New Jersey. Actually, the entire northeast. It’s overcrowded, with terrible roads, constant traffic and only a few months of good weather. That means that, though something like a Subaru WRX normally makes a perfectly fine daily, around here I prefer something with a little more juice. Something like this BMW X5 M Competition.
It slices through traffic, easily runs every day errands, and puts a smile on your face. But what it is not, is a BMW M car.
Let me explain.
2024 BMW X5 M Competition Quick Take
Get one:
All the speed from the S63. Looks badass. Still comfy and practical. LCI gives needed Botox.
Don’t get one:
A ride to break your back. No comfort access on rear doors. Has a Dino juice habit.
Soul Score: 7
The most expensive X5 doesn’t mean it’s the best.
The 2024 BMW X5 M Competition overview
BMW’s entire M lineup is more capable than it’s ever been, and selling better than it ever has. Let’s call those good things.
At the core of this renaissance is the X5, the origins of which date back to the late 1990s when BMW bought Land Rover. Forgot about that? It’s true, and for six years they had full access to LR’s blueprints for what makes a good SUV. The resulting E53 X5 was BMW’s first effort, based heavily on the Discovery of the time.
The X5 is responsible for many things. It’s the first turbocharged M car, indeed the first M SUV period. It coincides with a change in thinking at BMW, from what we knew M to be with cars like the E36, to what it has become now in this X5 M Competition.
At $141,445 and painted Individual Santorini Blue, it commands your attention, then it keeps it with a 617 horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8. But turning such a big, tall and heavy X5 into the M thing it has become here requires sacrifice, as you’ll soon see.
Performance Score: 9. S&M
Perhaps the headline is a bit vague. Shoved into the front of the X5 is the soon to be discontinued S63. Wonderful. But the X5 M60i also has an M engine, the brand new S68.
What that version doesn’t have is the punishing ride of the X5 M. S, M, punishment – I see you getting it now.
Engine
BMW’s S63 has been around now for some time, but I must tell you it remains perhaps my favorite engine of all-time.
Debuting in 2010 inside an X5 – actually that in and of itself is amazing. Imagine if BMW still put S65s in M3s in 2024? The IS 500 manages this feat as well. BMW – stop killing the wrong engines! I digress.
It’s the same motor from the F90 M5 and X6 M, and it’s good for 617 horsepower at 6,000 RPM, which means you must rev it. However, 553 lb-ft of torque comes online at just 1,800 RPM, which might as well be from idle. The result is a power curve that resembles the Bonneville Salt Flats – horses just live everywhere, with no peaks or valleys in between.
The X5 and X6 are the S63’s swan song. No doubt the new M5 and future X generations will have the S68 from the XM. I’m sure it will be wonderful (and hybrid), but the S63 stands alone as BMW’s last great unassisted ICE unit.
Poor one out for my homie.
Transmission
Guess who’s back – our friend the ZF.
I step away from M cars with ZF transmissions for awhile, hop into something with a DCT and think “yea, this is better”. It isn’t.
Well, maybe it is in a GT3, but not here. It reads your mind and offers such quick shifts that I can’t imagine a DCT doing any better. It’s also smooth around town, without any of that obnoxious clunking or rolling behavior that clutch-based automatics tend to exhibit.
Select from three levels of performance, normal to idiotic. Really, unless you’re chasing the shady Econoline van that just kidnapped your wife and daughter, I cannot imagine a scenario where you’d need the firmest of settings. It hangs onto gears way too long and snaps your neck like Jean-Claude Van Damme. Forget to change it back, and everyone will look at you in a parking lot as you sit at 6,000 RPM rolling to a stop sign. Ridiculous.
Just leave it in the normal mode and it’s perfect.
Steering and chassis
I’d like to gloss over the steering – if you don’t know by now, you’ve probably never driven a modern BMW before. This example was shod with gigantic all-season tires that made it worse, with vague feeling directly off-center that required constant correction on the highway. Leave the summers on if you can.
The BMW X5 M Competition weighs 5,455 pounds. In order to make it feel like it handles on rails, BMW’s engineers need to reinforce and stiffen the chassis setup, and it seems like they consulted the Port Authority’s bridge engineering team to do so. My God, this thing is stiff.
Forget about Sport + mode – F/A-18s catching a one wire have a smoother ride. The regular mode, Comfort – too soft. It allows Titanic-levels of body roll, and yet still clomps over bumps. So you might as well use Sport – same punishing ride, but at least it sharpens the X5’s haunches enough to cut through traffic.
Indeed, if the road is smooth (remember, we’re talking about New Jersey), the X5 M is comfortable and makes a fine grand touring machine. And using it as intended, i.e. executing maximum punishment on left-lane dawdlers, feels great. Smooth squat for traction as you get on the power, and just a bit of dive onto the front-end for braking. An M2 couldn’t do any better.
The X5 M has full-time all-wheel drive, and you can use it in normal or Sport mode as well. Unlike M xDrive in an M3 or M5, it remains on all the time. Fine with me – I cannot imagine drifting this thing.
Brakes
There’s nothing wrong with the X5 M Competition’s brakes – they stop with confidence. Again with the modes (and like the M3), soft is simply far too soft. Even Sport mode has a squishy feel, especially at the top of the pedal. Dig deep enough and it firms up.
I’d like to point out the lack of a carbon ceramic option. If you’re saying to yourself, “Well Mike, it’s an X5 and it doesn’t need them because you’re not going to track it.”, that’s fine, but why did BMW decide the entire car would be about excess except for the brakes? Gigantic engine, loud paint, punishing ride – but the brakes were just too much.
