[BornToWander]

Good day BMW Enthusiasts. It's been a while since I have posted on here. It was under another user name (wrong answer?) but after an extended absence I was unable to recover my password so here we are. Anyway, I wanted to leave a recap on my 4-1/2 years of mostly blissful ownership of a 2019 X-7 40i in case anyone researching could benefit on one owner's long term experiences.
We bought the car new in April of 2019. Hands down the nicest vehicle we've ever owned. We needed a 3 row SUV for the grandkids and after driving the Q7, GLS 450, and looking at the American pretenders.... oops, I meant contenders the X7 was the choice. It took us a while to get a handle on the myriad of controls as we are hillbillies but pretty soon we were at a functioning level. The level of comfort, quietness, and performance of the I-6 was nothing short of awesome. We loved the seats, the B&W sound system, nav system, and basic layout of the vehicle. The grandkids were in awe of the hole in the roof with the fancy lighted glass. LOL.... The only complaint we had initially was the transfer of sound into the cabin on certain road surfaces from the mixed 22" wheel setup. It looked sexy as hell but sometimes the tires were pretty loud.
We are empty nesters and have been for almost 10 years and owned a business that afforded us freedom and an opportunity to travel a good bit. My wife hates to fly and we have a dog so we drive everywhere. We did have to buy another set of wheels and tires, which are listed for sale in the classifieds BTW, for our winter trips. No problem as I could store the ones we weren't using in our warehouse. We live in Florida but love the west. We drove it to the Grand Canyon, Telluride, the Black Hills in SD, the UP of Michican, Upstate NY over to Maine, and a few trips to the North Ga mountains, Florida Keys, and Gulf Coast areas. Never a glitch or hiccup on the road. The pleasant surprise was the exceptional fuel economy. We routinely got 23-25 mpg's traveling. That's in spite of my penchant for 10 mph over most posted speed limits.
Now, the part that ultimately led us to the decision to get rid of it. It rolled over 75k miles on our last outing. There were a couple of little gremlins that were starting to surface. The traffic sensors in the rearview mirrors were working intermittently and giving false indications of cars present when there were none, the warning light for the rear seat latch would not clear, and we were hearing a clunking noise in the driveline at low speeds.
We sold our business last year so we will be traveling even more now. We wanted to start fresh with a new sled w/ factory warranty, readily available tires, and a spare. We bought a '24 Cadillac XT6 Sport. It is not the equal in any way to the X7. I know that but it's allright with us. The tires are readily avaialble, it has a spare, and it uses regular unleaded. Plus it was $25k + cheaper. We have a boat and a SXS so we have plenty of things to drain our wallets. LOL. Hopefully someone can glean something from this post aside from wondering WTF is this dude smoking. Who knows, after a few trips in the Caddy we may just end back up in another X7. The jury's still out on that one. Catch you 'uns later!

[tkelley86]

Originally Posted by BornToWander

Good day BMW Enthusiasts. It's been a while since I have posted on here. It was under another user name (wrong answer?) but after an extended absence I was unable to recover my password so here we are. Anyway, I wanted to leave a recap on my 4-1/2 years of mostly blissful ownership of a 2019 X-7 40i in case anyone researching could benefit on one owner's long term experiences.
We bought the car new in April of 2019. Hands down the nicest vehicle we've ever owned. We needed a 3 row SUV for the grandkids and after driving the Q7, GLS 450, and looking at the American pretenders.... oops, I meant contenders the X7 was the choice. It took us a while to get a handle on the myriad of controls as we are hillbillies but pretty soon we were at a functioning level. The level of comfort, quietness, and performance of the I-6 was nothing short of awesome. We loved the seats, the B&W sound system, nav system, and basic layout of the vehicle. The grandkids were in awe of the hole in the roof with the fancy lighted glass. LOL.... The only complaint we had initially was the transfer of sound into the cabin on certain road surfaces from the mixed 22" wheel setup. It looked sexy as hell but sometimes the tires were pretty loud.
We are empty nesters and have been for almost 10 years and owned a business that afforded us freedom and an opportunity to travel a good bit. My wife hates to fly and we have a dog so we drive everywhere. We did have to buy another set of wheels and tires, which are listed for sale in the classifieds BTW, for our winter trips. No problem as I could store the ones we weren't using in our warehouse. We live in Florida but love the west. We drove it to the Grand Canyon, Telluride, the Black Hills in SD, the UP of Michican, Upstate NY over to Maine, and a few trips to the North Ga mountains, Florida Keys, and Gulf Coast areas. Never a glitch or hiccup on the road. The pleasant surprise was the exceptional fuel economy. We routinely got 23-25 mpg's traveling. That's in spite of my penchant for 10 mph over most posted speed limits.
Now, the part that ultimately led us to the decision to get rid of it. It rolled over 75k miles on our last outing. There were a couple of little gremlins that were starting to surface. The traffic sensors in the rearview mirrors were working intermittently and giving false indications of cars present when there were none, the warning light for the rear seat latch would not clear, and we were hearing a clunking noise in the driveline at low speeds.
We sold our business last year so we will be traveling even more now. We wanted to start fresh with a new sled w/ factory warranty, readily available tires, and a spare. We bought a '24 Cadillac XT6 Sport. It is not the equal in any way to the X7. I know that but it's allright with us. The tires are readily avaialble, it has a spare, and it uses regular unleaded. Plus it was $25k + cheaper. We have a boat and a SXS so we have plenty of things to drain our wallets. LOL. Hopefully someone can glean something from this post aside from wondering WTF is this dude smoking. Who knows, after a few trips in the Caddy we may just end back up in another X7. The jury's still out on that one. Catch you 'uns later!

