SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


We cross boundaries in the 2012 BMW X6 35i xDrive

Intimidation is a bonus

Published in Weekend Witness Motoring on Saturday November 17, 2012

It stands there like a sci-fi battle machine, hunched forward and ready. Its slitted eyes glare malevolently blue-white on either side of giant mechanical nostrils about to rasp out ragged sheets of napalm flame. Its optional 275/40 and 315/35 tyres on 20-inch wheels stand as wide as the Rio Grande, with its front undershield prepared, like the scooping horn of a giant war turtle, to flip its enemies over onto their backs.

This is no offroader of the kind you know, in the mould of Cruiser or Defender, my children. It is a bio-mechanical product of white-coated technicians in Munich and it’s code-named X6. Just to keep you awake at night, be aware also that this xDrive 35i is only the baby brother, or entry-level version. Its three-litre, twin-turbo, 24-valve six-cylinder puts out a mere 225 kW and 400 Nm – trifling by comparison with the 4,4-litre V8, X6M’s 408 kW and 680 Nm.

Luckily for the rest, X6 is a crossover or Sports Activity Coupé, the latest of a line that began the sub-genre back in 2008. It won’t be challenging for the title of ultimate off-road machine, because it is first and foremost a road warrior made for traversing long ribbons of highway and byway with incredible speed and in superlative comfort. The intelligent all-wheel drive and 214-mm ground clearance is there for driving stability with occasional dirt tracking. Intimidation is simply a bonus.

Its true BMW-ness can be found in its extensive list of safety kit, 600-Watt, 16-speaker music system with surround sound, a six-DVD shuttle and audio interface for smaller devices, filtered automatic air conditioning and thoughtful touches like push button starting, Nevada leather, electrically adjustable seats and steering wheel, headlamp washers and a powered tailgate you never need to touch. It also handles, steers and stops pretty well, but would you expect any less?

In the interest of science, we took it out over a local entry-level, four-wheel drive trail – nothing really challenging to hardened off-road people, but enough to make your average civilian go a bit pale and hang on a little more tightly. It sailed through comfortably and made a table top of the scruffy provincial dirt road a few kilometres further on. For what it’s designed to do, the X6 35i is brutally competent.

Standard transmission across the range is an eight-speed sport version of the famous Tiptronic ‘box with manual override and paddles. Coupled with the test unit’s very adequately powered N54B30 straight six, it’s a magical combination to drive. Power is always there if you need to overtake, so it’s just a gentle prod on the accelerator, it kicks down and you’ve passed. It’s almost boring. Why anyone would believe they need more is beyond us.
Practicalities include a luggage compartment that can be expanded from 540- to 1450 litres, four rings on adjustable slides for lashing cargo, a 12-Volt socket, a folding cover and an undertray that looks big enough to accommodate a spacesaver spare, rather than the pump kit South Africans dislike so much. First aid kit? It’s German. Next silly question?

Rear seat accommodation finds headroom compromised somewhat by the sloping coupé-style roofline and foot space is a bit cramped if the driver’s chair is adjusted all the way down. Knee room is generous. A full control centre for the air conditioner is provided for passengers’ comfort, as are a pair of power sockets, lots of storage space, two reading lamps and a couple of cup holders in the flip-down armrest.

It’s big, powerful, comfortable and loaded with everything you could shake a stick at. Should you want more, there is the foot-long options list.  If we had 800-kay lying around, we reckon we could give one a good home.

The numbers
Basic price: R800 418 incl. CO2 tax
Engine: 2979 cc, twin turbo straight six
Power: 225 kW at 5800 rpm
Torque: 400 Nm between 1200 and 5000 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 6,7 seconds
Maximum speed: 240 km/h
Fuel index: 14,5 l/100 km
Tank: 85 litres
Maintenance: 5 year/100 000 km Motorplan

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so they can see I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

Comments?
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