The Rental Review: I Ordered an Audi and Got a BMW X5

How I Got Here

This spring I flew into San Diego with my mom for my cousin's confirmation. I was the sponsor, which meant showing up in something respectable. It was also Mother's Day weekend. So when the Hertz website offered me an "Audi Q5 or something similar" for $65 a day, I decided to be a big spender.

The logic was sound: same size as my Edge, but sportier, faster, fancier. And I'll admit it, I want to own an Audi someday. The dream car is the RS6 Avant in grey. But I digress.

At the airport counter, the guy said they'd bring the car around. I'm still picturing the Q5. Out comes a white BMW X5.

Something similar, indeed.

First Impressions

White exterior, which turns out to be the correct answer for San Diego heat. Black leather inside, sharp and comfortable and stylish. Pulling out of the lot, the whole thing felt like putting on someone else's much nicer jacket and finding out it fits.

The one thing I never got comfortable with was parking it. The X5 felt bigger than my Edge, like the front stretched a foot further than I believed it did, even with every helpful camera angle and parking view BMW could think of. That's not a huge knock. It was a new car, I'm used to mine, and a weekend isn't long enough to learn where a nose ends.

The Steering Wheel Deserves Its Own Section

The biggest surprise of the whole weekend was the steering wheel. No joke: it was like butter. I sat there in traffic thinking, oh, THIS is what people pay for. I couldn't believe how smooth it was. The car felt planted and safe on every road, and yes, I'm aware San Diego roads are not Detroit roads. No potholes were available for testing.

Two other touches got me. When you put it in drive, the seatbelt cinches you in, a little "we're doing this together" from the car. And picking people up in a BMW is fun. So I have heard.

And let's be fair to the price tag for a second, because it's not all screens. Mine looked to be the 40i, the version rental fleets buy, and the current one puts a turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six under the hood making 375 horsepower. My Edge makes 250. We pay more for tech these days, sure. But you're also paying, as it should be, for a bigger engine. That part of the deal still makes sense to me.

The Tech

Here's where the honeymoon wobbled. I was completely overwhelmed.

It took me a solid ten to fifteen minutes just to set up the gauge cluster the way I wanted: live speed and directions, nothing fancy. The heads-up display was a first for me and genuinely cool. But with this many screens, it starts to feel unnecessary. If you're keeping the HUD, you don't also need a gauge display the size of a placemat.

The infotainment screen is wider than it is tall, the exact opposite of my Edge. CarPlay connected without a fight, and I poked around the native software too. It was fine. Ease still goes to CarPlay, every time. The screen is touch, but it can also be controlled by a rotary dial down by the center console. So if I'm eating Cheetos, I can use the dial, I guess. The steering wheel itself is covered in buttons for editing the gauge screen.

It's a lot. My final relationship with the tech settled into one strategy: get to CarPlay, then don't touch anything else or you'll mess it up.

TLDR: too much tech. And go look at the price tag while you're at it.

What It Does That My Edge Can't

Both cars turned on and took me where I needed to go.

But fine, yes. Heads-up display. Sunroof. Faster. Smoother. A seatbelt that hugs you back. And a steering wheel that reminds me of movie popcorn, in that it is buttery and I did not want to let go of it.

The Verdict

Here's the money question, and I'll answer it honestly: when I got home and back into my Edge, I wasn't sad.

I 100 percent see why people buy the X5, and BMWs in general. It drives incredibly well, and it isn't overly showy about it on the outside, which I respect. If someone handed me the keys for good, I would not hand them back.

But I was happy to get back into my own wheels. And that might be the real takeaway of the rental counter: $65 a day is the best deal in luxury. All of the butter, none of the payment.

Does the X5 pass the check? At the Hertz counter, absolutely. At the dealership, that's between you and your accountant.

Windows down.