Hello all.

I bought a 2004 X5 4.4i with 46,000 miles at the beginning of January (still covered by the original warranty, but getting close to that magical 50,000 miles). During the purchase, I negotiated an extended warranty to be thrown in with the vehicle (this warranty was from a third party company, not the one BMW offers at its dealerships, since the purchase was from a non-BMW dealership to begin with). In reading the fine print of this extended warranty, it appears that the warranty company gets to choose where the car gets serviced, and that non-OEM parts may be used during servicing (obviously to save the warranty company money). Neither of these clauses leave me feeling too comfortable with what I can expect service-wise after I hit 50,000 miles. This leads to a few questions:

1. Am I too paranoid about the extended warranty I already have?
Somehow I'm getting mental pictures of my X5 sitting in some greasy, dingy shop with a guy named Stu who smokes cigars all the time fixing my problems with parts from a junk yard... Should I worry about this, or will most of my extended warranty servicing stuff likely send me to a BMW dealership anyway? What have your experiences with non-BMW extended warranties been?

2. Is it worth just buying an extended warranty from BMW? Any idea what the cost would be if I did this on my own? Will the warranty I buy from them be serviced at BMW dealerships? Would it be worth it for peace of mind?

I welcome any thoughts and opinions. Thanks for the help in advance.