Written by Keith Adams Updated: 2 September 2024

As much as I might like to kid myself that I can’t be pigeonholed and big companies don’t know me, sometimes you just have to accept that the target ads on your browser and social media are right and you are easily categorised.

As one quarter of a young (ish) family, living in suburbia with an active lifestyle, I’m pretty much the target market for a small SUV. The BMW X1 that we’re living with over the coming months feels like it has been designed for the likes of me and our family’s needs and desires. At least that’s what the images in the brochure suggest anyway.

Reports by Tom Webster

Update 1: Welcome to the neighbourhood

Update 2: Here’s what you could have won

Update 3: Five up and puncture happiness

Update 4: A fond farewell from the family

Update 1: Welcome to the neighbourhood

Life with the BMW X1 got off to a busy start, with our car arriving just before the Christmas holiday, with all the to-ing and fro-ing that comes with it. This means that it was pressed into family action right from the off, with most trips featuring small people and all the associated kit that comes with them. Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end…

First things first, though, a little about the X1 that will be spending a few months as part of our medium-town cliché.

We’ve got the xDrive23i xLine version, but this only tells a tiny element of the story, given the number of options boxes that are ticked.

Some of the highlights of the standard kit are:

• The Connected Package Professional package, which includes Apple Carplay and Android Auto, BMW Maps, real-time traffic information, emergency call and augmented reality satellite navigation
• Wireless charging
• Dual-zone air conditioning
• Front heated sport seats
• Automatic tailgate
• Aluminium roof rails

However, our car has more than £8,000 of options, both inside and out. Several of these are bundled up into packs, with both the Technology Plus Pack and the Comfort Pack boxes ticked. The former costs a hefty £2,750 and brings a heated steering wheel, auto dimming, folding door mirrors, an interior camera, high-beam assistant, parking assistant and a head-up display. The £1,050 Comfort Pack comes with an active seat for the driver and electric memory seats.

The other added options are:

• A set of 19-inch alloy wheels (you get 18s as standard) – £695
• Panoramic glass sunroof – £1,000
• Sun protection glass – £300
• Sliding rear seats – £300
• A Harman/Kardon stereo – £600
• Sanremo Green paint – £595

I look forward to getting acquainted with all of the features as time goes on, but a couple have leapt out as being very handy right from the start. The fully electric powered seats are glorious. Not only do we have two saved settings for my wife and I and our different needs, but the heating and its multiple settings is excellent. Above those, though, I put the heated steering wheel – as someone who suffers from poor circulation, it has been a real bonus to be able to regain feeling in my fingers without having to leave gloves on.

Other things that have been good so far include the wireless charging, as it has worked every time even though my phone is clad in a case that has prevented similar systems from working in other cars. I like the little clamp that holds the phone in place, too, although I share my colleagues’ concerns that it might not last as long as some more solid elements of the interior.

The suite of cameras has been excellent, too, displaying a variety of different angles of the car. The overhead view is particularly appreciated while you are parking for making sure you aren’t leaving anything overhanging in a space.

The augmented reality feature on the satellite navigation also uses said camera to overlay arrows onto a live-action view of the road ahead. This has gone down a storm with my eldest daughter, who loves seeing our journey play out on a screen but it has yet to prove actually useful in a real-world scenario. The in-built nav has taken some slightly odd decisions about routes too, going for marginally longer options on occasion, which means I’ve just stuck with the Apple Carplay options thus far.

So far, so smooth an arrival. Here’s hoping it continues.

Update 2: Here’s what you could have won

A month or so in, the BMW X1 has settled into life in the Webster household generally well, albeit with a couple of niggles here and there.

I’ll get the first and most irritating of those niggles out the way first. In January, one of the more ominous lights on a car’s dashboard flashed on – the check engine light. Thankfully it was only in orange, suggesting ‘Get this checked out’ rather than the red light that brings a great deal more urgency.

Nevertheless, it didn’t go away the next time we turned the X1 on, so it was time to get it checked out.

Close relations

While BMW was sorting out the issue, I had the chance to jump into one of its close relatives, the 2 Series Active Tourer.

