I have an iX3 at last.
M Sport Pro
Metallic Ocean Wave Blue
Tech Pack
Panoramic Roof
Sun Protection Glazing
Parking assist Plus
Heated Steering Wheel
The car turned up Friday, late afternoon. Even though the dealer is in Southampton, the car had been collected from somewhere near Grimsby - I assume they were taken to a central place to have this safety recall issue cleared. It was fairly dirty, and I discovered a very small scratch - So not the best start!
Not only that, but I point out a scratch and the delivery driver appeared to take a picture of it, then got me to sign for it - When my delivery form came through about 20 mins later he had marked that the car was damage free and gave himself 10/10 for delivery. I signed it thinking he had reported the damage, and he had not! I immediately called my dealer and reported it - Hopefully the fact I have pictures taken within a few minutes of delivery is enough to prove it wasn't me.
But that's the negative part out of the way.
I've driven over 100 miles in the last 30 hours, mainly on B roads with a small amount of A roads and I'm really pleased with how it actually drives. It handles so much better than my Genesis GV70 and really feels planted to the road. Any concerns I had about how comfortable it would be on steel sprung suspension vs my car with adaptive dampers has been put to rest. It's slightly firmer, but not uncomfortably so and I'll take that over the floaty barge feeling I have from the GV70.
I am on the 20" wheels and the car came with Hankook Ion Evo tyres which seem grippy and don't make too much road noise.
Yesterday I used the car with the physical key, but today I used it with just my phone as the digital key and found that worked flawlessly. The one software bug I encountered was that I couldn't get the voice assistant to work at all yesterday, but it seems to have updated some apps after I enabled the BMW digital premium trial and was working today.
I got the tech pack, so I do have both the HUD and Harmon Kardon audio.
I've been using the HUD and not really looking at the Panoramic display. It does seem like there is a very specific sweet spot to view it from before it starts distorting and I did have to add some rotation to mine and move it higher up. I don't think it looks as crisp at the HUD in my GV70 but there's not a lot in it, and I think it's because BMW use such large fonts. If they scaled those back slightly it might look a bit better. Anyway, I think I'll stick with the HUD on, as I do like the navigation directions in the HUD from the BMW sat nav, and even better - It gives turn by turn directions in the HUD if you want to use Android auto instead to navigate.
As for the HK system, i'm no audio purist (I have tinnitus) but I was blasting song songs over bluetooth and even with the sound degradation you get using Bluetooth it sounded pretty good to me. My car doesn't seem to have Spotify though - I know they seem to be promoting Amazon music but I'm sure the BMW assistant told me I could request songs on Spotify and then when I did that it said the app wasn't available so I find that a bit strange.
It also comes with the 3 zone climate control, but the rear always seems set to 22.5°C when I open the back doors, and I'm not sure how to change that from the front of the car.
What else to say? The 'Iconic glow' matrix headlights seemed very good and powerful when I was driving back in the dark yesterday, so i'm happy there as well.
Oh and the Adaptive regen mode seems really good. Reviewers were saying it didn't come to a complete stop but it certainly does in traffic. I've not tested it with a clear road ahead so that might change things. I haven't really tried the 'B' mode with one pedal driving as the adaptive regen seems so good.
Some pictures I captured:
The minute it arrived:
Some pictures I took near sunset earlier:
