My New To Me 2003 X5 4.4-With ATX Issues

[tempest411]

Originally Posted by upallnight

Did he show you the readiness cycle for the engine? If the readiness was incomplete that means the computer was cleared of any trouble code recently. The codes that did showed up could be hard codes.

Many new owners has been burned by buying an X at a low price only to be shocked when it came to fixing a simple issue.

My advice since you are afraid of a big repair cost, is to take a walk from this X. Plenty of X out there and the price is coming down every day. The ZF tranny cars are known for problems so unless you want that BMW V8, I would look for a M54 engine X and if you know how to drive a stick look for the manual tranny X.

It's a little too late for that; I own the thing. I know this is a bit of a gamble, but if it needs a new transmission after all, so be it. While I'm trying to be reasonably intelligent with how I spend money on this, I'm not afraid to do so. Right now I'm thinking if a new valve body (well, rebuilt from Sonnax..) doesn't do it, I'll pull it and get it rebuilt. I may even try it myself.

With all the issues that these transmissions suffer from, has anyone fitted a GM 4L80E into one of these? It would also require a transfer case swap along with it.