The Active Tourer is a model that we are familiar with at Parkers, after colleague Alan lived with one for several months in 2022, but it was illuminating to spend time in one so soon after living with the X1.

My main takeaway was one of confusion, though. As an overall package, I couldn’t really see a massive difference between the two cars. Certainly not to the degree that I could see a justification for BMW having both alongside each other in the range.

They are priced in the same bracket – there is only about £1,500 between the starting prices for both ranges – they have a similar level of interior room to the extent that the rear legroom is identical in both and they are aimed at people in the same stage of life – families with a child or two.

Even though the 2 Series Active Tourer is loosely defined as the MPV, or people carrier, by my reckoning the X1 is the more family friendly. The boot is marginally bigger and it sits slightly higher on the road, which means you have to stoop down fractionally less when getting kids in and out of the back seats.

Then there is the financial factor – the X1’s greater desirability means that it holds onto a larger proportion of its value after three years / 36,000 miles – 5% more in fact. This in turn should translate to more favourable monthly rates.

Finally there were a few matters of taste. I prefer the look of the X1 and found the front/side visibility in the 2 Series Active Tourer compromised due to the windscreen being so far away from the driver. In short, you wouldn’t find me swapping out of the X1 any time soon.

Hidden assets

Time for one final confession. For the vast majority of the UK’s recent cold snap, I spent each morning freezing my fingers off scraping away at the X1’s iced-over windscreen with an old credit card – a process that meant I was even more grateful for the heated steering wheel. I’d lost our scraper and local garages had all sold out at the times when I remembered to look for a replacement.

Then I spotted a little bag tucked into the side of the X1’s boot. Curiosity saw me open it, whereupon I discovered not only a chunky and efficient ice scraper but also a small bottle of de-icer. Said bottle wouldn’t have lasted long in the recent weather, but it was great to know it was there for that unexpected frosty morning when you haven’t managed to organised in time.

Update 3: Five up and puncture happiness

I only use four out of the five seats in the BMW X1 most of the time, with two of those four occupied by child seats that make it impossible to fit a third adult into the second row.

When the opportunity arose to play chauffeur to four friends, I leapt at it. The five of us, all keen runners, were heading to a parkrun that was slightly further afield from our home one.

This meant removing the child seats and transporting three adults in the back seats. In readiness I thought I’d make use of the sliding rear bench seats, to maximise the legroom on offer, given a couple of the passengers are a similar height to me, at just shy of six foot. I was slightly disappointed to find that I already had them moved back as far as they would go.

This turned out not to be an issue when it came to knee room, but it did mean that there really is no more space to play with. As a result, my two-year-old daughter will continue to kick away merrily at the front passenger seat, leaving grubby little marks on the back, despite it being slid further forward than the driver’s seat.

The adult occupants had no complaints, though, with the kneeroom, shoulder space or my driving. They were less vocal about the firm ride than my younger passengers, too.

Unwanted intruder

I’ve had two small irritants with the X1 since I last updated on its time with us. However, one is very much not the fault of the car and reflects well on it.

On one drive home a little warning light popped on, suggesting I needed to check the tyre pressure on the left rear. It suggested it was only 1.6 bar, compared to 2.2 bar on the opposite side. Lo and behold there was a little screw peeking out of the rubber.

As the system said we were good to continue driving I took at its word and popped down to a local tyre fitter, who repaired it for the princely sum of £20. The whole thing, from the point the light first came on to the time I was driving away with all four tyres fully operational, lasted about two hours. If only all quirks could be fixed as easily.

‘Have you tried turning it on and off again?’

The other gremlin is a more annoying one, but isn’t quite persistent enough for me to go and get it seen to. The infotainment screen will periodically, for no reason I have yet been able to determine, fail to turn on. Instead, you get an unresponsive black display. On other times it won’t show Apple Carplay.

The fix is a tried and tested one, and nothing particularly innovative. It involves turning the car off and turn it on again. I tend to open the door and close it again to make doubly sure the system is powering down before firing it up again for good measure.

