I'm giving the Used Cars section a little action. It's been a while.
I have found myself in an interesting situation. My In-laws are looking to get into a new X3 and wish to pass it down their current one to us. It's a U.S. car with 80,000 miles (128k km) that has been well (though not lovingly) maintained, has the 2.0T. I think some recent work has been done, and I'm pretty sure it has new summer and winter tires, but only one set of rims. My F-I-L is well off, rather frugal, so everything required was done, but not a lot extra.
If we take the BMW, I'll sell the Highlander. It's an 07, in good shape with almost 230,000 km.
At first glance it seemed obvious that we should just sell the Highlander. But it's not so cut and dry.
I really like the Highlander. It's so simple to get in and go. And feels like it will last forever. By contrast I find the X3 to be a pain, from the stupid shifter to iDrive, to all the safety systems, it's finicky to live with day to day. I'm sure I'd eventually get used to everything but I guess I just prefer simpler interiors. OF course having heated seats and steering wheel will be nice.
There's no doubt the X3 is better to drive. It's not even in the same league. But, I've never loved the suspension tuning on that generation of X3, I find it's a little stiff and it feels like it has a high roll center, so your head is bobbing around on rough roads. Not a deal killer by any means, but IMO the previous gen had a better handling/ride balance.
And the real wild card is the upkeep. I have no doubt the Highlander will keep needing some attention, but a lot of the big things have been done. Lower control arms, ball joints, struts, & power steering hoses have all been done within the last year and a bit. So, it should just be little things. Rust is slowly creeping in but I've been rust-proofing it every year and so far it's mostly in check. The X3 is an unknown to me in this regard. I get that regular maintenance will be more expensive, and any unplanned repairs can get pretty high, but I just don't have a sense if they will nickel and dime us to death, $1000 at a time.
Another negative for the X3 is that it is a fair bit smaller than the Highlander. The highlander has more room for people and gear behind the 2nd row. We can always throw our roof box on if we need more room, so it's a wash.
I know my wife will want to say yes, so I probably typed this out for nothing, but what does the peanut gallery say about this generation of X3? Will a 7 year newer, with 100,000 less km, BMW be more reliable than the Highlander?
