BMW X5 road test: clever but artificial

BMW X5 handling and braking systems

The witchcraft is so swift and seamless that you never sense the systems at work. On the road, the X5 shows a touch of understeer alongside enormous everyday grip. Deliberately exceeding its forgiving limits ought to end in catastrophe: you are travelling at alarming speed in a vehicle weighing more than two tonnes, on conventional-if enormous-road tyres. Yet it does not.

Even if you stamp heavily on the brakes halfway through a bend, the pedal may judder slightly beneath your foot, but the X5 comes to a remarkably composed stop. CBC (Corner Brake Control) works with the ABS, so if every wheel is sliding but one finds traction, the X5 can reduce speed using that single wheel.

It also offsets brake fade by increasing braking force as temperatures rise, regardless of what you are doing inside the cabin, while in wet conditions it lightly applies the brakes to keep them dry.

Torque is distributed between the front and rear axles to counter both oversteer and understeer, preventing the X5 from straying from its line, while Active Steering adds opposite lock.

For instance, if you arrive too quickly and the car begins to understeer, the xDrive system can send almost 100 per cent of the power rearwards to resolve it. In an oversteer moment, it can likewise direct power to the front axle, balancing the car without any steering correction.

X5 control on gravel roads

Even on gravel tracks, with excessive throttle, braking mid-bend and working the steering wheel like a joyrider, the X5 merely understeers slightly before going where it is aimed. I even provoked what should have been accident-worthy oversteer by entering a bend on a private gravel road at twice the advised speed, braking late and flicking the wheel left-right-left.

I closed my eyes and committed to it; photographer Bramley leapt aside more quickly than I have ever seen him move. The X5 recovered most of the slide by itself. This is an extraordinarily clever car.

Size, ride and character

Although the new X5 appears exceptionally large, it simply does not drive that way. You might expect it to be extremely comfortable, yet it rides like a sports car. Guided by a superbly sorted new double-wishbone front-axle layout, it neither wallows nor leans nor squeals as its apparent centre of gravity suggests it should, and it tears along twisting lanes like some unnaturally rapid land yacht. Yet it feels artificial.

For all the remarkable assurance with which it does everything, it is not truly enjoyable to drive. You can admire it as a piece of engineering, but it lacks emotion. I suspect that is precisely what 99.5 per cent of X5 buyers want: a tank-like version of a 3-, 5- or 7-Series.

Forty one per cent of X5s, built at BM's Spartanberg, USA, factory, will be sold in America. That may account for the increase in scale, since size is far less of a concern in the US. However, the new X5 is another vehicle rewriting the rule book for all the wrong reasons. It may be brilliant, but that does not make it a good thing.