BMW XM Review & Prices

You’d think that coming up with a range-topping SUV above the stellar X5, super-posh X7 and fun-to-drive X3 would be easy, but the BMW XM just isn’t as well-rounded as its cheaper siblings. It’s rapid, has a lovely interior and it’s very spacious, but the six-cylinder model feels uneventful and it’s not very fun to drive.

Considering its highly talented alternatives in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, Aston Martin DBX, Range Rover SV and Lamborghini Urus, the XM struggles to prove its worth - not taking into account sibling rivalry with the excellent BMW X5 M Competition.

It’s a bit like buying one of those very expensive sandwiches from Waitrose for your lunch - one that doesn’t come in a meal deal. Yes it’s wrapped up in a posh packet and there are some fancy ingredients, but it doesn’t satisfy you as much as a cheaper meal, with a side and a drink.

Watch: Audi SQ8 v BMW XM v Lamborghini Urus v Mercedes-AMG G 63

Though if the XM were a sandwich, it wouldn’t look very appetising. Sure, there’s definitely some appeal to its brash, outlandish design with its funky trim pieces and uber-defined corners, but its thin split-level headlights and puffy, light-up grille gives it a similar vibe to a pig from the Angry Birds game.

The interior is far easier on the eye. The dashboard sweeps down towards you dramatically, with an ultra-wide dual-screen display on top. There are lots of angular details around the cabin; air vent trims and the roof insert look funky, but what’s most impressive about the cabin is the sheer amount of leather cocooning you. You can’t feel a single piece of scratchy plastic, even low-down.

Being such a tall car with square corners, you get plenty of space all-round in the XM. It’s a shame the driver’s seat doesn’t drop all that far down, but you get plenty of cushioning both front and back, and a 527-litre boot - with a BMW-branded bag for the charging cable.

Where the XM was launched with a 653hp V8-hybrid engine - the same unit used in the BMW M5 - there are now two models to choose from. The XM Label comes with a 748hp V8 hybrid engine unit, while the XM 50e has a far more sensible 476hp inline-six hybrid engine setup.

Around town the hybrid system works very well, making for swift, silent progress, and the XM generally absorbs broken roads rather well. Four-wheel steering makes it easier to manoeuvre than its heft would suggest, too.

Things become worse at speed, because there is prodigious tyre roar on bad surfaces near the national speed limit, and our test car had noticeable wind noise from the driver’s door.

The XM is a tale of two halves on a twisty road, because while there’s plenty of grip around corners the six-cylinder engine feels gutless trying to pull the 2.6-tonne SUV. Similarly, while the steering feels darty, sitting so high up in such a large car robs you of any sense of agility. An X5 M Competition is much more fun, as is a Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT.

Check out the latest BMW XM deals on Carwow, or XM lease deals on this enormous, posh SUV. There are used BMW XMs to choose from, or other used BMWs available though our trusted dealer network. Carwow can help you sell your car when the time comes, too.

The entry-level (if you can call it that) XM 50e starts at over £110,000, though with ‘only’ 476hp on tap and a lacklustre six-cylinder engine under the bonnet, that’s a lot of money for a slower, less fun to drive SUV than a Porsche Cayenne S, which also happens to be almost £20,000 cheaper.

The full-fat, V8-powered BMW XM Label is a whopping £154,000, though for that you do get a far more exciting engine under the bonnet producing 300hp more than the basic 50e version.

Both models are well equipped, but the XM Label comes with massage seats, front and rear heated seats, gloss black trims and red badges - as well as the optional M Driver’s pack which increases the car’s top speed to 168mph. Spicy.

Yet for another £12,000, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is a far more capable sports-SUV, while the BMW X5 M is a better all-rounder and £20,000 cheaper than the XM Label - even if it’s not as posh. An Aston Martin DBX707 may cost £60,000 more, but it feels far more special inside.

