Glad some of you appreciate my posts for what they are. I will of course update on here the outcome - hopefully it will be a happy result, returning our lovely X5 to it's "pre fault" condition. Obviously the bitterness and slight feeling of doubt on future reliability will never fully go away, and I sincerely hope we don't hit "strike 3" which will force us to return it. I can't think what I could buy that would be a match for the class, space, and refinement. But reliability - I just didn't even consider that when buying the car, I just assumed it would be there.