Winter has well and truly arrived in New York. With temperatures hovering below zero for the past week and a fair bit of snow persisting on the ground and ice on the roads, conditions have been perfect for testing out our BMW iX's new all-weather tires.
If you haven't been following along, I've been bringing monthly updates on our experience living with a 2024 BMW iX, which we leased just over a year ago. 14 months and over 14,000 miles in, we've been generally very happy with our funky-looking SUV.
However, one of the complaints from last winter was a general lack of confidence while driving in inclement conditions. The iX has standard all-wheel drive from its dual-motor configuration, even in our lesser xDrive50, so there's no issue with the distribution of power.
Rather, it's the ultimate grip provided by the Goodyear all-seasons that felt underwhelming when snow or slush covered the road. So, we slapped on a set of Remedy WRG5 tires, kindly provided by Nokian for our testing.
After numerous runs through the snow and ice, I've been quite impressed with the improvement in low-grip performance.
I've used Nokian's dedicated winter tires on my cars for years now, swapping to studded Hakkapeliitta options when the flakes started flying. The company's Hakkapeliitta EV tires made our previous car, a Tesla Model Y, absolutely unstoppable in the snow. But I didn't really want to deal with the hassle of swapping wheels and tires twice a year on the BMW.
These all-weather Nokian tires did make for a barely noticeable increase in road noise but, based on my testing, didn't impact efficiency. And in the snow, they're far more predictable than the Goodyear all-seasons that were on there. In deep snow and ice, the car offered consistent, confidence-inspiring grip. When it did slide, it did so in a predictable, even fun way.
Yes, I can now actually enjoy driving the iX in the snow instead of having to tip-toe my way wherever I'm going.
The grip isn't anywhere near the same as Nokian's studded options, or even that offered by a dedicated winter tire like a Bridgestone Blizzak or Michelin X-Ice. But it's plenty good enough for us to summit our lengthy, steep driveway even when unplowed, and that's exactly what I was looking for.
That said, the car itself doesn't seem happy with them. Nokian didn't offer an exact fitment to match the stock 235/60 R20 tires, so I went with a slightly wider, slightly shorter 255/55 R20 instead. They fit fine, but since I set the manual tire size in the iDrive system, we now get a warning about tire pressures every single time we start up the car. "Check tire pressure at your convenience," it says constantly. Pressures are always within the recommended range, always in the green, yet still, I get the warning every time. It goes away after a moment or two, but I'd prefer it went away for good.
I also had a strange issue with the app. I use my phone, a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, as the key to lock and unlock the iX. This has worked well. But curiously, about a month ago, the car simply disappeared from the My BMW App. The digital key still worked fine, but I couldn't see any trip information nor could I precondition the car. Given how cold it's been, that was a real frustration.
Then, after a few weeks of absence, the car simply returned to the app, and I could view and control everything like normal.
In better news on the app front, my wife and I were struggling with sending any requests to the car from the app, having only inconsistent success. Preconditioning, viewing the cameras remotely, getting state of charge, any request like that had about a 50/50 chance of actually working, regardless of how strong a cellular signal the iX had.
But, after last month's software issues and having to manually reboot the thing, those requests have been working flawlessly. I don't know what was going on beneath the digital hood of the car's telematics system, but as is often the case in all things digital, a forced reboot seems to have fixed the problem.
Finally, in more practical matters, the iX again proved its cargo prowess by swallowing a 7.5-foot-tall Christmas tree without having to leave the hatch open. With the base of the tree stuck between the front seats (wrapped in a blanket to save sap from getting on the upholstery), our tannenbaum tucked in there nicely, and the hatch closed without complaint.
Yes, we had a fair few needles to clean up afterward, but on the positive side, it proved far more pleasantly effective as an air freshener than a little tree hanging from the rear-view.
As the temperatures have dropped, the car's efficiency has necessarily declined as well. We had an unseasonably warm start to the winter, with temps often in the 40 to 50 degree Fahrenheit range through November. In these conditions, the iX delivered 3.1 mi/kWh on my wife's commute route on mostly secondary roads. That's still above the 2.9 mi/kWh EPA rating.
Once the temps dipped below freezing and into the single digits, the efficiency dropped to 2.5 mi/kWh on the same route. As an extreme test, commuting when temps were around -10 degrees, it fell to 2.3 mi/kWh. That would make for a theoretical maximum range of 242 miles at exceedingly frigid temperatures—roughly a 25 percent drop from the 307-mile EPA rating.
I'll keep tracking that as we get deeper into our second winter, and cross into 15,000 miles covered.
