2025 BMW X3 Reviews, Pricing & Specs

For a two-box SUV, the redesigned 2025 BMW X3 is seductive in appearance. Look past the oversized grille and aerodynamically honed flanks and examine the overall proportions. That long and tall hood, captivating dashboard-to-axle ratio, subtle reflective wave in the bodywork, and tapering greenhouse and roofline give the new X3 a decidedly athletic look. The test vehicle’s expressive 21-inch wheels serve to emphasize its taut, crouched appearance.

Our test model arrived wearing BMW’s new Arctic Race Blue paint, a bright but not garish hue with chilly silver undertones. It paired perfectly with the machined surface wheel finish, gloss black M Sport details, and Calm Beige upholstery. Thanks to its perforated and quilted surfaces, the Veganza artificial leather looked and felt just like the real thing.

There’s nothing fancy about the X3’s cabin, though the plastic trim elements that glow with your selected ambient lighting colour sure are nifty. BMW provides quality materials where you expect to find them, but in some locations the interior reveals the X3’s price point. The plastic used lower in the cabin is the primary offender in this regard, particularly on the leading sections of the door armrests and the lower panel storage bins, which lack liners to reduce noise, vibration, and harshness. We expected a fabric or rubber liner at the very least, but instead, any loose items you place there will slide around and rattle.

BMW sells the 2025 X3 in 30 xDrive and M50 xDrive model series, both with standard all-wheel drive (AWD). Base prices in Canada range from $62,979 for the X3 30 xDrive to $79,179 for the X3 M50 xDrive, including the mandatory $2,555 destination charge and other fees. That’s a lot more than you’ll spend on an Acura RDX, but significantly less than a Porsche Macan. More importantly, the BMW is priced roughly equal to its two primary rivals, the also-redesigned 2025 Audi Q5 and the Mercedes-Benz GLC.

That’s one reason we think the new BMW X3 seems like a good value. The other is that our well-equipped X3 30 xDrive test vehicle’s price barely crested the $60,000 barrier. It had the extra-cost paint and wheels, ventilated front seats, and four option packages: M Sport, Premium, Parking Assistant Professional, and Driving Assistant Professional. In Canada, the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) for this configuration comes to $72,779, including destination.

Review the specs for the 2025 BMW X3 30 xDrive, and you might think you need to upgrade to the significantly more powerful X3 M50 xDrive. You should test drive one before jumping to that conclusion.

The base model’s turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine makes 255 horsepower from 4,700 to 6,500 rpm, and 295 pound-feet of torque between 1,600 and 4,500 rpm. Focus on the horsepower and torque ratings, and you might assume the 1,894-kilogram (4,176-pound) X3 is a slug in the acceleration department. But it’s not.

BMW quotes a credible zero-to-100 km/h time of 6.3 seconds. That’s not fast, but it’s not slow, either. Credit goes to the eight-speed automatic transmission and standard xDrive AWD system, but also to the engine’s extraordinary power curve. Review the numbers above one more time, and you’ll see the turbo four is providing peak torque or horsepower from a low 1,600 rpm to near redline at 6,500 rpm.

In addition, the X3 30 xDrive has a 48-volt mild-hybrid system with an electric motor integrated with the transmission and a separate, crankshaft-mounted starter-generator. This technology helps improve off-the-line responsiveness while making the engine’s automatic start-stop system nearly imperceptible.

For a genuinely fast X3, choose the M50 xDrive. It has a silky-sweet, turbocharged 3.0-litre inline six-cylinder engine whipping up 393 hp and 428 lb-ft of torque across a similarly broad rev range. BMW says it will zoom to 100 km/h in 4.6 seconds. And if that’s not good enough, a new BMW X3 M is almost certainly in the works.

The only time we missed having the turbo-six at our disposal was for mid-range passing power. After the X3 30’s torque fades, those 255 ponies work overtime. But this is typically valid only when overtaking other vehicles at highway speeds, especially on mountain grades. Otherwise, the turbo-four is a gem of an engine.

Our test vehicle had the M Sport package with a sport-tuned suspension and the optional 21-inch Individual wheels with staggered-width Goodyear Eagle F1 performance tires. You’ll want these to ensure a proper BMW driving experience, but these tires, along with the large wheels and sport-tuned suspension, make you aware of every flaw in the road. When driving on imperfect pavement, the ride quality is more akin to a go-kart than a luxury vehicle. Even a dedicated driving enthusiast may tire of the non-stop jiggling that accompanies each and every drive. But that daily-driver discomfort pays big dividends on fun backroads.

We had a blast running the X3 hard on twisty two-lane mountain roads. It’s not a low-slung 3 Series sedan, and you can sense the X3’s extra weight and taller centre of gravity compared to that car. But as compact crossover SUVs go, this BMW is a delight to drive.

Not only that, but whatever magic fairy dust BMW has sprinkled on this turbocharged 2.0-litre to give it that robust power band also produces impressive fuel economy. Granted, we managed no better than 11.7 litres per 100 kilometres, well above the official Natural Resources Canada rating of 8.1 L/100 km in combined driving. However, it was an incredibly windy day, and we had a lot of fun driving the X3 in its Sport driving mode, with the transmission in its Sport mode as well.

