yeah, this power is getting delivered to my right foot just a okay. [LAUGH] BMW is that there's that modularity of course is that the three liter block they can use it in other things It's not just a purpose built engine that they put in one vehicle and that's costing them money. It's why they can afford to like, throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks is because the building blocks of those things are like Lego. And so it's financially beneficial for them to stick with the three liter In line six, for as many vehicles as possible, as long as they can adjust tuning. In this case they adjusted boost pressure to get the extra what? Like 20, 30 horse power? Yeah, cuz it's like 18, 19 pounds of boost or something. Yeah. And you know of course with smaller displacement turbos you also get that fuel economy Economy benefit that is super important right now, if you're building gasoline vehicles. What's the fuel economy on this, do you know? I don't know. I've been averaging 13. I don't even know what the EPA says. Cuz it's not important, I think, to your average Korean competition driver. No, they're not gonna care. I'm just curious. I don't even care. Here's the last comment. Speaking of building gasoline powered vehicles, I love this comment, because Because of the way you'll see Okay This one comes from Hellcat 1988 Okay, so already I know his point of view. No you don't. I don't If this is what the model y is supposed to complete with compete with, Tesla has nothing to worry about. Hellcat 1988 isn't Tesla fun Fanboy, which I mean, can't really argue with that. The Tesla Model Y is super exciting the Model X has been->> Dude I kind of forgot that the model Y was actually happening.>> Yeah, they just dropped the configurator inside baseball yesterday. Really.>> Time recording about time you guys see this a little bit out for a while, but the model is super exciting if the model three is any Decatur there. Again, I think that the performance of the model I'll be I mean, if it's something to look forward to. If it's got all of that sweet electric torque then absolutely and it will but I don't know. The thing is, this isn't what the model y has to compete with no, nobody's cross shopping at 13 miles per gallon. Wind Power powered turbo cars you know in line six, stupid racecar have an SU SUV with the future of the like the promise of Tesla is this is the future of automotive. your self driving high torque electric super quiet SUV like I don't think that these two cars are even in the same wheelhouse aside from being vaguely shaped the same. I don't even think that the model I will Be nice anywhere near this as far as damn near $90,000 SUV. I mean that's Model X territory. Yep So interesting. I do love the fact that it doesn't matter what car you talk about. That's absolutely gonna get lost into the conversation. And now tests will basically span so many classes. It makes more sense at the very least that you would talk a Test Flow compact SUV into the conversation as opposed to something bigger or smaller. But we got so happens. Final thoughts what do you think about this and you still think it's dumb because>>I do Do you think it's dumb, but it sure is fun. That's how I feel in the x three and how I feel again when I got this vehicle in is that it doesn't make any sense on paper, but it's a whole lot of a hoot. Yeah. Right. A lot of fun to drive. But I wouldn't wanna drive this every day. It's just, it's too rough, the steering is too heavy, the steering wheel is super thick, the seats aren't comfortable. I would not wanan sit in traffic on the Bay Bridge in this thing, but I sure would like to take it out on some Saturday afternoon. Not a car for everybody no might be a car for you. If you haven't checked out the review that we're getting these comments from Be sure to check out our full first drive and our full review of the BMW X three m competition. You can find it linked somewhere over here and the next time we Do everyone's a critic. I think we're gonna be in a Mustang. We're gonna be pulling comments from a variety of Ford Mustang thing so be sure to leave your comments on all of our content if you wanna see it featured somewhere here on this show. Till next time, I'm Anton Goodwin and everyone's a critic including you