So far this has not failed me, but it is a bit annoying when you have already set off and you have to pull over at the side of the road to essentially reboot the system. All so I can suffer another rendition of Disney’s latest to entertain my small passengers on the nursery run. Put like that, I might not rush to fix it…

Update 4: A fond farewell from the family

Our time with the BMW X1 is up, and it is already being missed by all in the Webster household.

Those who spent their time in the front of the X1 were taken with the general feeling of quality, storage options dotted around the cabin and the infotainment system. Those who spent their time in the back seats were more taken by the huge panoramic glass roof.

There was more to the appreciation of the X1 than these simple pleasures, though. It slotted into our four-person family exactly as you would expect a medium SUV to do so. It never felt too large, making it into parking spaces with ease, and we always had enough space in the boot for luggage to the extent that we never had to resort to the under-floor storage that would have offered an extra chunk of storage.

The space in the rear was ok for passengers, with full-size adults having a little more room than smaller ones in chunky car seats. Try as we might, we couldn’t keep the back of the front passenger seat clean. Our two-year-old’s large rotating car seat was always close enough to the front seat that it was impossible to prevent her from bashing her feet against it. Of course, we took her shoes off wherever possible, but the realities of life mean that isn’t always possible.

The things we won’t miss about the BMW X1

There were two major things that we won’t miss about the X1 now that it has left us, and a few small niggly ones. Neither of the major ones are a massive surprise given the brand and the style of vehicle though.

The first is the fuel economy. Despite the mild hybrid technology, and a succession of gentle long-distance trips with the family on board, we struggled with efficiency. The averages improved as time went by, but most tanks were around 35/36mpg. Only one returned better than 40mpg, and two dipped below 30mpg.

We’d question whether this particular petrol engine is the best fit for the X1 anyway. It never felt particularly quick, and there was a notable pause at junctions between putting your foot down and getting going. On more than one occasion this produced a slightly panicked feeling as the gap we planned to nip into got smaller in the intervening moments. This could be solved by putting it into Sport mode but this never really felt appropriate for popping to the shops or pootling around at the weekend.

It was also brought through how much quicker an X1 can be when I had a quick go in an iX1, which provided the sort of instantaneous acceleration and general speed that the 23i can only dream of.

The second thing that caused issues was the ride. On one of the very first trips out in the X1, a small voiced piped up from the back seat. The words ‘It’s a bit bumpy, daddy’ had a profound impact on my approach to rougher bits of road. Thankfully there weren’t any moments where this translated into actual carsickness, but it focussed the mind somewhat and highlighted the firmness of the BMW’s suspension and the number of potholes on the roads around our local area.

The key was a small, but not actually small, annoyance. The leather case around the remote might look nice, but it is huge in a pocket. Annoying in jeans, even more irritating when stashing it in a pair of running shorts.

The central console was a roomy and handy place to stash stuff, although it is odd that the top is hinged on the driver’s side – the curse of being in a right-hand drive market strikes again.

Small tick-points of note

There were plenty of other things that we enjoyed on the X1, though, small enough that they wouldn’t normally merit a full report on their own but enhanced our daily experience with the car.

The phone-holder was brilliant and kept handsets from sliding around. The wireless charging shrugged off the fact that our phones have a cover – this often causes issues in these situations.

The augmented reality on the satellite navigation was a lovely touch, even if we spent more time using Apple Carplay than the built-in version. The software update we did seemed to solve the black-screen issue we had, although it took place rather close to the end of our time with the car.

The huge 3D image of the car from the various cameras is glorious, and it pops up at the most unexpected of times – a drive-through carwash was one of the more unusual, where it produced a glorious and slightly technicolour set of images!

In all we spent almost 3,000 miles with the X1 and were genuinely sad to see it leave. It seemed more practical and more attractive than the 2 Series Active Tourer, was small enough to deal with urban life but took everything our four-person family threw at it. It wasn’t perfect – we’d swap the petrol for the smaller, cheaper option and we wished the ride was smoother, but it was otherwise a great fit into suburban life.