My take on it is very similar to that espoused by ard. Due to changing viewpoints and economic times I have decided to get out of the leasing cycle and start keeping my cars long term. I had a couple of E53 x5's and found them to be ok in the reliability area, but they were not first year production cars like yours. The x5M is my first E70 and I PURPOSELY purchased a last year production (mine was custom built) car because I figured it would be the most reliable I was going to get. I plan to keep this long term. I think you would do well to pick up an E70 now rather than wait for the new x5. We all know it will be a nightmare when it first comes out and will take several years to work out the bugs as was the case with the E53 and the E70 when they first came out. I have been following xoutpost and bimmerfest E70 threads and I noticed that the complaints have died down drastically for people who were buying 2011 or later x5's. I attribute that to BMW fixing most of the issues. Lastly, I agree that you should get a car that has the least amount of options you need. The only options in my x5M were SIRIUS and high gloss roof rails. I declined all of the tech stuff (except navigation which was standard) because that crap is a disaster after the warranty ends. If I get the M5 or M6 to replace the 535 down the road(as is the plan) it will be a base car with 6MT, SIRIUS, heated front seats and nothing else. I always order my cars this way when they are purchased for the long haul. Good luck OP.

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~ 13 x5M
~ 13 M3 coupe (the daily beater)