BMW X5 M50d 2019 UK review

The very first examples of the ‘G05’-generation X5 have just arrived on British roads – and, but for the blindingly obvious and now apparently obligatory enlarged kidneys plonked on the grille (is it time to send in Adrian van Hooydonk’s urologist yet?), I’d say it’s a pretty smart-looking SUV.

It’s a wide SUV, mind you, having put on just over 60mm of width. Wondering what might explain that expansion, I checked BMW’s dimensions on the brand-new X7 for any ‘entirely coincidental correlation’. And wouldn’t you know it – the X5’s even wider than its new big brother.

On the inside, the car feels wide too. Its driving position is a bit more SUV-conventional, and less recumbent, than I remember of the last-gen car, but you still feel as if you might be in a big saloon that has had only as much loftiness, utility and convenience thrust upon it as was absolutely necessary. The new X5 retains that half-SUV, half-crossover vibe that many – who recognise that they need a car of its capabilities more than they really want one – have responded to time and again since 1999. Only this one has a more convincing air of onboard richness, luxury and sophistication about it than the last X5. An Audi Q7 is probably roomier for passengers; perhaps still marginally better distinguished on across-the-board material quality, too. Even so, there’s now little in it.

So what of that engine? Well, on the spec sheet, the M50d engine only makes about 100lb ft of extra torque than that of an X5 xDrive 30d; but on the road it feels like it’s been blessed with a much bigger relative advantage on mid-range pulling power. The M50d’s real-world performance level is comfortably beyond ‘brisk’, though it doesn’t quite squeeze ribcage against seat squab hard enough to qualify as ‘very fast’ either. That’s as much to do with the diesel engine’s style of delivery as anything; it’s got pretty brutish thrust between 2000rpm and 3500rpm but doesn’t take off with the abandon of other performance engines thereafter. By diesel engine standards, of course, it’s remarkably free-revving. But even so, when you leave the car’s eight-speed transmission in Sport mode, there are times when you wonder if it’s only letting the motor spin all the way up beyond 4500rpm because you’ve selected Sport mode. Use paddleshift manual mode instead and you quickly learn to upshift before 4000rpm.

It’s a shame the engine sounds so digital, too. For those reasons and others, you’d say the V8 diesel of an Audi SQ7 hasn’t got too much to fear from this whirlwind of a straight six. The Audi would be much more likely to have trouble with the BMW for handling poise and driver involvement, wouldn’t it? You’d certainly imagine so – but I wouldn’t bet on it ahead of a back-to-back comparison.

The M50d is the only X5 in the new range to come on adaptively damped steel coil suspension as standard rather than on air spheres. You can have air instead if you prefer, but only the coils can be combined with both active anti-roll bars and ‘integral active’ (four-wheel) steering, as our test car had been specified.

Looming 22in alloy wheels come as standard too, and they do thump and thud a bit over sharp edges. In tighter bends, the X5 M50d corners really keenly, particularly so should you need to dial in extra off-centre steering angle mid-corner. The car’s steering response hardly seems to soften at all as it begins to roll, almost imperceptibly, through a direction change.

There is certainly a place on the performance SUV class’s Venn diagram for the X5 M50d. It’s pacey in an unusually undemanding sort of a way. It’d do a real-world 30mpg for a high-mileage motorway driver, which you’d struggle to get from a PHEV of the same performance level, driven in the same way. It’s vigorous-handling, though more effective than enticing or rewarding. And, by the way, it’ll do long-legged, everyday comfort and refinement, with convenience and luxury, very well too.

But it’s clearly a car whose order form has to be filled out just-so in order to capture it at its best; and even then might soon leave a really keen driver wanting some genuine entertainment factor.