Sounds like you got a nice little deal there. You will love the ride. Many, many members here have high mileage Xs and they just keep on going. I think the record is well over 300,000 miles.

Check out the homepage and the articles. There is some useful stuff there for you as a new owner. It looks like you've done some research here already though. Depending on your level of wrenching ability or if you have friends that know what they're doing, I would probably change out major hoses, belts, and even the water pump/coolant flush. I'm paranoid though and changed out mine on my 3.0 just in case while I was changing out belts. I figured that since everything was opened up and I had access to the water pump, might as well do it. Also do the brake job and check out the CV boots while you're down there.

The transmission fluid being "lifetime" is up for debate. Tons of discussion about this topic! To change or not to change, or partial change.... Personally, I have questioned whether I should do it and even though I am cynical about transmission fluid being lifetime, which policy changed upon BMW offering free maintenance, I have decided not to mess with mine even at 104,000 miles. There have been some anecdotal evidence that changing the fluid on a higher mileage X5 could actually cause problems but as I stated, keep digging and read other opinions.

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