I’ve worked on about a dozen brands of cars since the age of 5 or 6. BMW is by far my favorite to work on. It's a big part of why I plan to only drive X5s forever.

They are an absolute joy to drive. I use winter tires year 'round and the cornering force for such a big car is ludicrous. I can literally corner better in the wet than my Camaro Z28. (I rarely use brakes for cornering).

My car just turned 17 and has about 2kg out of 2500kg total rust. Most of that being on the rear subframe. It's a marvel of engineering in so many ways it just amazes me. The reliability speaks for itself in how many of the complicated systems still function such as auto leveling headlights rain sending wipers, self leveling airbag suspension etc.

It has a few badly designed items like the self destruct mexhaism in the door handle carriers and the rear brake lines are apparently damaged by the factory as they are bent and the rust prevention coating is cracked. (not that they could have prevented that it takes 15+ years before they also self destruct)

I love your reasoning of why V8 vs the more reliable M54 motor and I would make the same call having the choice. I chanced into my 3.0i and it worked perfectly and was the perfect stepping stone into my next X5 which will be either a V8 or one of the crazy fast sixes that exist today

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