I drove x5m, x35i, x5d in the same day. The drive around town wasn't much different with the M. 35i felt slow under powered around town. Big torque of the diesel early on made it better to drive locally, WOT on the highway there is a nice easy fix for power up top
.
Wife made a great point if you want an m put the cost difference toward the f80 or a 911tt I've been obsessing about for years now. Then I remembered my ctsv, all those horses and no where to run, big car. Wife is into cars, got lucky.
Will never track the x5, carries baby, commutes in highway traffic. Rarely would use WOT in x5m to really get the benefits.
In August we went x5d bc the tq felt better around town, merging, all that, should be able to tow a decent water toy in future or maybe a track car. They are hard to find with sport pkg and optioned out, but found one eventually.
I wouldn't trade the diesel for gas m sport pkg, even though the unpainted parts bug me.
I don't really care about the 26mpg avg tank. It wasn't a deciding factor.