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      01-16-2019, 09:09 AM   #11
apocalypsbe
First Lieutenant
Belgium
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Drives: X5 G05 45e
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Belgium

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Quote:
Originally Posted by TodmordenLad View Post
You could get a nice, proper M car for the price of the X5 featured in this video - and I know what I'd rather have. It looks like a drug dealer's daily driver
In terms of the video, nicely done, X5 looks great. Yes it does like a drug dealer's daily driver but I guess they just drive nice cars in general

I do get why one wouldn't buy an M car instead.

It's not just the price that is at play in my opinion when one choses a car.

Let me elaborate sorry for going off topic here

I'm actually looking at the X5 45e and I'll most likely be swapping my BMW 4 GC (2,5 years old now) for it because my wife bought a dog (no, I'm not kidding you). She bought a labrador and I don't want to have the dog in my BMW 4 GC because I'm a car freak so no way the dog is going to be inside of my interior, I need a dog cage in the trunk but the BMW 4 GC isn't build for that purpose (at all). So the dog really is a part of the decision here. We want to be able to go on vacation, with the dog and still take luggage with us.

I would have the same problem with M2,M3,M4, ...

I could opt for X5M but then comes economy into play. I'm from Belgium and taxes on a company are insane if the CO2 output of the car is high.

That and in Belgium, they are punishing Diesel right now (so punishing me because of my 420D GC) while in the past they were encouraging it so now I'm being punished for following their previous advice to go for Diesel in the past which is just great ...

An X5 45e would have (hopefully, waiting on confirmation to be sent in January) 49 co2 output making it interesting for company tax reasons (cost on my company). It's ridiculous to think the X5 45e will pollute less than my 420D GC but that's what they are stating right now... so I play along

I would regardless of that still make it an expensive car because I'm a car fanatic so I would opt for Frozen Black individual paint (most likely) and Individual leather with colored stitching, M performance steering wheel and some additional things which are really not necessary but which I would opt in for just because I like it and I can have them. So that would also look like a drugs dealer car

Does it make the car equally expensive as an X5M, probably not but it might be close though. I spent a good amount on my 4GC also (frozen grey individual, m performance parts exterior/interior, ...) which is a 420D even so some persons would think I'm insane to put so much on top of a 420D but economy wise it's great given the average speed around here is 50 km/hour I would need to go to Germany to use an M4 really although it's nice even if you drive at 50 km/hour. Occassionaly I do drive through or in Germany and I hit the autobahn and get up to 220 km/hour max because there is always traffic around so getting higher speeds with my 420D is nearly impossible then.

On a monthly basis, the price difference stays high because of Belgian tax laws. It can be 300 euro per month for the 45e compared to 1542 euro per month for the X5M where the X5M will also cost me much more in terms of fuel consumption, I have to pay 2200 euro each year for road taxes for the X5M compared to 400 euro for X45e (estimation).

The price to buy would be higher for M, monthly price is higher, fuel consumption is higher, maintenance will be higher and in the end you would have to decide if you want to spend an additional, let's say, in my case, 17000 euro per year to drive an M car. One day, when my business is bigger, perhaps I might not mind and go for that option but right now, I believe that would not be the smartest thing to do really.

So it all comes down to what the car has to be used for, what the economy is like (country specific), what kind of money you have at your disposal, what use you have for the car (again, this can also be country specific) and what you would ultimately like to spent on the car. I for one like to play sports, wine and dine, have fun doing all sorts of activities, go on vacation, take business trips around the world which all cost me money so I can use the 17000 euro and at the moment the non M version is fine for me although one day I would love to have a real M car.

If I would buy a X5M I would also gear it out further with individual options so it would also be even more expensive so the only option to get an M car would be to calculate what the X5 45e would cost me (in total) and reverse engineer the price to what M car I can afford (in terms of total cost over a period of 4 to 5 years in financial leasing) but then I probably won't have a car that suits my situation (two kids, a dog, a wife that complaints about the 4GC being low and sturdy, a bike rack, ...).
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