BMW X-Perience – Assured Traction With X-Drive
At the invitation of BMW Malaysia, we took a short trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah for a two-day road trip that spanned approximately 300 kilometres over an interesting mix of roads in Sabah, driving into the foothills of Mount Kinabalu. The mountain itself was a little shy, shrouding itself with low clouds, so we never quite got a good look at it even though we were right at its doorstep.
The subject at hand was a whole array of BMW machines, all with X-Drive, from the X1, through to the X3, X5, and the ultimate SAV, the X6. Mother Nature lent a hand on the second day, sending down sheets of rain that made visibility drop down to less than 50 metres at times, and the mountain roads north of Kota Kinabalu, being not very well-drained, presented us with inches of standing water to make the drive even more challenging. It was as if she was throwing everything save the kitchen sink at us in support of BMW’s efforts to prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that X-Drive is the way to go.
First developed in the X3 many years ago, the X-drive is a computer-controlled mechanism that transfers drive between the front and rear axles of the BMW X-Series. In its simplest form, it senses if the wheels on any axle, be it the front or the rear axle, and transfers drive to the axle that has the wheels turning slower. All this is done automatically, in fractions of a second, without any additional input or action from the driver. Translated to layman language, if, for example, you were to start off on a surface that has the rear wheels in a slippery patch of say, mud, while your front wheels are on solid tarmac, which naturally has more available grip, then the vehicle senses that the rear wheels are slipping and the system will then stop the drive to the rear wheels, and transfer all the power to the front wheels, thus allowing you to take off without slipping or sliding on the mud. The system has the ability to vary the drive to each of the axles from zero to 100 percent.
Many years ago we organized an exercise to demonstrate the X-Drive to BMW would-be customers. In this exercise, we used an open car park for safety, and made a small roundabout of about 15 metres in diameter using cones. Then we used a water pump to spray water onto the surface to make it constantly wet. The object of the exercise was to ask the guests to drive around the roundabout using either the BMW X3 or X5, starting slowly, and gradually increasing the speed. Any other vehicle would lose traction and start sliding outwards (under steer off) while the X-Drive vehicles would stay on line for a much longer time, and certainly at a much higher speed. Working with the dynamic traction control system, which can shift drive between the left and right hand wheels, the BMW X-Drive theoretically can put all of its drive onto one wheel if necessary on models with this feature.
The drive took us out to the mountains around Mount Kinabalu – the roads were typical B roads once you get out of the city area, and were quite twisty at times. All of the X series performed flawlessly. An interesting point to note is that if you are driving a BMW with X-Drive, you will find that taking corners becomes very easy – since the grip and traction is much higher than that of a normal vehicle, one’s threshold of control goes up considerably. What you will find is that you are able to take corners at much higher speeds because the vehicle is so much more stable on the road. The other good thing about the BMW X vehicles is of course the powerful engines – even the X1 with a 2.0 litre diesel, being turbo charged, gives enough torque to enable one to pull out and overtake without any fuss. If you are familiar with the sometimes heavy traffic along the road between Kota Kinabalu and Kinabalu Park, you will know how stressful it is to try and overtake on very narrow roads, long lines of traffic, and the lack of long straights.
When it started pouring buckets, the X-Drive really paid for itself – I would dare say that any of the X-Drive BMW’s would be one of the safest bets in rain, if not the safest of all. Not all of the media attending the drive are expert drivers, and if we were driving cars without X-Drive, some of us might have flown off the road – we definitely could not have driven at the speeds we were driving at. Given any other cars, we definitely would have had to drive much slower. Through the torrential downpour, the BMW X-Drives kept all of us safe. There was one incident when I thought the car ahead of us was going into a bend a little too fast, but somehow the driver managed to keep it on the road.
Towards the end of the drive, just a few minutes out from our lunch break at the Kinabalu Resort on the way down, the rain got heavier and the poor drainage left standing water of up to 100 mm (about 4 inches) on the road. The situation got worse at some stretches, and we all had to slow down. You just cannot get traction if your wheels are ‘floating’ on the water, X-Drive or no X-Drive, although with the X-Drive, you are more likely to survive.
That driving stint with the BMW X-Drive cars just affirmed my faith in the X-Drive system. It really makes a car that much safer, be it in the wet or dry. It was truly a great BMW X-perience. My only regret is that during the entire trip, I never got to see Mount Kinabalu.
