My dealer is letting me take their dealer demo for 24 hours. I have a few things that I’ll be checking and trying out myself but also want to throw out an AMA (about the iX) for the rest of the community. Dealer spec is:
X40
Sophisto Grey Metallic
Titanium Bronze exterior trim
Pano roof
Leather interior
Multifunction seats with massage
Panel heating
Laserlight
Soft close doors
A few initial observations:
* real world economy is fantastic compared to the e-tron (and others in this class)
* the crystal appliqué throw plenty of reflection (see photo below with the yellow circles showing the reflections)
* The trunk opening height is not very high. Fully open it's only a couple of inches above my head (I am 1.82m tall)
* When the grey charge port covers are open you cannot close the main charge port flap
* Lower right corner of the iDrive screen is pretty much always obstructed by the steering wheel
* Walk away lock, approach unlock is great but could be an annoyance if you have the keys in your pocket or use your phone as a key. The car would lock and unlock repeatedly if you just walk close enough by it.
* HUD settings are a bit annoying. You either have assisted view, nav view but cannot have a combination. EG, in assisted view the map instructions down show up when approaching a turn off
* The HUD is brilliant though...best I have ever personally seen
* Doors are surprisingly heavy, and take a little bit of heft to open, owing to the grab handle being far forward
* If you store a phone in the little pocket in front of the iDrive controller it will constantly rock back and forth while driving...which is annoying
* The key feels cheap and does not match the pricetag or overall quality of the car
* Reversing assistant is excellent. We live down a narrow drive and the iX is as wide, and the reversing assistant did exactly what it promises
* The space in the driver footwell is less than expected in height. I wear a size 12US shoe and there’s only about 2-3cm beween my toes and the dashboard underside
* The glovebox is very small given the overall size of the dashboard
* The dashboard speaker grille reflects in the windscreen from either front seats and given its size it’s difficult to miss said reflection
* My iphone flat out refused to connect to iDrive once requiring me to remove the pairing completely
* There truly is nowhere to store the parcel shelf pieces in the trunk area
* There are no usb-a ports in the interior, only type-c (discovered this when I was trying to charge my DJI Pocket 2)
* iDrive 8 cannot be rebooted by holding down the volume button like previous versions of iDrive
* It’s a little discussed feature but the windscreen washers are integrated into the wiper blades and as such you can’t just pop into a hrdware store to pick up replacements
* The warning beeps from the parking system sounds like an electronic church organ. It’s strange but not unpleasant
* Unlike the shifter in the e-tron the stubby shifter in the iX does exactly what you expect it to every time