Quote:
Originally Posted by Fifty150hs
you didn't even lift the hood before you bought it?
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I bought my x5 via auction. It was the only one in about 700 cars that was in my budget that I was interested in. I didn't have x5 even on my radar because I made my list based on historical service records literally i used a top ten most reliable used car list. Not surprising to anybody reading this: X5 is not in that list!
I actually didn't even know what engine options existed until I got the car.
In the end: $5800 for 128,000 3.0 with a nearly unused interior: the drivers seat had been replaced and apparently the car was used for commuting mostly solo. Sport suspension.
In addition the engine didn't have a single speck of oil on the block or on the skid plate. I've literally never seen an engine so clean in my life. (I did of course check out the engine bay, but with no knowledge of x5 and no badges it was not obvious)
The check engine light was on, so I figured that suppressed the price but we got in a bit of a bid war that cost me $800 extra could have had for $5000.
The SES light was from CPS which cost me $105 and solving introduced me to xoutpost. It took about two hours to install because it's a bitch to thread that sucker under the intake manifold it likes to get stuck.
Having no payment and averaging about $80/month in repairs means that I effectively get about 80mpg by having no car payment and $40/mo full coverage insurance with $0/250 deductible. I love my car.
Even today when I had an insane roller coaster day:
I forgot to tighten the output terminal from my alternator I just refurbished. The symptoms were exactly the same as the malfunctioning alternator before I replaced the brushes and slip rings!
So just about every light on the dash came on in sequence including two new ones: the TRANSMISSION was the scariest but the EML eventually came on.
The high resistance of the loosely hooked on but no nut had so much power & voltage lost that I was only getting 12.5 volts and at some points more like 11.8.
I wiggled wires and got normal ish voltage so started driving with voltage shown on dash command real time.
Got to Home Depot and took the air box off so I could get a better look. I dropped my flashlight and it turned off and I saw an orange light down behind the alternator. I thought it was just light leak from running lights coming though. I turned off the lights and the glow was still there.
I discovered what the glow was "the hard way" when i grabbed the output terminal and burned the inverse of the threads into my thumb and finger! (The glow was the terminal and/or the wire eye glowing From being that hot !)
So after ten minutes I gave up trying to determine the size of the damn nut and took an educated guess: M8-1.25 FYI.
Ecstatic that I solved it and with voltage clamped to 13.6 above 1500 RPM and holding 12.5 at idle, I head on home.
On the way home engine stuttering at idle even stalled. I had to use two feet to drive so could keep From stalling.
EML light came on! Aaaaarghh!
No SES but a scan shows about six pending codes including speed sensor intermittent and the classic bank one and two lean.
About 20 min. drive home and park and open the hood and it only took seconds to determine the problem: to reach the alternator connections I had to pull up on the air intake hose and I managed to pull the air intake boot off the intake body!
It is darn near impossible to get to the hose clamp for that boot: the previous mechanic installed from under the car! I literally had to cut the older one in half to remove so I could get to the underside clamp.
It's infinitely easier to work on intake boot with DISA valve removed.
Here is the magic how i tightened the boot clamp:
A long straight extension and TWO flex connectors!
Also you have to remove the small boot connector to get to the big hose clamp.
So: once the alternator actually was ATTACHED electrically and the air intake boot was likewise attached to the car everything came right back to life and engine is working perfectly!
Tomorrow: full exchange of brake fluid. Yay.
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