My wife and I are manual transmission lovers too...just don't happen to have one right now unfortunately. I'm trying to talk her into an M2, but its a tough sell with two big dogs.

In truth, I wonder how the numbers would look over the life of our X5. I keep good records of maintenance performed, just not money spent. We've owned it since 2002 and until 2014 it was my wife's daily. The usual maintenance was performed, and at some point I started doing the big stuff myself. My kids then drove it exclusively for at least 5 years, during which I did almost nothing to it aside from oil changes. The only big ticket thing I recall was a "new transmission" (remanufactured).

Only when it turned into a project did I really start throwing money at it. But given that it had languished, un-cared for for so long, and needed all the stuff a 20 year old BMW would need (in addition to the other stuff I've done to it), I wonder how the total cost of ownership would look over its life?

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Current
Original owner 2002 E53 X5 4.4i to 4.6i swap
2026 G80 M3 6 spd
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