Though I'm new to the BMW world, I have been working on cars & trucks for 57 years, learning as I went. I fix what I can with whatever I can, using whatever parts I can. Depending on the importance of the parts involved, the availability of those parts, and the cost/investment involved (in money, in my time, in difficulty to replace), I have tried components of all sorts , quality, and price, over those years.
I've got 90+% of my experience working on domestic vehicles, and the rest on Euro & Asian cars, so my components have come from all over. While I used to use only American tools & parts, now I use mostly foreign-made stuff, generally due to price & comparative value to me. And then, does anyone still know for sure the provenance of their tools & parts nowadays, anyway?
Right now, only some of my older tools are USA-made (some from the '70's), while the newer tools are made offshore (not sure about my Milwaukee tools). My tires (on five cars & trucks, and two trailers) are a mix of 3 US & 2 Japanese brands (only two were
not made in China, but even if they were, they're not of low Chinesium quality). And as for the cars, they all have mixed heritage components, as manufactured.
These days, I
try to get known/trusted brands of components (especially critical or hard-to-replace), if those brands have been proven reliable to me, in the past. I hope that the newer parts, even if made in China, will be made to a certain level of quality, that the old tried & true mfg. used to make.
Electronic components are the newest product category to add to the mix; the switch to offshore manufacturing plants by corporations world-wide has made buying reliable parts a crapshoot. I still mostly buy AC-Delco, Delphi, Bosch, and NGK electric and electronic parts, even though I've had some failures with them, but never buy new-to-me brands, unless I research them online first. Parts (especially electronic) for the X5 are going to be chosen by three criteria:
- 1) how critical is that part vs. price,
- 2) how hard to diagnose/replace the part, re:upcoming failure (if ever, in the future) vs. price, and
- 3) relative value of a "better" part (OE, OEM, BMW-branded) vs. a lower-cost, but seemingly made to a comparable standard by another manufacturer (preferably European or Japanese, or by one of my trusted brands).
I recently replaced a camshaft position sensor (exhaust) with a VEMO part (sub-division of Vaico, a European mfg. company). It's even stamped with GERMANY on it. Since it's easy to quickly replace, I figured I'd try a new supplier, just to find out if their quality is up to snuff. I can get a replacement overnight, if I need one, and since I always have a scantool hooked up, I should get a warning of imminent failure, beforehand. Of course, if the component is
really hard to access/replace, if partial failure will instantly destroy the X5, or if no reasonable alternative to the "best" is available, then I'll defer to BMW or comparable-quality parts, always.