Comments & Question.

[Zulu95]

Sorry for the rant.
Both the E53 & the E70 have been in for the airbag recall in the last week. In both cases a list of recommended work followed them home. The '01 needs the oil filter housing gasket changed because of an actual leak. Must be small as there is little evidence on the ground or in usage but it will be changed out by my indy soon. Also recommended was to protectively change the oil pan gasket because it was old and could leak. Only wanted $2+K for that one!!!!!
The '13 has a failing oil pan gasket. That's the one that really rankles me. For my edification could somebody please explain why, in this day and age, a 6 years old vehicle with only 65K miles NEEDS an oil pan gasket because of failure? I do not see the op as a particularly high stress area. Surly some materials science expert could and should have come up with a gasket material that would have lasted the life of the vehicle. This, is given the fact you need to pull the whole front sub-frame for remediation of the problem, should either have been designed to never fail or be easy to access and less expensive to repair.
I am now rethinking my whole future plans for vehicle updates. 35 years ago the sub-frame would be out of the vehicle and amateur grease monkey would have had the op gasket in the vehicle by now but age and health preclude this and all I can do is rant.
Rant over.