German Car Zone

The BMW lineup all in all is very fresh and well prepared against the competitors but there is one vehicle that might have big problems in the next couple of years. That's the X3. It was presented at the 2003 IAA and hit the (German?) market in January 2004. That's almost 6 years after the E46, which the X3 is based on, was presented and just over a year before the E90 was presented. There are some elements in the X3's interior that came from the E46 (air conditioning control layout etc.) and make it look dated. They didn't change those elements in the facelift. If the X3 is going on with the normal 7 year life cycle, the successor should hit the markets in late 2010/early 2011. My question is: how is BMW going to be able to challenge all the new competitors (MB's GLK, Audi's Q5 etc.) with a model that is based on the E46 chassis? IMO the only way would be making the new X3 come earlier...

Technically, the Z4 and X3 are odd ducks in the BMW family. Visually, the X3 almost looks like a different marque with some BMW details, and one even went terribly wrong (Hofmeister).
If you looks at the X5 and X6 vs X3.....lol. I wonder what the plan is too.

Eni, you got any info on this?

The X3 will look dated next to the BLK and Q5 which are bound to be dead gorgeous. On the other hand it won't bother BMW what much since they have already made tons of money of the car.

I don't think the X3 has any option to have an i-drive on it. the navigation and control structure is based on a older technology. I sometimes wonder why they don't change that just to bring it inline with the rest of the BMW line-up. It must be costing them a bunch to maintain a parallel system in addition to the more commonly offered i-drive..

But it wouldn't make any sense to give up immediately when there is competition...

Interesting question and a good topic as well.
For the next generation X3, and perhaps the Z4 as well, the next model if built on the E90 chassis will have the same problem after 2 or 3 years.

I think the best strategy moving forward will be to use the chassis that is an evolution of the E90. Something that is between the current 3 series and the next generation 3 series.
If the automobile engineers are like aircraft engineers, then I would presume that engineers are already working on the next 3 series chassis. If this presumption is true, then it will be prudent for them to use the same chassis for both the new Z4 and X3.

I really don't see the problem. X3 is huge succes, and the FL has only added to that. Yes, Q5 and MLK/GLK are coming, but not like that's gonna be next week or so. furthermore, next generation with E90 chassis, 3 series still considered as the sportiest of small sedans, what's wrong with that.

Remember Herr Reithofer (BMW CEO) said BMW were considering to introduce a 2nd facelift for thier models. Perhaps this will start with the E83 X3.

Still a long way to go till late 2010 / early 2011.

So, another facelift sometimes in early 2009 seems very possible.




Yet with moving production from Austria to US they can shorten the X3's life cycle. Same case seems to be with Z4 - due moving the production from US to Germany.

X3 already had sort of 2 facelifts, at least in USA. Started with black bumpers, changed to full colored bumpers and dropped the 2.5 line, and then full facelift with partial color bumpers.