Thanks for the laugh and 2 cents, best of luck with the caddy!

[XB7]

Good luck with the Caddy, I do not know anyone personally who has been happy with their XT6
Build quality is seriously lacking, electrical gremlins are plentiful and a plagued brake system.

[BornToWander]

Originally Posted by XB7

Good luck with the Caddy, I do not know anyone personally who has been happy with their XT6
Build quality is seriously lacking, electrical gremlins are plentiful and a plagued brake system.

Oh boy! Thanks for the heads up. We leave for Colorado Monday. Probably gonna be a 4k mile + trip. Should be a good shakedown cruise. I might be back in sooner rather than later!

[XB7]

Originally Posted by BornToWander

Oh boy! Thanks for the heads up. We leave for Colorado Monday. Probably gonna be a 4k mile + trip. Should be a good shakedown cruise. I might be back in sooner rather than later!

Safe travels.
Be safe and watch out for all the crappy drivers

[BMW Grateful]

Thanks for sharing. I LOVE my 2024 X7 But, I just rented the Caddy for 5 weeks skiing out west. I was surprised that certain features in the Caddy seemed waaaay more user friendly. Little things like heated seats, volume, etc were a bit quicker and easier to use.

And, NO comparison with Caddys Bluetooth hookup to my iphone....effortless compared to BMW. I still would chose the BMW for the drive but as I get older I really wish it was easier to use Spectrum and the iphone on the X7 with less effort fwiw

[BornToWander]

Originally Posted by BMW Grateful

Thanks for sharing. I LOVE my 2024 X7 But, I just rented the Caddy for 5 weeks skiing out west. I was surprised that certain features in the Caddy seemed waaaay more user friendly. Little things like heated seats, volume, etc were a bit quicker and easier to use.

And, NO comparison with Caddys Bluetooth hookup to my iphone....effortless compared to BMW. I still would chose the BMW for the drive but as I get older I really wish it was easier to use Spectrum and the iphone on the X7 with less effort fwiw

Thanks! That's encouraging. There's probably features on the X-7 we never even used. It was probably bored with us. LOL.... A couple things I forgot to say above. The one thing that surprised me was the painfully slow movement of the captain's chairs for 3rd row access. Hell, you would have some p/o'd people in the kid pickup line waiting for them to load up. Seems like the people who engineered such a fine vehicle could do better than this. Another thing was the availability of the tires. I know Blizzaks aren't exactly flying off the shelves here in Florida but last October we got a nail in L/R tire somewhere between Lake Placid and some little town in Maine (Bethel?) on the way to Lubec. There was a tire store there and we tried to source one but no luck. I was prepared to spring for 4 of the same kind but their warehouse didn't have anything in 285/45/R21 Run Flats. Fortunately the nail was in the center of the tire and we were able to continue. We called around to a couple other tire stores and finally had to settle for the BMW dealer in Portland. We made an extra stop in Portland to get the tire, but lo and behold, the tire didn't show up. Screw it, it was holding air so we brought it home. Anyway, all's well that ends well but it's kind of aggravating as we do a lot of driving in sparsely populated areas and this could've been a lot bigger PITA than it was. The cost of the tires is eye opening, but having a boat and a SXS has conditioned me to the expense of everything. You're reading the ramblings of someone who recently spent $1200 on a glass windshield and windshield wiper for the SXS to replace the flip up plastic one that I paid good money for a couple years ago.
The premium fuel wasn't a real concern either. Hell, we pay over $6/gal for marina gas. Last trip offshore was about $960 in fuel. That's more money for gas than we spent on the last trip to the Grand Canyon in the BMW. That, plus I have a diesel F-350. Towed the SXS to Utah and WV last year. 10 mpg's @ 75-80 mph. About 7500 miles between the two trips. That fuel ain't cheap.
So, I think we'll try this out on the upcoming trip and see how we like it. If we hate it I'm sure we'll be back! I'll be the first one to admit we screwed the pooch. Kind of like we did with the boat. Anyway, enough of the rambling. The crack is wearing off!
Anybody want to buy a boat?

[BMW Grateful]

Thanks-Unfortunately I think this type of experience is way too common when we get into these luxury vehicles whether its the tires or other problems. Our lake neighbors (both in their early 80's) took their brand new Audi SUV to Maine last summer and had troubles and had a terrible time getting service, similar to your experience. There was no place that could fix it for them. This guy was so frustrated he took it to the Lincoln Dealer and made an immediate trade!

Please get back to us about your trip-Luv to hear the over /under on the new Caddy afterwards Safe Travels