The newest addition to the garage

[Wobbles]

Hi guys, just some simple shots of the delivery this afternoon. Can't say I'm not a happy boy.







I've managed to drive around aimlessly and clocked 80km in my first day. Am loving the MC seats - far better items than the MC seats I have in the F02 and F13!

[hyde]

Lighting Package? Absence of amber bulbs makes this black beauty look even more stunning.
Interesting, I don't see any tint at all, is it illegal in Singapore?

[jpsjr70]

Congrats! Interesting how your windows have no tint from factory.

Joe

[Wobbles]

Thanks guys. It's already tinted to the legal maximal permissible limit. SUCKS. I previously tried doing a mafia tint-job for my F13, but got pulled over and slapped with a desist and de-tint (or be fined) order.

The X5 has the LED Adaptive light package, so it does look kinda cool with no amber bulbs. Also, no legal requirements for reflective strips so I gotta say, the whole "black is best", "once you've had black you never look back" and "big bad black" theme works really well with the X5! Pity about the chicken $hit tint though...sigh.

Apart from that, I'm absolutely loving it!

[Baunton]

Congratulations!

What's your spec?
Any mods planned?

[Wobbles]

Originally Posted by Baunton

Congratulations!

What's your spec?
Any mods planned?

Thank you for the kind wishes, Baunton. Here's my build:

Here my order:

X5 xDrive35i
Luxury Line "Pure Excellence"
MC Comfort Seats, comfort seats for 2nd row
Surround View/Reverse/Front camera
3rd row seats
"Comfort" rear air suspension set up
HK sound system
Panoramic sun roof
Adaptive LED lights
Head Up display
4-zone climate
Comfort access with soft close function doors
The usual iDrive touch with BMW Nav professional
Sapphire Black, with Canberra Beige Dakota Leather interior
19" Multispoke 448 rims (came with the Luxury "Pure Excellence Package")

My first mods will be getting the car coded for a couple of personal preferences (eg. Euro style hazard lights, 5-beat turn signals, auto close of side mirrors on locking of doors, and I'll see if they can get the tachometer to show up on the HUD)...

21" Rims will come later, when the RFTs wear away - to be fair, this generation of RFTs are way more comfy than the ones I used to have on the F02 (swapped them for 21" items and normal pneumatic shoes) and the F13's 20" 373M rims. Wifey seems to like how the people mover rides on the 19"s.

Am also hoping to sneak an MPPK under the missus' nose and into the X5's bonnet soon....

[hyde]

Originally Posted by Wobbles

Thanks guys. It's already tinted to the legal maximal permissible limit. SUCKS. I previously tried doing a mafia tint-job for my F13, but got pulled over and slapped with a desist and de-tint (or be fined) order.

The X5 has the LED Adaptive light package, so it does look kinda cool with no amber bulbs. Also, no legal requirements for reflective strips so I gotta say, the whole "black is best", "once you've had black you never look back" and "big bad black" theme works really well with the X5! Pity about the chicken $hit tint though...sigh.

Apart from that, I'm absolutely loving it!

Yeah, no reflector is the bomb, too bad you have to take apart the whole wheel well to replace it (for us in USA) so I am just planning to get an overlay or something like that to at least minimize the eye piercing orange reflection. Any good sources for those?

[Wobbles]

Originally Posted by Golden Horn

Yeah, no reflector is the bomb, too bad you have to take apart the whole wheel well to replace it (for us in USA) so I am just planning to get an overlay or something like that to at least minimize the eye piercing orange reflection. Any good sources for those?

I was reading that the master of modding, r33, has done some painting over of his reflectors. He's probably the man to point you in the right direction

[BXdriver]

Wow, congratulations! Smooth, black thing.

Now you can park right outside the entrance of MBS

I have been numerous times to Singapore, but always used taxi or train.
But - by nature - I guess SG is a bit limited for long-drives?
How is this - do you have the chance to cross over to Malaysia and how are the roads there?

Enjoy,
Bent

[opasha]

@Wobbles, congrats on the new X5! I hope you enjoy it...it looks great, buddy!

