Gadgetory

it's BMWs littlest crossover with their littlest engine and just about their littlest price tag as well but is this thing big enough to hold the tech that you want let's drive the 2013 BMW x1 in the xdrive28i configuration and check the tech now you might think by the name x1 this is actually based on the one series car but it's not it's actually based on our reduced version of the x3 crossover which is based on the 3-series car the x1 is nearly eight inches shorter than an x3 about 7 inches lower hence the wagon look 386 pounds lighter that's a lot and $6,500 cheaper also a lot also a lot of folks aren't sure what to call it what do you think is it an SUV or is it a wagon and when you get in the x1 you're gonna see a lot of familiar this is not a car that has a bunch of new design language or new technology in fact it's got a subset of BMWs overall very impressive tech the key things are here they play the hits you've got a nice wide screen though not BMWs largest as you can tell but plenty big certainly in a compact cabin at this point you recognize I Drive comment across all their vehicles I've noted this in every instance clockwise turn on the knob means down the list they didn't always do that in every mode I applaud them that's what makes sense to me basic on this guy are the sources that are kind of the hits you've got AM and FM radio HD radio CD player here though car makers are starting to ace those auxilary jack down there and USB 4 thumb drives an iPod now BMWs apps are looking pretty dated at this point by getting the app support and it only works on iOS devices by the way no Android which is real dumb in 2013 you get facebook support Twitter support and web radio station support but that's nowhere near the modest galaxy of apps you're finding on Ford GM and Toyota these days we've shown you those systems on a lot of those vehicles lately at even a lower price point now navigation on BMWs has always been quite good this one doesn't have the full package of connected navigation however if you want to go enter a destination there's no choice here to go google searching you can get a driver assistance package on this vehicle but before you get all excited it's actually real simple it sparks sensors in the bumper and a backup camera that's kind of a reach to call that driver assistance Oh check this out you could have two tablet options for the rear seat of this car I put tablet in quotes one of them is an interesting strategy by BMW to do a DVD media player tablet it's not an Internet tablet it's just a media player in kind of a chunky tablet form factor but for 600 bucks you get a pair of them that'll play SD card CD or USB media that's definitely a great price although I still don't like the technology platform for 179 bucks you can get an iPad holder that'll mount your iPad back there and plug it into power expensive but a better choice okay well the technology in the vehicle is relatively routine for BMW what's under the hood is not you've got an inline four with twin-scroll turbo power behind it this is unusual for BMW and you can also tell here by this kind of blank space where they ended up routing some hoses they could have made the x1 about 10 inches shorter by my estimation but they wanted to get the proportions right the numbers on this little engine are impressive 240 horsepower 260 foot-pounds of torque the vehicle weighs thirty seven hundred and twenty something pounds but gets up to 60 in 6.3 seconds while delivering 20 to 33 mpg only transmission this is possibly hooked up to is that 8-speed automatic you spotted in the cabin that's it paddles that you may have seen on the wheel those are optional with an M Sport package those are not standard front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive as we have here that's an X Drive that denotes all wheels being driven by the way if you buy an x3 which is much larger and heavier but it's a 28 I variant it's going to have this same engine within like one or two horsepower and foot-pounds but big difference in weight think about that this is actually a very nice fetching combination okay I'm at a red light here to start our drive and the engines off because the start/stop technology is in place in a moment I'm going to lift off the brake and the engines going to start except if I do this and I move the steering wheel that also restarts the engine I kind of understand the logic and I kind of don't because I frequently kind of you know nudge the wheel while I'm at a stop and I don't mean anything by it but there goes my start/stop efficiency secondly when BMWs restart I find them to be about the roughest slowest restart of any car I've driven that has this technology it's just not refined in a car like this it just needs to be now the next thing you notice in this car is the elasticity of the powertrain it's a turbo so you've got some turbo lag / kind of rubber band eNOS in there secondly you've got all kinds of processors that are helping think 8-speed transmission so you can sometimes be buried under a couple of extra cogs that the car has got to dig itself out of all that adds up to what is not the most sharply responsive BMW by any means there is no replacement for displacement let's face it small bore cars do labor under a lot of sort of muted power delivery no matter what tech tricks you apply to them but this car is just it's not a joy to drive as a sharp driving tool it's a perfectly nice vehicle to drive in everyday work and the handling is not bad although we don't have any particularly interesting suspension tricks here the steering is what is so notable once you're up around 30 40 miles an hour or more it's fine around slower speeds this has to be the heaviest steering I have ever driven in a modern car and there is no setting for it in this vehicle there is a servo tronic steering option that I believe gives you some different profiles but this one is just you know it is what it is and it's incredibly heavy steering the last note I want to say about the interior is a small thing but what the hell is this that's the cup holder you stick it in a slot over here on the console you do have one here you don't want to share obviously because that's no fun there's nothing in the console so yeah this is number two shotgun is this pop-up which is kind of clunky all right let's ballpark on X 1 X 28 at about 33 2 but then you're going to want that driver assistance package rear camera and parking sonar especially with a vehicle that has this kind of sight lines that's 9:50 except you can't get that without also gain the technology package which is GPS navigation Bluetooth and voice command I'm not big on tying like that all in you can do one of these seen that style and stay comfortably under 40 if you start to add in lots of the luxury package stuff though you're well into the mid-40s be careful on that you