Ray, I agree with you related to the driving experience. My objection is more related to the commonality of issues coupled with the perception that it is tolerable to give up one strength for the other weakness. I agree- the Japanese have built a strong house based on vanilla reliability. Why should we have to give up reliability to drive a vehicle with tremendous road manners? That is the end question. I am not condemning the entire BMW marque, but is it wrong to expect a level of detail in a $60,000 vehicle? I believe that each marque chooses the niche they want to fill, and engineers product to that end. If Lexus wanted to build a fun, sporty vehicle with a racy personality, they could, and chances are it wouldn't give up the reliability that is their calling card. They choose not to. That's OK. Nowhere in any of the product literature for the X5 does it say "Be prepared for small problems and some general failures in our product. We know they are there, but the driving experience will make these issues fade away so fast you won't notice."

One of the issues I am wrestling with relates to the reliability of the 330XI. It is the first on my list of possibilities to replace the X5, but the '06 is a re-design. Second on the list right now is the G35X.

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Dave

'05 325xi
'10 E70 35d
'85 911 Carrera
'66 911 Work in progress
'91 Chevy C1500
'95 Jeep Cherokee
‘18 Jeep JLU