[Barbja]

Originally Posted by Golden Horn

Yeah, no reflector is the bomb, too bad you have to take apart the whole wheel well to replace it (for us in USA) so I am just planning to get an overlay or something like that to at least minimize the eye piercing orange reflection.

Seriously? They made it that hard on the F15? I was able to remove the ones on my E71 with dental floss. It took a couple of tries (breakage of floss), but it got the job done. I replaced them with clear reflectors.

I was planning on doing the same thing for my F16 but it won't happen if I have to take apart the wheel well. I had to do that every time my Ex hosed up the temp sensor on his 5series (stop running into things with the stupid front fascia, ok?). Its in no way my favorite thing to do.

[opasha]

Originally Posted by Barbja

Seriously? They made it that hard on the F15? I was able to remove the ones on my E71 with dental floss. It took a couple of tries (breakage of floss), but it got the job done. I replaced them with clear reflectors.

I was planning on doing the same thing for my F16 but it won't happen if I have to take apart the wheel well. I had to do that every time my Ex hosed up the temp sensor on his 5series (stop running into things with the stupid front fascia, ok?). Its in no way my favorite thing to do.

Yep, it's that hard: http://f15.bimmerpost.com/forums/sho...&highlight=DIY.

[r33_RGSport]

@Wobbles, nice addition to your garage. I bet Singapore law are much more stricter than here in the US. Where I'm from, Indonesia, we can tint the whole car limo tint and they don't care, even if they care. It only cost Rp.50,000 (about $4.00 on todays exchange rate) to get away with it per pull over.

[barcelona]

Congrats. Always nice to see pics of new deliveries.

[Wobbles]

Thank you once again for all the kind wishes. A special shout out to a couple of inspirational guys - r33, wdimagineer and opasha especially, for providing the inspiration for my X5. I gotta admit, I learnt a lot from the forum in general, and was much inspired by these guys in particular, with regards to the X5.

This being my first SUV, I simply have to say: I'm just loving it so far!

[Wobbles]

This is my initial write up on the X5 - my initial impressions of it at the pre-launch and later test drive earlier in 2014, which of course, ultimately led me to signing on the dotted line:

Well, I never for one, thought I'd be in the market for an SUV of any kind. With my well known dislike for over-bearing SUV-driving car park space robbers in their beat up Volvo XC90s and banged up Hyundai Santa Fes, I never once thought of an SUV as a choice for wheels.

Then, over Christmas 2013 I had something like a dozen well-meaning, free-loading relatives turn up at my house - and I suddenly realised that:

a. kids can't really sit on the floor of the F02, no matter how freaking long the wheelbase is
b. the F13 is truly a 4 seater, the hump in the middle can give a hernia to anyone desperate enough to ride on it
c. it might actually be pretty cool to cart the extended rellies in an SUV (and the ones you like least can all squash themselves in the 2 perfunctory seats in the 3rd row)
d. maybe I can do like an over-bearing car park racer-boy and start behaving like a car park space robber with my bad ass SUV too!

And so, when I received a call from my long suffering sales executive one Sunday night back on January 5th, and when she whispered conspiratorially these 3 words: 'X5, here, now', I wolfed down my dinner and ended up over at Singapore's favourite "bang-palms-on-table-to-get-any-after-sales-service" BMW stealership PML to view the new F15 X5.

We didn't get to test drive the beasts - PML had brought in the xDrive30d & xDrive50i - but we got to sit in the car for an hour and contribute significantly to the rising CO2 levels in the car park. For what it's worth, here are my impressions:

a. It's fugly. Man, if ever there's a fugly car, this is it. But, strangely, it's loveably fugly, if such an oxymoron exists. It's like how you can't resist pinching those succulent, chubby cheeks on an otherwise drooling, snotty baby... I reckon if I were in the market for an SUV, I'd want something as fugly as this. Fugly is good. Fugly says "get the fcuk out of my car park space... NOW". With fugliness comes road stance and a mean attitude - and the F15 X5 has spadesful of both.