There’s plenty of punch from the XM Label’s electric motor and V8 engine, but it’s not as exciting as an M car should be - especially in 50e guise

In town

Having a big electric motor in all models means you can cruise around town in your huge performance SUV silently - and with nippy performance between the lights. It’s punchy enough for quickly pulling out of junctions, and you can go up to 50 miles on a full charge.

The XM is also fairly comfortable over harsher bumps at slower speeds, with the standard adaptive dampers helping soak up any road imperfections, but you can really feel the car’s weight as it thuds through potholes and over broken surfaces.

One issue is the XM’s size. It’s quite a chunky car, measuring 5.1 metres long and just over 2 metres wide – longer but only slightly narrower than a Range Rover. Even with rear-wheel steering as standard, the turning circle is 12.5m, with large SUVs like the Range Rover faring much better around town.

On the motorway

Out on the open road, the BMW XM starts to show some cracks. While in full hybrid mode, the automatic transmission can feel quite sluggish to change gear under hard acceleration. When you want to get up to speed, there’s a pause while the transmission, engine and electric system work out what to do.

Once it’s in the right gear, however, it feels punchy and it gets up to speed quickly. The 4.4-litre V8 sounds excellent when accelerating but when you’re taking it easy, it settles down to be very refined, but while the straight-six engine is smooth and pulls nicely, it feels strained as a result of the XM’s hefty weight.

There’s loads of sound-deadening to help make the cabin a serene place to be, and on longer distances, the XM feels less like a performance SUV and more of a comfortable cruiser – something you might not expect from a performance flagship.

On a twisty road

One major drawback of the XM is that it’s rather bulky. Weighing upwards of 2,600kg (2,700kg as a V8), you feel that quite a lot when you’re cornering at higher speeds. BMW M cars tend to feel agile and fun to drive, and although there’s plenty of punch from the engine, the XM is not as involving an SUV as you’d hope.

That’s not to say it’s not capable, because in isolation the XM has some excellent traits. The steering is hugely responsive and surprisingly feelsome for such a large car, and there’s very little body lean through corners. Keep it in comfort suspension mode, though. The sports setting will rattle your vertebrae to dust on a rough country lane.

The brakes are massively powerful, and there’s buckets of grip thanks to its steamroller-sized sports tyres. It has excellent ingredients, yet they don’t come together very well, and the XM isn’t fun to drive.

While the steering is darty, the super-high seating position makes you feel like you’re on a high-powered bar stool, and there’s so much car around you that it’s hard to judge your place within your lane. Other fast BMW SUVs do corner better and feel more interesting to drive, like the X6 M Competition.

There’s plenty of storage throughout and lots of passenger space, but the boot is a bit underwhelming

Where the XM does very well is in the cabin. You get lots of storage space, with a large bin under the central armrest, a place for your phone under the dashboard with heated and cooled cup holders in front of it, and massive door bins that can hold a couple of bottles each.

While the high seating position makes sense in a big SUV, especially one with a bonnet as long and square as this which you need to look over, it’s at odds with the XM being a high-performance instrument. Yes the seats are wonderfully comfortable and supportive, but being perched higher up than a van driver feels a bit wrong when carving corners on a good road.

Still, the bucket seats are highly adjustable in almost every direction making it easy to find a good driving position - if not a sporty one.

Space in the back seats

Being such a long car, you get some excellent leg room, even behind the bulky sports seats. Headroom is also brilliant, even though the roofline does slope a little towards the rear. Also with the car being so wide, sitting three across the rear is a breeze.

You get a pair of nifty cushions in the back, for the full long-haul business class experience. You’d almost expect the seats to turn into beds back there.

As with the front, door pockets are of a good size and you get aeroplane-style openings on the seat backs for laptops or other devices. There are two USB-C charging ports in the middle and even one in the seat backs to give them juice as well. You also get uncovered cupholders in the fold down armrest.

Boot space

The space in the XM’s rear is about average for a performance SUV with 527 litres on offer. It’s more than the Ferrari Purosangue (473 litres), around the same as Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo GT (549 litres), but falls behind the Aston Martin DBX 707 (632 litres) and the Lamborghini Urus Performante (616 litres).

