I've pretty much resigned myself to a vary similar line of thinking. I currently own two BMWs in my garage (an old E46, and a newer (but still old) E70), and the E46 is not running due to coolant leaks. I have seriously sunk many hundreds of dollars into the cooling system parts on that thing (replacing everything to include the radiator) and every few thousand miles I find a new leak somewhere in the system. The car has a crapton of miles on it (approaching 200K) but I have gotten that many miles out of domestic cars, and never had any work to this extent performed on them. I mean, only BMW seems to have cars that owners recommend doing complete cooling system overhauls every 60,000 miles. That's ludicrous, and points to some serious engineering shortcomings on the designer's end. I almost don't even want to repair it, because I'm daily driving a domestic diesel truck (Ford) and have had no problems with it other than a sticky EGR valve that I repaired for a $10 gasket and o-ring kit.

I am a pretty competent garage mechanic with a hefty collection of specific tools for working on BMWs. But once a month, it seems, my wife calls/texts me about some new "noise" that her car makes, or some new glitch, or a weird driveability concern that creeps up. I have no issue with repairing my cars, since I enjoy that sort of thing, but the monthly expense of a new belt or pulley or alternator or leaking coolant hose or whatever gets tiresome. And every month, it seems, I'm dismantling the front of the car to get at something broken. I mean, every other flippin' car that I've owned, replacing a belt might mean pulling out an intake hose or removing a fan shroud and 20 total minutes of work. But on my 4.8? It involves removing the entire air intake system from the TB out, pulling the forward upper brace, and removing the cooling fan. All of this takes quite a long time to accomplish (by comparison), and I might be done in an hour or two. And now? I seem to be dealing with iDrive issues. God knows how much money that'll cost me. And I haven't even gotten into problems with valve seats or the high-dollar repairs that owning a 4.8 will get me.

I like getting my hands dirty, but the frustration level of working on these high-performance, poorly-engineered beasts (poorly-engineered, in that they don't care to build durable components) makes me never want to have one that is out of warranty. Buy it (or lease it), then trade it in when the warranty expires, and maybe some other poor schlub will buy it because the roundel sure does make them look cool.

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2007 BMW X5 4.8i - Sport Package, Wife's Car

2001 BMW 325i - My Car.

2005 Ford Excursion Limited 4x4, 6.0 Powerstroke Diesel. My first "grown up" car.