b. It's loaded to hilt, filled to the brim, my cup runneth over with features as "standard" (well, for fcuk's sake, if PML was gonna price the 'base model' xDrive30d/xDrive35i at $382,800, it jolly well should come with everything AND the kitchen sink. Comfort seats, full color, extended display HUD, adaptive LED with high-beam assist, GPS (of course), reverse camera, side view camera, top view (including front view display) - fan-bloody-tastic when manoeuvring a car this size, roller sunblind for the 2nd row seat passengers, air-conditioning with 4 zone control, soft close, panoramic sunroof bigger and wider than you can say "Aaaah" at your dentist and Harman Kardon 600W sound system. And oh, the iDrive now accepts finger-writing input.

c. The materials and finishing are excellent. The Dakota leather (standard in the xDrive30d/35i) is of a smoother and finer grain finish than that on my F13. The comfort seats are as good, and as supportive, as that of my F02 (and way better than the F13's) and the perceived build quality is top notch. Everything felt well put together, as a car befitting this brand should. The free-standing 10.2" LCD screen dominates the dashboard; although - sad to say - the dashboard display is still the older black panel technology, as opposed to the all-digital version found in the face-lifted 7 series.

The only thing that was missing was a test drive of the truck itself, and that opportunity came nearly a month later in February 2014, right after another horde of free-loading, red-packet hunting relatives had finished vacuuming my wallet dry during the Chinese New Year weekend. The xDrive30d (the 35i had yet to be available for a drive) was taken on an extended test drive which included a highway blast from Alexandra towards Tuas and back for a spirited drive up and down South Buona Vista road (the twisties) and a climb up Kent Ridge Hill via Vigilante Drive. The car acquitted itself with great aplomb, and handled everything my right foot willed it do like a true professional. Body roll was, alas, unavoidable for something that looked like a love-child between a truck and a minibus, but the Adaptive suspension package "Comfort" with self levelling air dampers more than held up its end of the bargain.

The car felt planted (granted, it ran on 19" shoes), road noise, although perceivable, was never deafening, and there was no wind noise at the A pillars. The pull of 560Nm's worth of torque was more than adequate to mask the heft of this 2 tonner, and at normal highway speeds (a.k.a licence preserving velocities), the 258 horses the xDrive30d offered didn't feel out of breath.

I can certainly imagine taking this car/truck/minibus/behemoth for a long drive up north to Malaysia and road-bullying every other driver out of my way on the North-South Highway in the process!

However, despite the threatened sensory overload by the enjoyable drive experience, the impressive and generous standard features as well as the excellent interior finishing, there are a couple of issues that were found wanting. Firstly, for a car this tall, I reckon running boards should be included as standard, to help with entry and egress. You could fit them as optional items (an additional $2000), but not if you've ticked the M-sport package.

Secondly, the 3rd row seats are really perfunctory, and in all honesty, a bit of a tight squeeze. To make matters worse, there isn't air-conditioning to the 3rd row; there's an air re-circulator (basically a fan) that helps draw some of the air-conditioning from the 2nd row over, but on a hot day, I can imagine the passengers at the back can and will get quite hot and bothered.

Finally, for those who would order their trim in the M-sport variant, you'd be disappointed to learn that the "enlarged air intakes" in the front apron are covered by 2 pieces of faux-honeycomb plastic coverings. This is so in the xDrive30d and xDrive35i, and in the xDrive50i, the RIGHT air intake is real honeycomb (i.e opened), but the left air intake is still covered by this cheap, fugly fake honeycomb piece of plastic. In the M50d, the LEFT air intake is opened, but now the right side is cursed by the plastic tupperware cover. Don't ask me why, but that's just wrong.

Nit-picking and fault-finding aside, the new BMW F15 X5 is a very well built car, with lots of technology put into a well-designed package. Would I pull the trigger and bite? Well, time (and whether the infamous Certificate of Entitlement will drop or not) will tell. However, if I had $382,800 in spare change jiggling about in my back pocket, I would have signed on the dotted line in a jiffy.

[HMN]

Always nice to see a new F15.
Enjoy it buddy

[VMRWheels]

Congrats!! Looking forward to seeing progress on the build