Our first long road trip in the e53 didn't go well. Headed out last Wed. for North Carolina, and only made it as far as Kentucky. On Thursday afternoon it started sputtering & lost power just as we approached Winchester, KY. Had enough to get us off the highway, and I shut it down. I looked under the hood then tried starting it again; started and ran fine for a few minutes then died again.

Before that it had run flawlessly for ~1,000 miles, other than a little hiccup the first day, just before the SES light came on. I had few tools and no Bentley manual, and my family riding with me weren't up for a drawn out diagnostic session, so I called around and found an Indy shop that would look at it, but it was already 4:30, the next day was Friday on a holiday weekend, so we ended up renting a Hyundai to finish the trip.

The shop found time to look at it on Friday and gave me a call; several codes came up pointing to a faulty coil pack, an intake leak, and a stuck open thermostat. None of that sounded like it should cause it to sputter & lose power so I asked about that and was told it could. I gave the ok to replace the parts, but spent the next week worrying about the drive home after picking it up.

They gave me a call on Wed. to tell me that it was ready to go. Over the weekend I talked with some others about it, and they had the same thoughts as me, and a couple of them suggested a few other things to check, including the fuel pump; I mentioned that to the shop over the phone but they were pretty convinced they had it licked.

We planned to head back to pick it up on Friday; I called again on Thursday to make sure it was ready; yup, they had driven it several times and all was well. So we finished the drive there on Friday, and got to the shop around noon to find it in the shop with the hood up and them standing around scratching heads. The head mechanic had taken it to Lexington for some parts, and it showed the same symptoms for him; sputtered & lost power, but hadn't thrown any codes. I asked again if they had checked the fuel pump, and he said they were checking pressure right then. We left to get some lunch and they kept working. I got a call about a half hour later; it was the fuel pump and the fuel level sender. The parts were available locally, but it would be a few hours. They got everything buttoned up before closing time and in time for us to get the rental car back.

Now we're about two hours from home, and it is running smoothly. The SES light came on about two hours after we started yesterday, but I'm not too concerned about it, for the moment. I'll worry about that when we get home.

The repair bill was steep (about $1,500) but there wasn't much else we could do. The misdiagnosis and all is a bit of a bother, and I have a really hard time swallowing the marked up parts prices, but... I don't know if I could've anticipated that failure. We usually fill the tank when it gets down to a half tank, and that was the first time we'd taken it more than two hours out. The original pump had ~175,000 miles on it and was already weak. On a trip I tend to stretch a tank a little further and had been filling at 1/4 tank on the trip. The level sender had been sticking and telling me there was more fuel in the tank than was really there, so the pump didn't have much fuel to keep it cool, which hastened its demise.

__________________
2001 X5 Sport 3.0/5-speed
1998 318ti/5-speed
1988 735i/5-speed
1984 528e/5-speed (soon to be M20B25-powered 525i!)