Instead, pretty much everything in the car is controlled by the big central TFT screen. From this specific point of view, it’s a masterstroke of design and engineering. It doesn’t feel like a second-class citizen beside an X5, for example, whereas previously the X1 has always had the whiff of being the runt of the litter. To a point where it has a high-end identity all of its own. It’s also roomier in all directions than I thought it was going to be and its cabin is far better equipped and much higher in quality than I expected from such a relatively humble member of BMW’s model range. How come? Because it does all the practical stuff far better than I ever imagined it might. Instead, the X1 is meant to fit right into your life with surprising ease and, for me, it achieves precisely that. No, it’s not a car that would ever motivate me to get up at 4.30am purely to drive it across a great road, but it was never designed by BMW to be such a vehicle in the first place. I also really enjoy driving it just for the sake of driving it, and before I actually got behind the wheel that’s not something I thought I’d ever say about a BMW X1. As a result, I’m getting on with it much better than I expected to be, given that it’s the entry-level point to BMW’s ever-expanding range of Sports Utility Vehicles. In fundamental terms, the X1 is hard to fault, easy to like. That’s a pretty long list of positives, and there aren’t too many negatives I’ve unearthed over the first 4,500 miles with which to ruin it, either, apart from the overly aggressive response of its brakes and the fact that the rev counter isn’t always displayed (call me old fashioned, but I quite like a rev counter). In the end, I chalked it up as a ‘Ctrl-Alt-Delete moment’, and gave it not a lot more thought. Admittedly the range clicked up by a couple of miles during the next 10 miles, but it still then dropped in the usual way as I drove further. In order to investigate, I called up the fuel data on iDrive, to see that the average was still registering at just over 35mpg – same as it was pre-upgrade. Instead, I suspect the trip computer made some sort of odd range recalculation during the upgrade, leaving me with a lot fewer miles in the tank than I’d had the night before. I’m fairly sure no one syphoned off the fuel overnight. And all this despite iDrive suggesting everything had been upgraded successfully.

Weirder still, it had also mislaid 51 miles of its fuel range, seemingly lost in the digital ether as part of the upgrade. But when I returned to the X1 the next day, its interior lights came on randomly. As before, I got the prompt on start-up and, as before, I clicked “Start”, locked the car – as suggested – and left it overnight. The second upgrade, which I carried out a couple of weeks ago, went a bit differently, however. Our X1 23i M Sport was good to go, with the latest software installed for the self-parking feature – which, to be fair, I’ve not yet felt the need to avail myself of. I clicked on “Start”, then locked the car, walked away, and came back the next morning to be informed via iDrive that the upgrade had been successfully completed. On start-up, a prompt on the main touchscreen told me “Software upgrades are available”. Instead, I’m referring to the two software upgrades the car has invited me to download via the iDrive system since Auto Express took delivery in February this year. They all work just fine (they all work surprisingly well, in fact). I’m not talking here about any of the X1’s fundamentals – in other words, the oily bits.

When the digital stuff doesn’t do what it claims on the tin, you soon wonder what might go wrong next.

But if the tech is going to appeal, it needs to work properly – all of it, all of the time – because when it doesn’t, it can undermine your overall trust in the car. The BMW X1 xDrive23i M Sport is heavy on tech we know that.

Bmw x1 xline review