The X5 M feels like the kind of car White Goodman from Dodgeball would drive to the gym. You hop out of it and say hi to your neighbor, “Oh hey Ted, I was just driving and reading the Encyclopedia.” Would you want to marry White? No.
But I bet he’s fun at parties.
Lifestyle Score: 10. The ultimate camera car
Forget about all the foofy M stuff for a minute – this is still an X5, and it’s a really good package.
Let’s start in the back, where a powered clam shell hatch can open halfway, with the bottom door still up, or open all the way. I can’t think of another modern SUV that does this, but it’s excellent for loading things and for hanging out the back of a car for rollers safely.
Though the X5 used to have a third row, the X7 negated the need, so it’s just a spacious and comfy back seat that makes the one in an X3 feel claustrophobic.
In front are power-everything seats that are the most comfortable BMW makes, matching the F90 M5’s in design. Perhaps the only complaint is the massage function, which still pales compared to that in a Mercedes. BMW ventilated seats also leave something to be desired – I’m HOT, blow more damn it.
Fuel Economy: 4. One big circle
The X5 M is rated at a combined 15 MPG, and sure enough, that’s about what I averaged during its stay with me. But let’s dig deeper.
As I mentioned, this car weighs 5,455 pounds and that’s a lot. But it’s not as much as the BMW XM, at 6,095 pounds, which gets one MPG less combined. To be fair, when you combine its electric and gas power plants, you get a more reasonable 49 MPGe. But who’s driving their M cars on electric-only power?
The XM is also slightly faster than the X5 M in a straight line, if such things matter. Clearly, I know which I’d pick.
Features and Comfort: 7. Kids, Dads, Marriage, and Xs.
“Dad, does this car get the video screens in back like that Cadillac?”
No baby girl, sorry. No screens.
“Babe, can you please unlock the rear? I need to grab something.”
Uh, sorry Mrs. Machines. Let me just grab the remote…one second..
Make dad great again
Clearly, the person having the most fun in the X5 M Competition is the one with access to the throttle.
All LCI X5s have keyless entry on the rear doors deleted. BMW is hoping you’ll use the proximity feature of the key fob, but I’ve always found that feature lacking. It’s delayed in its response, locks and unlocks itself a million times in my garage, and overall lends itself well to spousal abuse. You know – where your wife grabs the door handle and pulls it a million times thinking the door will open because you’re so slow to unlock it.
Elsewhere, yea, no screens in the rear. Stare out the window kids. No way the engineer at BMW who forgot this stuff has kids.
On the plus side, you get alllll the good things. Vented, heated Taruma Brown Merino leather everywhere (even the dash), a gigantic sunroof with LEDs embedded in the glass. All the driving assistance features you could want. I’ve even gotten used to iDrive 8, despite the buttons going away. Like living with a disease – you won’t like it, but better than the alternative.
Mercedes still does it better inside, but I find BMW M cars offer the best balance of comfort and ergonomics.
Muscle magic
I have no idea what color a press car is until it magics itself into my driveway, and wow, was I not mad at the choice BMW made here. Individual Santorini Blue – easily worth the $5,000 option cost. Thank you, Spartanburg plant, for finally making Individual colors available.
Elsewhere are 21 and 22-inch wheels in back, red brake calipers (oddly an extra-cost option here), and the usual black badging because Competition. Thankfully, black trim is kept to a minimum here.
The LCI killed laser lights on the X5, so though they look nicer on the new model, they don’t work quite as well. Otherwise this car looks the part, and at the local BMW CCA meet it drew plenty of eyeballs.
The 2024 BMW X5 M Competition is more “most expensive X5” than M car.
I’ve spent some time in M Performance products. Aside from owning one, I’ve also been in the X5 M60. I think it’s a better M car.
Gasp!
Pretty much every AMG product I’ve tried has been a bit too soft, too lux, to be considered a real sports car. The Cayenne Turbo was confused about its feelings (and this X5 M is better). Perhaps Porsche’s Cayenne GT excelled at the sport and comfort trade-off best of all, but that car costs nearly $200,000.
That’s why the M60 excels. It now offers a real M engine (though still detuned and not quite as exciting as the S63), but it’s also a bit softer and more practical for daily use. Hell, you can even fit it with all-season tires from the factory. 90% of the speed, with 100% more comfort.
And that comfort is important – an E39 M5 had both. So did an E90 M3 – the list is long, proving the ethos of reasonable speed is the key to M fulfillment.
But for those of you that insist on being the extrovert, I don’t think you’ll be disappointment with the X5 M. You’ll never tire of being the left lane executioner, and if the roads are paved better than New Jersey’s third-world quality, you can live with the ride.
“Get out of my waaaayyy, Dodge Caravannn!!!!!”
2024 BMW X5 M Competition Specifications
VEHICLE TYPE
front-engine, all-wheel-drive, five-passenger, five-door SUV
PRICE
Base: $122,300
As tested: $141,445
POWERTRAIN
4.4 liter twin-turbocharged V-8
617 horsepower @ 6,000 RPM
553 lb-ft @ 1,800 RPM
Eight-speed automatic transmission
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 117 in
Length: 195 in
Width: 79.3 in
Height: 68.9 in
Curb Weight: 5,455 lbs
FUEL ECONOMY
15 combined / 13 city / 18 highway
