Hit the Road, Jack
In the new X5 that handles long trips with ease
WORDS STEPHEN SMITH PICTURES SUPPLIEDI
t’s easy to dismiss the BMW X5 as the epitome of a pointless
SUV – it’s such a luxurious car with such dynamic handling that
it’s hard to believe it can do anything other than the school run,
the commute, and the long-distance highway hustle.
But we recently took an X5 on a roadtrip to a destination that
said ‘you need an SUV to get here’, and it was fabulous. It helped that
this particular vehicle had been fitted with an offroad package, which
includes some of the strangest tyres I have seen – proper all-terrain
General Grabber AT3s that are low profile (275/45 R20). I love this move
by BMW. We travelled on a few rocky and muddy offroad tracks in the
Transkei, and these tyres removed the sense of anxiety I normally feel
with a road-biased SUV on bad roads. They were tough and had great
traction on the dirt roads, but were still grippy on tar and not too noisy.
Loading two adults, a four-year-old and a five-month-old into a car is
easy. Loading the paraphanalia for a week-long holiday in the Transkei,
is less so. The adults aren’t too bad – some food, some clothes, some
books. The four-year-old needed
the same, as well as some toys.
Doable. The five-month-old needed
all of the above, plus her pram,
bed, ointments and tinctures, about
nine outfits a day and 300 nappies.
We still managed to fit it all in the
X5’s big boot, but it did mean my
first trip to the Transkei without
any fishing equipment.Those of you who say that a car is just a car need to drive a vehicle
like the X5, and not just by yourself around town on a sunny day. Drive
a fully loaded X5 before dawn, with your loved ones around you, and
you will defer to the notion that you get what you pay for. The X5 comes
standard with LED headlights, but my test vehicle had the optional BMW
laserlight with adaptive LED headlights fitted, and it was an eye-opener- not only does it light up the road in front of you, but it’s somehow non-
dazzling to oncoming traffic.
Another great option is the adaptive cruise control, which is like normal
cruise control (you select a speed and the car maintains it for you), but it
also slows down according to traffic in front of you, even coming to
a complete stop and then accelerating again. This is a great help on long
trips where traffic can cause fatigue, especially in low-light conditions.
Another optional extra fitted to our X5 was the air suspension, and it
made the trip so much more comfortable. The Transkei is all about dodging
potholes, slowing down for speed bumps at every village, avoiding
pedestrians, and then negotiating
fairly rough roads, and this the X5
did with aplomb. The car even
TOP: The end of a very long Transkei
road, every inch of which was dealt with
superbly by the BMW X5. LEFT: The X5
is spacious and sumptuous, with loads
of technology.September 2019 090 http://www.countrylife.co.za