BMW X3 review

It hits the basics. It's roomy enough, and the driving position is very good indeed.

The let-down is unexpected: it just doesn't feel expensive. There's a lot of hard scratchy plastics where your hand meets it: door pulls and handles (with the latter almost completely hidden in the dark), centre console storage bins. And the ambient light strips look good in photos but in real life resemble the glow sticks you wear round your neck on bonfire night.

Still, BMW taketh away but BMW giveth also. To compensate, the textured cloth on the dash is fresh and feels plush. And the screens, even if you don't like their angular aesthetic, are high in resolution and responsive to the touch. Shame that there aren't simple, round dial options on the digital dash though.

Still - huzzah! - the rotary controller lives on. Cherish it, because when Neue Klasse sweeps the BMW range it will be deleted forever. That, and several actual buttons, and shortcuts on the screen, make it blessedly easy to operate, although we'd prefer a proper, separate climate control panel.

Configuring the driver aids is fairly simple, but it all works smoothly so you are less inclined to turn the mandatory systems off, and more inclined to use the other advanced assist systems. Many of which are optional anyway.

Getting comfy in the front seats is easy, of course, though there's not a vast amount of storage space around you. In the back, the footwells are deep so there's enough legroom for the outer two; the middle one might find the bulky transmission hump gives them the hump. Headroom is fine for all. And there's separate rear climate control as standard.

How big is the boot?

Great question. With its 19.7kWh battery under the boot floor, the plug-in hybrid X3 gets 460 litres of room with the rear seats in place, and 1,600 litres when those seats are folded. All other versions get a useful 570 litres of boot space with the seats up and 1,700 litres when they're folded flat.

That latter figure means the X3 is slightly down on cargo space versus the mild-hybrid versions of the Mercedes-Benz GLC, but the BMW does at least beat both the Audi Q5 and the Volvo XC60.