2025 BMW X3 M50 xDrive Review: Expensive, But The Personality & Power Are Worth It

What do you want from an SUV? Do you want a car that can tackle a wide variety of weather conditions safely and confidently? Do you want a lot of storage space? Do you want name and brand recognition? Or do you want a car that can hold its own in the performance department? The 2025 BMW X3 M50 xDrive tries to do all of that.

When I saw the flat gray X3 on my review schedule, I had a passing thought that it might be the same car that I drove very briefly at BMW's test facility last year where I drove the BMW M5, or at very least the same specification. I was surprised to find out that not only was it the same specification, it was the very same X3, and I confirmed comparing pictures of the license plate. It was like seeing an old friend show up in my driveway.

I'm not a contractor and I don't make a practice out of moving a lot of boxes or furniture around, so my SUV reviews are typically numbers-heavy with cubic feet measurements and a little more hypothetical than actual.

That approach changed a bit with the X3 as I was moving that week from rural Pennsylvania back to the loving embrace of the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore, Maryland. The X3 got a lot of use, and I'm glad to say it never let me down.

On a technical level, the X3 M50 is trying its best to be a proper BMW M-car (I'll let the BMW fans debate that one). It's equipped with a 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-6 that generates 393 horsepower and can, according to BMW, launch the car to 60 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds. I don't have measuring equipment, but i can personally attest that the X3 M50 is really fast and I have no issue calling it a real M-car like its sedan and coupe brethren. 

For comparison, the base model X3 only makes 255 horsepower and its 0-60 time is 6 seconds. The X3 M50 is also a mild-hybrid, using a motor integrated into its eight-speed automatic transmission. Shifts, from my perspective, were super smooth, doubling as a bonus for the X3's luxury persona and its performance car chops. Somewhat surprisingly, all that power didn't eat into the fuel economy. It's rated at 30 miles per gallon and it really wasn't that thirsty in practice.

Typically, when I'm driving a car that weighs 4,535 pounds like the X3 M50, I'm not going to weave through back roads and take it through its performance paces like I would a sports car like the BMW Z4. However, I felt confident doing that in the X3 and it assured me it was up to the task. Forgoing flowery language, the X3 M50 is dang quick and a lot of fun to drive. You have power for days and it never felt like I was getting to the sketchier side of the performance envelope, even when whipping it around corners. BMW did the Lord's work in making what's essentially a grocery getter into a grocery missile.

On a practicality note, the X3 was a Godsend when I moved. With all of the seats folded down, you get 67.1 cubic feet of space, which was plenty for a lot of boxes. That's less than something like a Subaru Outback which has 75.6 cubic feet of storage, but then again, a Subaru Outback can't annihilate some other performance cars on the track. Of course, I was wary in putting boxes and furniture into a car that had as much leather as the X3 did, but that really comes with the territory. Fortunately, the interior materials seem up to the task of bearing the weight of my 19th century theologian biographies, Lord of the Rings books, and aircraft encyclopedias.

I never found it lacking in the usefulness department, and the X3 was a faithful steed in shuffling everything over to my new home. My passengers enjoyed it, too. A fast and flashy BMW SUV is a crowd pleaser, and the interior comfort is on par with what I felt with the bigger X6. It's a nice riding Beemer with some power to boot. It doesn't need to be complicated.

My issues, as with many BMW products, lies with the infotainment system. Functionally, it worked fine, but the presentation was odd, however. It made the interior feel cramped with its multiple giant displays and the interior style of the rest of the car was incongruous with BMW's screen solution. I'm not against screens in cars by any stretch; I quite liked Lincoln's expansive interpretation of infotainment. BMW's just doesn't quite fit the bill aesthetically. It's like you slapped multiple iPads on an Italian leather sofa and expected it to work. But that's really a small issue comparatively. If I owned the X3, I would likely cease to notice it after a while.

Given the BMW roundel on the hood and about a dozen other places on the car, you already know the X3 M50 isn't going to be competitive with something like the aforementioned Subaru Outback.

The low end of the X3 bracket starts at $49,950 for the non-M X3 30 xDrive. Because they X3 I drove had an extra consonant, the price jumps up to $64,700. This X3 had the $3,600 "Frozen Grey Metallic" paint job, along with $600 21-inch M-wheels. The Merino leather on the inside went by the name "Amber" for the color and added $1,500 to the price tag. 

The $1,700 driving assistance professional package, $600 M-Sport professional package (which adds some blacked out trim and red brake calipers), $200 parking assist package, and $2,700 premium package (which adds more safety features and heads-up display navigation), further drive up the bill. Throw in a destination charge of $1,175, and you arrive at the final MSRP of $76,775 for one rocket of an SUV.

Sure, if you're looking for straight, no-nonsense usefulness, you can probably spend half as much on something else. The all-nonsense approach is a lot more interesting, however. Compared to other German alpha-numerically named sporty SUVs, I think the X3 edges out a victory. The Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 AMG's 421 horses makes it more powerful, while the Audi SQ5 costs a lot less at $66,500 for its highest trim. The X3 M50 xDrive is better executed, though, even if BMW's recipe here isn't a surprise: Take a mass-market luxury SUV, and make it faster with six cylinders and some forced induction. If your priorities are practicality, a laissez-faire attitude towards budget, and — perhaps most importantly — a wacky looking German SUV (made in South Carolina) that's a performance monster, this near-$80k BMW just works.