My car is adolescent compared to most here but I'm planning to hand BMWЯ down to my 9 yr old son. It has one issue making the drive train less than flawless and that is the rear subframe bushings. They aren't terrible but aren't great I can hear the subframe twist going from reverse to forward and occasionally a thump that shouldn't be there on expansion joints. It handles like a dream hasn't got a drop of oil outside the engine (once the quart a week waterfall of an oil filter seal was fixed and power washed off). I keep my eye open for a younger x5 but I'm pretty solidly set on the E53 for the foreseeable future.

Not only does xoutpost make it possible for me to my E53, it introduced me to my wife's E53 and make it of course possible keep both of them. We bought them at 128 and 110 k miles and now they are about 156 and 144. My car is averaging $40/mo in repair costs, hers is averaging $80.

Hers is the non sport and mine is the sport hers was used as a soccer mom car so had a lot harder life early on and took a toll on suspension: CV axles, control arms and all the wheel bearings. Mine has Original of all those save one front bearing. Mine cost about $2k more so total cost is very similar.

I love the platform I'm absolutely uninterested in finding a different car ever. Newer, sure, different? Nope. My "won the lottery car" is the G Sport X5.

I've recently taken advantage of the purposeful decision to "double down" on the E53 when my wife's fuel pump failed: in twenty minutes I determined her pump was getting voltage but not humming, 30 mine hummed 6 seconds on key on position every time, 45 minutes I had my pump in her car and by 60 minutes I had her non working pump in my car (functioning as a cork to keep the fumes in the tank while waiting for a warranty replacement on the pump).

3-4 times I've swapped parts to determine failure or rescue a car from 50 miles away (put my 9 mo. old cam shaft sensor into her car which I had towed to the nearest Wal-Mart when her car died on the freeway an hour from home). Having an operational donor car at the ready is priceless. Another example: door handle carrier: mine broke, ordered a "copy cat", no time to install, hers broke, I put the carbon copy in car car but moved over the better cables from the OE part. I fixed hers using 1¢ worth of metal wire then I installed that fixed one into my car. So because we have two, rather than have a stealer charge $300+ for one car, I spent $35 to fix BOTH!
My copy x5 was apparently used as a commuter car, there was nearly no wear on the inside of the car. The driver seat was replaced which must have been almost the only worn part so it was no more worn then any other seat.

I'm just shy of 50, been working on cars since I was 5/6 (when I helped my dad replace a water pump on our Ford station wagon: my job was to remember where each part down to the bolt went: lots of parts had to come off to replace it, my strongest memory of that job was how much the front of the car rose up as all the weight of the parts was removed!). Anyhow I'd never seen an engine with 50,000 miles on it with less oil film than mine when I bought it at 128,000! It was dusty but no oil, hence not recently power washed to hide oil leak. It had MIL lit when I bought at auction which helped suppress the value and a plug for the low pressure on the AC was disconnected, those two items were undoubtedly why the P.O. traded it in, didn't want to risk the chance of those being a difficult fix. Turned out to be $90 for OEM CPS and I did spend about $100 initially then another $80 for full on shop quality AC service equipment to only find out that my ac didn't work because a plug was unplugged! Not complaining I can service my entire family's fleet now and my wife's E53 came low refrigerant causing it to super cool and freeze the evaporator (8 minutes of ac at a time) and fixed that right up.

I'm predicting we will replace hers by 200,000 mi. But mine feels like it is mid-life and I will be unhappy with myself if I don't get at least a quarter mil.


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2011 E70 • N55 (me)
2012 E70 • N63 (wife)