A little history - I have had an E46 for the past 2 years and as our family gets bigger I decided that we should move into something bigger. I found a great deal at local Honda dealership on a LOADED E53 4.4 and so we bought that 2 weeks ago and other than the frozen door locks and final stage resistor the car has been great. I have replaced so much on the E46 and loved doing the work so I am not turned away by repairs that I can get at on the X5.

Yesterday driving to work (30 miles), I pulled into the parking garage and smelled a little oil burning and when I stopped I noticed smoke "rolling" out from under the hood. I pulled the flashlight from the glove box (nice that I actually used one of these) and looked under the hood and I saw oil everywhere on the passenger side. It had sprayed everywhere and even made its way to the washer fluid tank. My first thought was a blown VC gasket but then I noticed oil on top of the VC. Huh...said quite a few choice words and then went into the office and did some research.

Found a few posts on the oil separator/CCV freezing up in cold temps. It was about 0 here in Minnesota so this may have been the case. I went out and looked again and found that the oil must have come from the oil fill cap. This must have been the case...called a few indy shops and they confirmed my thoughts.

After looking at what it would take to do the OS/CCV, I called my local BMW dealer - BMW Minnetonka (FANTASTIC SERVICE!) and talked to the parts counter and found that I probably needed about $500 worth of parts to do this myself. The parts guy said "let me transfer you to service and they can give you more information on what you might need to do this right". He transferred me to service and am I glad he did.

I talked to the service guy and told him that I had a 2002 X5 4.4 and that my OS/CCV had froze and that I had oil everywhere and I asked him what I should order to fix this myself. He stopped me in the middle of my question and asked how many miles it had - I said 94K and he asked if I could get it to the dealership. I thought about towing it (recommended by indy shops) and the service guy said that if I did not have any warning lights and my oil level was fine that I could use my head and possibly get it to the shop. I thought - great, they will charge me $500 just to look at it...no way.

He said that becuase my X5 is under the 100K mark, that BMWNA will most likely pick up the $2000 tab to fix the OS/CCV and replace it with the cold weather version and the heating blanket that goes around the lines. I can't recall but I think he said they would do the VC gaskets as well to be safe.

I took it in and with ease and great service, he took my vehicle in and sent the request to BMWNA and he said he will know for sure on Monday. If this gets fixed by BMWNA, it will restore any apprehension I have had to own a BMW. Yes, things go wrong and need repair but it looks like BMW is standing behind their cars - even out of warranty. The service tech even ordered a full inspection of the car telling me "we will do this just so you know what you bought". Man, could not be happier with this dealership now.

Side note: I have ordered parts from the dealership online and they are typically cheaper than most of the online sites that have OEM/OES parts...take a look that the site if you need parts. For some reason they are very competitive and they are genuine BMW parts.

I will post a follow up on this and good luck to all if you have this problem under the 100K mark.