"SERVICE ENGINE SOON"

[Skimo100]

The "SERVICE ENGINE SOON" indicator light turned on today when my wife turned on her 2007 X3 ,3.0si with 11K miles on it. The light remains illuminated and has not gone off since then, except when the cars is turned off. There is no difference on engine performance, yet, that I can tell when driving it. What can the problem be at 11K miles? A sensor or an exhaust valve issue? The owner's manual states "exhaust values are deteriorating". The light is always on and not flashing. Have anyone had this problem before and around the same milage? And what was the diagnostic? And how many miles would it be safe to drive it before I could take it to the stealer for a diagnostic without doing any damage? I know is hard to know exactly what the problem is without having it connected to a diagnostic code reader, but I'm just curious on what other peeps have experienced with their X3s at around the same milage. I hate taking it to the dealer. The techs at my dealer have no idea on what they are doing. I had my experience with them just programming my alarm the way I wanted, not to mention getting the sirius to work right. Is a good thing they don't work with airplanes. BMW dealers need to get their act together when dealing with maintence/service requests from their customers. They need real techs,well trainned and with lots of experience that love working on BMW cars. Is a shame because BMW is a great driving machine, but a great driving machine could only remain in such way as long as the techs performing the schedule maintenace and repairs are true professionals and love what they do.