BMW X4: Pros, Cons & Should You Buy One?

The car that made luxury SUV coupes more affordable by offering them with more practical engines

The SUV trend covers all price segments including the luxury one. That’s also the first customer base to get bored of conventional SUV styling and seek something sportier but with a similar ride height and road presence and so the luxury SUV coupe segment was born. The BMW X4 is the Bavarian brand’s smallest offering in this segment and it only arrived in India in 2019. But is a sloping roofline worth the premium? Or should you stick with the more conventionally styled and slightly more affordable X3?

Pros

Stand out looks

The X4 is all about the looks even though coupe-styled SUVs are a bit of love-hate body design to begin with. BMW has made an effort to make the rear end sporty enough to stand out from its family-friendly X3’s design while still offering a strong road presence. That sloped rear end also makes it look more premium and exciting than a conventional luxury SUV. In terms of exact measurements, the X4 is slightly longer, wider and rides a bit lower than the X3. The M Sport X package which is offered as standard with the X4 also adds some sporty cosmetic details to the coupe SUV. The X4 also offers a sportier-looking cabin compared to the mild-mannered interior of the X3.

Sportier driving dynamics and powerful diesel engine

The BMW brand of luxury cars is renowned for better driver engagement in its regular models as compared to its usual German rivals. For the X4, the carmaker is said to have tweaked the suspension and handling to be sportier than the X3. Here are the engine options available with the BMW X4 in India:

Note: The X3 gets the same 2.0-litre petrol and diesel engines but doesn’t get the option of a 3.0-litre diesel in India.

The X4 comes with BMW’s xDrive (4WD) system, adaptive suspension and performance control (torque split at the rear axle) as standard which is a key part of delivering the brand’s characteristic driving feel. It even gets sport seats as standard for a better driving position even though you’re sitting in an SUV.

Feature-packed offering

BMW India offers the X4 in a single trim only -  M Sport X. However, there are some differences between the entry-spec 20d and the more powerful 30d and 30i variants. It gets comforts like 3-zone climate control, panorama glass roof, power adjustable front seats, cruise control with braking function, a parking assistant system and 6-airbags as standard. While the xDrive20d only gets an 8.8-inch touchscreen infotainment system and a 5.7-inch display with analogue dials in the instrument cluster, the faster variants get the top-spec 10.25 inch central display with gesture control and a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster. Both systems run BMW’s OS 7.0 and get Apple CarPlay as standard. The entry variant also misses out on a heads-up display, M sport brakes, launch control and a different interior trim finish.

Cons

Slightly compromised rear headroom and bootspace

The sloping roofline of the BMW X4 looks sporty but that styling does have its downside, just like any other coupe model. It leaves less headroom for the rear passengers than the X3 and slightly less boot space as well.

Not as quick as the looks suggest

While the X4 is no slouch, especially with the 3.0-litre diesel variant, the sporty styling seems more fitting for a BMW M model than a regular SUV. It may handle better than an X3 and sit a bit lower, but it is for the most part a cosmetic touch-up rather than an outright boost in performance.

Should You Buy One?

The BMW X4 is a tempting choice if you want something that costs similar to the X3 but doesn’t look like a regular family SUV. However, it raises the question of offering more value as well for the extra premium. The current X4 prices (ex-showroom, pan-India) are as follows:

The base variant offers the same performance as the diesel X3 but misses out on a few features while still costing more than a lakh extra. On top of that, there’s the Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe that offers similar performance as the petrol X4 but for a couple of lakhs less. However, only the BMW X4 offers the choice of a 6-cylinder diesel engine with the most performance for a few more lakhs.

But there’s more to the X4 than just the brochure features and performance numbers and that’s highlighted by two key aspects - driving dynamics and presence. If you’re willing to part with a few extra lakhs to make a bold statement and take corners a bit flatter, then the BMW X4 is definitely one to consider.

Read More on : X4 Automatic