Car is at 166,933 miles this morning when I looked. I've been meaning to do the math to see how many miles are on the 2 year old motor now so I can update my maintenance log: 13,854.

Its been in for 2 years now and has been largely trouble free, as one would hope for a new motor getting roughly 7k/year miles. The obvious exception is the large coolant tube leak I had to fix a few months ago. I think, however, that can be attributed to the mechanic who built the motor and used ebay coolant tubes. Its mostly oil leak-free, with the exception of a slight right bank vanos weep that I noticed when doing the coolant tube job. I gave the vanos unit bolts a very slight torque, but I think they are seated on collars that won't allow for the actual unit to be over-torqued?

I'm staring at a few larger maintenance jobs at some point when I get motivated: Left front axle boots are failing and spraying grease (right outer is still intact, but is showing cracking), blower motor is squealing in cold weather and in (mostly) left hand turns for some odd reason, the transfer case chain is showing signs of being overly stretched out, and the front diff has a slow oil weep from the casing joint. This last job will be a nightmare but fortunately it isn't enough to even drip on the stiffener plate yet. I'm going to save it, the transfer case and pulling the dash apart to replace the blower motor for after we get my wife a new car this summer/fall and her 2015 jeep graduates to being the on-call X5 rescue vehicle and back-up daily driver. I wonder if Quaife makes a diff that will fill the front carrier in the X5. Worth a look, but likely not as it is a smaller unit than the rear diff and may have only been used in the x5, unlike the "medium" 188 size diff in the rear of our cars.

A friend was asking about the X5 the other day and said "you've really saved a lot of money, compared to a new car, by keeping that X5 on the road." My wife almost blew her drink through her nose laughing.

__________________
Current
Original owner 2002 E53 X5 4.4i to 4.6i swap
2025 G06 X5 50e
Former
1972 Audi Fox
1986 Saab 900S
1996 BMW Z3
1998 BMW E36 M3 Sedan
2004 BMW E46 M3
2006 Audi A3 Quatro
1993 Mopar 318 Jeep Grand Cherokee
2015 V6 Jeep Grand Cherokee