Another month has gone by, and so it's time for another update on what it's like to live with BMW's most underappreciated SUV, the iX. If you're just joining us, last September, I put down my own money to lease one of the slightly awkward-looking things. I've been reporting on the experience ever since. So far our SUV has delivered on every front, consistently exceeding the EPA range results while also exceeding our expectations for comfort and practicality.
And for my wife and I, a big part of that practicality is hauling stuff. We've debated many times about whether we should finally break down and buy a truck. That day hasn't happened yet, so we've called upon our iX to occasionally go slightly... above and beyond in the cargo department.
Pinball Rescue
One of its first duties in that regard was bringing home something that we measured a few times but still couldn’t be sure would fit: a pinball machine. My wife and I restore the things, a sort of unexpected COVID hobby that, four years later, we've yet to shake.
We specialize in rescuing machines in particularly bad shape, which often means literal basketcases that someone else decided would be a fun project and then gave up on. Such was the Street Fighter II machine from Gottleib we brought home last year.
The system was made back in 1993, at the height of Street Fighter mania, and this one was in countless pieces. Half of its guts were handed over to me in a plastic storage bin that looked like a rats nest of wires and cobwebs. The machine popped up for sale just a few towns over for us, a rarity given this hobby frequently has us jetting all over the northeast picking up stricken machines.
In the past, that meant digging out my Harbor Freight trailer and dragging it behind our previous EV, a Tesla Model Y, which lacked the internal volume to carry one of the bulky, inordinately heavy machines. With the iX, we measured probably a half-dozen times but were still surprised when the Street Fighter II machine slotted right in, with an extra half inch of height to spare. It did require that we remove the upright backbox on the machine cabinet, but that's a minor task.
We got that machine home safe and sound. A year later, it's still in pieces, but we'll get there eventually. We've just had a few other projects to go through first. More importantly, the interior of the cargo space on the iX was undamaged, even though we only had room to put a blanket down beneath the heavy cabinet.
Messier Cargo
When my wife said she wanted to bring home a load of pavers that a neighbor had listed for sale, I was slightly more concerned. The oversized bricks weigh some 3.3 pounds each, and a guy across town had as many as we could carry. I checked the payload capacity of the iX, which is officially rated at over 1,000 pounds. We kept it to fewer than 100 pavers per load to be safe.
In this case, we also cut a sheet of plywood and lay it across the rear cargo area, to keep the heavy things from damaging the floor. We used old blankets to protect the sides of the cargo area. We got four loads of pavers this way, plus a load of bricks, stacked about 10 deep and two high, and again the car (and its suspension) were none the worse for wear.
My wife has since brought home a load of bagged mulch, placed upon a tarp that kept most of it sequestered from the rest of the interior, and three bales of hay, which smelled a bit more pleasant than the previous load. She's also brought home multiple eight-foot lengths of lumber, which fit tidily in the cabin without even needing to go over the dashboard.
We've previously recounted how good the iX is at hauling telescopes around, where the integrated tie-downs in the rear came in very handy for securing things with bungee straps. It’s a flexible machine.
Paw Patrol
The iX also proved quite capable of hauling our most precious cargo, our dear Yoshi, a 70-ish pound chocolate lab pitbull mutt. Yoshi loved car rides as a pup, but the older she got, the more reluctant she became to hop in the back. By the time we got the Tesla Model Y in 2021, she was in her teens. She often outright refused to go anywhere near it.
It's possible she was expressing her early misgivings about Mr. Musk's political positions, but I'm inclined to believe it had more to do with the Model Y's garbage ride quality. We had a sling-style rear-seat cover, and whenever we'd hit a bump or, heaven forbid, cross a center-line rumble strip when passing another car, Yoshi would get extremely nervous. She'd sit upright or even stand up, panting heavily, usually right into my ear while slobbering on my shoulder.
In the iX, Yoshi was much more calm. She was still never particularly excited to get in the thing, but once settled, she tended to stay that way, often snoozing peacefully in the way back, a space too small for her in the Tesla. I can only imagine how comfortable she'd have been if we'd gotten an iX with the active suspension.
So the iX has proven unexpectedly capable for big jobs while still satisfying on the day-to-day. The generous rear-seat legroom also does a great job of accommodating taller objects, while the flat floor up front has become the default space for my wife's purse when she's driving. Okay, the cupholders aren't exactly perfectly positioned, but we've already covered that, and while some lament the lack of a frunk, I'll take more cargo elsewhere in the vehicle myself.
For those of you tracking the numbers, the iX is still delivering great range. Despite temperatures dropping, our overall average has been 3.3 miles per kWh over the past few months. It's now properly cold where we are in upstate, New York, with temperatures threatening the freezing mark in the mornings. We'll surely keep an eye on how range is impacted as we enter our second winter.
