Big change in the family garage a couple of weeks ago as my beloved Range Rover moved out and a Bavarian station wagon moved in. I could tell you a thing or two about selling Ranges (or for that matter, any other car as a private seller in Europe these days) along the lines of people having no shame in offering half the asking price, or giving you all sorts of arguments why they shouldn’t buy it, making you wonder why they contacted you in the first place. I’ll spare you the details…

In the end a guy who had previously owned a bunch of Range Rovers got in touch. He ran an independent garage and new all there was to know about them. The week before, his wife had told him to please get rid of the – in her words – awful Audi Q8 he had bought and buy her another Range Rover instead. He was definitely my kind of guy, and evidently had a great taste in women! On a more serious note, I was actually happy to sell the car to someone who had previous experience and mechanical knowledge, should something unexpected occur shortly after the sale.

The Range thus left the family garage and for the first time in many years, I was in the market for a car without trading in another one. That was obviously a situation difficult to handle for a car guy, so a certain frenzy broke out to narrow down the short list I had been preparing over the previous weeks, and which had come together following a bunch of criteria based on the new family situation, with fewer to no children in the car and hence less need for space, and also the limited space available in small, neat villages in southern France, where we will be spending more time going forward. That said, it had to be large enough for the (quite small) dog cage and the (quite large) amount of luggage my better half likes to bring.

I was initially quite agnostic between getting a diesel and a petrol. As discussed notably when I drove the Volvo V60 Polestar, for our kind of driving, a diesel would by far be the most efficient choice, but I’ve always struggled with the character of diesels. A test drive of the new Audi A6 in diesel format made clear that notably that slight hesitation whenever you put the pedal down is still there, as is an improved, but still not great engine sound.

That drive made two things clear: I wanted a petrol, ideally a six-cylinder, and not the new A6. Sure, it’s a nice car, but it’s quite big, relatively uninspiring to drive (the RS6 certainly being the exception), and also with a complete absence of switches and buttons in favor of screens. As you know this isn’t my thing, just as little as the surprisingly large amount of plastic in the interior is. The screens are not intuitive, unnecessarily complicated on some fronts, and full of very visible, greasy fingerprints after like five minutes. I won’t go into the arguments around this again, but it was clear to me that I wanted a car that was slightly smaller, still has a traditional A/C setup, along with some other functions, and a bit less plastic.

In the end, my choice fell on a BMW 540i X-drive from 2019 with 45.000 km on the meter, in mint condition and at roughly 1/3 of the price as new. The three-liter petrol produces 340 hp (and can easily be tuned to more), and obviously features in a number of BMW’s. It is no doubt one of the best six-cylinderes ever built, smooth as silk and barely noticeable unless you want it to be, when it produces a decent but still somewhat aggressive sound. For the long motorway stretches that dominate our driving the power is clearly sufficient, that said, I’d be curious to see how much difference one of the chip-tuned versions does.

In terms of equipment, I knew I wanted the M-Sports package, giving you not just sportier looks but more importantly, the sporty driving modes and settings. Next to that the Harmann Kardon sound system was important to me (there is a B&O system that is even better, but it’s close to impossible to come by). As for other things the more the better of course, and the car is basically fully loaded. Some stuff I’ll most probably never use, some has surprised me in actually being quite useful, like the gesture controls that didn’t have much faith in. The shortcut buttons BMW offers and that can be used for different functions are also genius.

The car has only been with us a couple of weeks but we’ve had time for a longer stint south, and it’s so far all positive. If you travelled in style in the Range, this is obviously a different experience as you’re driving much more actively, but the BMW is a true pleasure to drive and feels very nimble with notably great steering, and a very well isolated cabin. The suspension may be traditional but is excellent and the engine as mentioned is fantastic, doing so far around 9 l/100km. Finally the size of the car is perfect for our needs. So far so good, and I’d be surprised if it doesn’t continue.

In Switzerland, a 2019 model will have free service until 100.000 km or 2029 (whichever comes first), meaning running it is almost free of service costs. As a new car, it comes with a 5-year full warranty, meaning there’s one year left. As mentioned, the car is really in mint condition, and all this once again seriously makes me wonder who would be 2/3 more to get these wheels as new. Then again I’m happy there is, because otherwise I wouldn’t have had a nice Bavarian parked in the garage.

Do I miss the Range Rover? Honestly not really, it’s nice to have a car that you’re really driving again, and a station wagon is in many ways more practical than an SUV. There’s one thing though, which is the feeling of driving something special that you got with the Range and that the BMW doesn’t really give you, being a more “ordinary” car. You felt royal travelling in the Range, and it was a pleasure doing so during two years!