If you can get the car diagnostic port (trapezoid thing under the steering wheel) scanned by someone with an OBDII scanner (just ask for that, you don't need to know what it is) you can figure out what the car is telling you without getting held hostage at the dealer. I bought one off ebay for $300 and it has saved me untold fortunes. My car never goes to a dealer. Even if you have to have someone else do the work, you can at least know what you are taking it to them to have done.

Even if you get rid of that car, a new OBDII scanner should work with every car built after about 1996, since it is mandated by law that every car sold in the US have an OBDII port for emissions testing, so you can use that same scanner on nearly any concievable car you could buy in the near future to diagnose problems.

If the car is running but the check engine light is on, that is what I would do. The way people get tricked out of money is by not knowing what is wrong in the first place, it seems to me.

Good luck.

__________________
2001 E53 3.0 5pd