When you’re sitting in the BMW X3’s power-adjustable driver’s seat, the view out is an unexpected treat. You can see the hood, and it stretches forward quite a distance, framed on each side by the sharply creased tops of the front fenders. This makes it feel like you’re sitting far back and low, like in a sports car. But it also provides an excellent frame of reference when parking.

The X3 also feels wider and larger inside than most compact crossovers. The simple dashboard tumbles down and away from the base of the windshield, its dominant feature being the rectangular BMW Curved Display, which houses a 12.3-inch digital instrument panel and a 14.9-inch touchscreen infotainment system. Where the dashboard wraps into the door panels, angular trim elements that illuminate at night visually extend the cabin’s width.

Each front seat has power adjustment, heating, and BMW’s convincing Veganza artificial leather in a perforated and quilted pattern. The seats are quite comfortable, and the optional ventilation system works well on warm and sunny days. The driver faces a flat-bottom steering wheel with a thick, round, perfectly shaped rim. Unfortunately, the rear seats are not as comfortable. We thought it positioned passengers too low, and people with longer legs complained about the hard front seat-back panels with storage netting, especially where their shins came into contact with it.

The cargo area measures 892 litres and features a remarkably lightweight, easy-to-remove cargo cover. BMW provides a netted storage area to the side, a grocery bag hook, and illumination for loading and unloading after dark as well. Under the load floor, you’ll find a temporary spare tire and some additional storage. The 40/20/40 split-folding rear seat allows you to carry longer items and passengers at the same time.

Though the new X3’s BMW Curved Display is not new, the Operating System 9 (also known as iDrive 9) software behind it is. An evolution of iDrive 8.5, iDrive 9 continues to offer BMW’s Quick Select user experience, which makes it easier to find and use the system’s seemingly endless menus and settings.

Using an onscreen QR code prompt and the MyBMW smartphone app, owners can create profiles that save their preferred settings. We tried — unsuccessfully — to do so. Then, using the login credentials of a BMW representative, we tried to access an existing profile that was supposed to give us access to the system’s new subscription-based BMW Digital Services. That didn’t work, either. And the default Guest profile did not provide access to BMW Digital Services, including the enhanced digital voice assistant, which you can activate by saying “Hey BMW” or pressing the Talk button on the steering wheel.

Irritatingly, each time we started the X3, the screen prompted us to select one of the four saved profiles. If we shifted into gear before doing so, activating the parking cameras, the display would sometimes freeze and become unresponsive when returning to the Home screen. This also happened occasionally if we selected the Guest profile before driving but didn’t allow it to fully load. It didn’t matter if we tried issuing directives via the touchscreen, the iDrive controls on the centre console, or the steering wheel controls — the screen was as good as dead. The system would also sometimes forget our last-used media preference, like SiriusXM, defaulting to local FM radio.

Nevertheless, we were able to sample other infotainment features. For example, after hand-entering an address, the navigation system, with its optional augmented video feature (part of the BMW Live Cockpit Professional technology), quickly provided directions and an accurate, to-the-minute estimate of our arrival time.

Ultimately, after performing what little evaluation we could with the X3’s new infotainment system, we primarily used the wireless Apple CarPlay connectivity. As expected, it worked intuitively and flawlessly, which is not something we can say about the test vehicle’s native infotainment features.

Even though we had a frustrating experience with the X3’s new infotainment tech, it's possible that the problems were unique to the test vehicle, a result of not creating a personal profile because we didn’t own the car, or something we did wrong. All we can report is that iDrive 8.5 and the versions which came before it never behaved this way in a test vehicle.

We are happy to report that our experience using the X3’s driver assistance features was far more rewarding than using iDrive 9. However, BMW doesn’t make it easy to understand what’s standard.

Forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist and lane departure warning, and a blind-spot monitoring system, and front, side, and rear parking sensors are standard.

The Premium Package adds adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go capability and Steering Assistant technology to keep the X3 centred in the lane of travel.

The Parking Assistant Professional Package adds semi-automated parking tech, upgraded to take into account surrounding vehicles, painted lines on the pavement, and curbs. You can remotely operate the parking tech via the MyBMW smartphone app while standing outside of the vehicle, and BMW Maneuver Assistant can store up to 10 specific parking maneuvers that you can use while seated in the vehicle or standing outside of it.

We must report that using Steering Assistant without the adaptive cruise control ruins the X3’s driving character. We felt like we were constantly fighting with this feature and hated driving the X3 while it was turned on. Our advice is to run only the lane-keeping assist system, which works perfectly, and engage lane-centring assist only on wide-open highways when using the adaptive cruise control.

The 2025 BMW X3 earned a four-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), one notch below a top five-star rating. The culprit appears to be four-star ratings for the driver and front passenger in the frontal-impact crash test. As of this writing, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) had not published safety ratings for the 2025 X3.

As we mentioned at the beginning of this review, the 2025 BMW X3 30 xDrive looks, feels, and drives like a bargain at its sticker price of just over $70,000. It also promises impressive fuel economy (if you drive less enthusiastically than we did) and BMW throws in complimentary maintenance for the length of a typical lease (three years or 60,000 kilometres).

The X3 is priced right compared to its primary European rivals. Alternatives from Asian brands are more affordable, but many are older, less sophisticated designs. So, despite our unsuccessful review of the new BMW Operating System 9 infotainment system, we think the redesigned X3 is a great choice in the compact luxury crossover SUV segment.

Note: Images show a US model.