Annoyingly for such a premium car, you don’t have switches in the boot to fold the seats down. You either have to lean in to reach the seat backs, or go round to the passenger doors to put the seats down. They don’t fold quite flat either, so loading things can be a little tricky.

You get all the lovely M bits any M car should, like carbon fibre and sports seats, alongside stylish trim choices, but it doesn’t feel as special as the price might suggest

The XM’s cabin tries to blend sportiness and luxury in one package and it’s mostly a success. You get the M steering wheel with carbon fibre paddle shifters alongside aluminium pedals, an M gear selector, carbon fibre trim on the dashboard and BMW M’s iconic tricolour dotted all the way around the cabin. You also get excellent sports seats trimmed in leather with XM in the headrest.

You get swathes of leather on other surfaces as well, including on the armrests and door cards, while there’s further carbon fibre trim in the centre console. We mustn’t forget the huge curved display unit holding both the driver’s display and infotainment touchscreen, with the driver’s display getting M-specific graphics in case you forget you’re in an M car.

But does this all add up to £150,000-worth of car? Not for us. It doesn’t quite feel special enough even if you have got a lot of premium features throughout as standard, like a high-end sound system and a roof headliner with ambient lighting.

Back to the infotainment, and BMW’s iDrive 8 system is one of the smoothest around. It can be a little complex to use at times, and with some functions normally found on the steering wheel buried in menus on the touchscreen, it can be a little frustrating.

Although the infotainment system is more refined than most, using your smartphone to mirror onto the extensive display is still the best option for most, with both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connecting wirelessly.

You can add kit from the extensive options list, including the M Driver’s Pack that ups the top speed to 168mph, improved speakers and additional driver assists.

With a sporty 3.0-litre engine - or a stonking V8 motor under the bonnet, you might expect poor fuel economy from a car weighing 2,700kg. But with the electric motor assisting, BMW says the 50e model achieves a claimed 64.2mpg, while the XM Label with its mighty V8 offers a lower 50.4mpg.

Both of those figures are dependent on how much time you can spend cruising about in electric-only mode, using the 25.7kWh battery as a power source.

If you can keep the battery pack charged up you may see that figure around town, but for the most part, you’ll be seeing much lower numbers – especially if you take full advantage of the V8.

BMW says the XM produces between 127-140g/km of CO2 in V8 guise, while the 50e outputs a lower 100-106g/km of CO2. None of those figures are particularly low in the grand scheme, but considering the high-performance nature of the XM that’s surprisingly eco-friendly - and affordable to tax.

However, with the car costing more than £40,000 – a lot more in this instance – you’ll be paying the luxury car supplement in years two-to-six of ownership, though having a decent electric-only range puts the XM in one of the lowest bands for company car payments. Ideal for a company director or CEO to waft about in.

The BMW XM hasn’t undergone Euro NCAP testing, but every other BMW SUV on sale has a five-star safety rating, which should give you peace of mind. As standard, the XM gets front collision warning, lane departure warning with lane return assistance, evasion assist, alertness assistance and speed limit assist.

You can add an additional driving assistance pack, which adds adaptive cruise control, steering and lane control assistance, emergency lane change and stop warning, and route monitoring to name a few things – although you would expect a car costing upwards of £148,000 to have adaptive cruise as standard.

BMW came an impressive eighth place out of 31 manufacturers entered into the 2025 Driver Power survey for owner satisfaction. Confidence inspiring, should you spend £150,000 on a flagship SUV.

With each new BMW, you get three years of unlimited mileage warranty that also includes BMW roadside assistance. For PHEVs from the brand, like the XM, the battery pack installed is covered for six years or 60,000 miles – whichever comes first, and we haven’t heard any horror stories about the V8 hybrid system in the XM or M5 yet, or the 50e’s six-cylinder hybrid engine.