That would be something..A real christmas present by BMW,wouldn´t you say?IMO,I really want to see this new gearbox in action and what it can do to performance of new M3..but I bet it will be a real masterpiece .

**Warning: My forlong expressions are beginning to reflect in my posts in the attempt of acquiring news about the X6.**


Damn 2009 seems so so far away...(sigh). I don't know...now I'm thinking of what car to get to get me over until the X6M arrives...I never thought of the back up, figured I'd be swapping my Honda in Spring when the lease is done for this one...

Like I've said (it before), Damn You, BMW--

Buy yourself an X5 3.0d, that way you'll get accustomed to the height, weight and dynamics of the car as well as ensuring good residual values (don't know about US but 3.0d X5's down here show remarkable resistance to depreciation).

You'll get the nice feeling of owning and driving a BMW SAV without diluting the excitement of moving on to the X6M.

I've come to a conclusion. I will buy out my lease, and if anything changes, I'll trade it in. I regret now not doing the X5 over a year ago when the new body changed. I'm obsessed with the "must be first, ooh" effect.

Thanks for your opinion, Martin.

I've gone the other way Jade. I'm not prepared to be any manufacturer's guinea pig any longer. I am of the absolutely certain opinion that one should steer clear of owning the "latest and greatest". My own experience and history have proven that the best cars to buy are the mid-life facelift models where the "bugs" have been ironed out.

Cars these days are an amalgamation of spectacular mechanical precision mated with mind-boggling systems management software. In a sense, cars are becoming more like cellular phones from early adopter's point of view; sure you can brandish your latest mobile communication device replete with GPS, Playstation games and laser bomb guidance but chances are it'll need a software patch sooner rather than later.

Cars are much more complex than cellphones and they too require endless testing and evaluation to ensure that the product is at least consumer ready to a point. But they don't always get all the problems sorted out. A hundred test cars can't mathematically yield the all possible failures that will emerge with the first 5000 cars sold.

Even something as mechanically robust and "relatively" low tech as a Subaru can benefit from a simple ECU Reflash as I had come to experience. The car performs ever so slightly better and I'm getting an extra 70 km per tank!

And it's not just limited to software, your car's local area network (formerly known as the good old wiring harness) also can wreak havoc with reliability, a famous example of which was the pre-facelift E-Class. The E270 CDI of which was particularly notorious.

Latest and greatest? Nah, keep 'em... I've been there and done that and suffered the consequences.

Waiting for the facelift 3 series before i got my soon to be wife one... mainly because I'm hoping for a much improved interior that isnt so boring she will fall asleep and run into something or something... but definetly for the "ironing out of the creases" aswell

It's amazing that just earlier today I was thinking about how cars feel like cell phones and that you can keep waiting, there will always be something that is just out the box, so if that's the case, then I might as well wait forever and do nothing, or just get real logical. For instance, if my lease is up and I have to get a new car, shop for one from that point with a span out to six months. So if I am looking at a the E class, and I know the body may change in 6 months, then either get something else that just changed, or wait till then. But not longer.

I don't even know how far away the E class is from a makeover, but I digress. That is starting another thread that belongs nowhere here. In a way I do feel like a squealing guinea pig. And now my head is beginning to hurt with all the up and coming models around, so I am just getting whatever suits best come spring time. Or summer. If the X6 is out come summertime, then great, I will do it. If not, I'll look into something else.

I feel bad for myself to feel like a guinea! But it's a habit I gotta kick, quick. I'll get there...smile).

KI guess Porsche Cayenne GTS will give it some competition. What do you ll think?

I think Porsche will be its direct competitor, even though the concept may have derived from the Infiniti and its success.

But I'm not a Porsche fan, so I'm being frank when I say I'd never even notice it...