New User Introduction: Just bought an 05 X5 3.0d !

[GarageGuy]

Hey Guys,


My name is David and I live in Switzerland.


Been lurking on this and other e53 Forums for some time.
As some others I noticed here, I come from the e46 camp, I own a 2004 330xi Touring and a 330ci Convertible, both are 6-Gear manuals. I have owned a couple of e46's, E30's and E39's before.

Being a Car-Guy, I somehow got stuck to this generation of BMW's, as they are good self-maintainable and have all the technology I need and appreciate in a car.
And they just have the right driver/car connection which I am missing in newer cars.


Well, after some months of research and adventurous testdrives I finally bought this '05 3.0d. Was actually looking for a car with less mileage and a manual gearbox, but it these are very, very hard to find. So I got this one from a shady turkish seller for dirt cheap, it has all the options I was looking for and was in pretty decent condition for the price.


After checking it out back home in my garage and testdriving it it seems in an ever better condition as on first sight, everything seems to work as it should beside some burned out bulbs, a due oil-service and brake-pads.
It has a Body damage on the right rear side as well, but this is repairable, no worries about that.

The truck has 250'000 km and was maintained at the BMW dealer by the first owner until 200'000km. The Battery was dead as I bought and test drove it and I got all kinds of crazy errors, one being the Autotrans going failsave on my way home after I bought it...


After installing a fresh 100Ah Battery the autotrans failsave disappeared, hope it stays this way, this is my biggest concern, will report here how it will turn out.

So far for now, this is my new X5:

VIN WBAFB71030LX37961
Prod. Date 2005-02-17
Type X5 3.0d
Series E53 (X Series)
Body Type SAV
Steering Left Hand Drive
Engine M57/TU
Displacement 3
Power 160kw / 218hp
Drive ALLR
Transmission Automatic
Colour Sterling-grau metallic (472)
Upholstery Leather "Dakota"/schwarz (LCSW)

Editions and packages
S785 White direction indicator lights
S330 Sports package

Comfort and interior equipment
S441 Smoker package
S459 Seat adjustment, electric, with memory
S413 Luggage compartment net
S481 Sports seat
S494 Seat heating driver/passenger
S471 Interior surface graphit-metallic
S430 Interior/outside mirror with auto dip
S423 Floor mats velours
S442 Drink holder

Multimedia
S609 Navigation system Professional
S692 Preparation, BMW 6-CD changer I-bus
S644 Preparation f mobile phone w Bluetooth
S676 HiFi speaker system

Driver assistance and lightning
S521 Rain sensor
S502 Headlight cleaning system
S508 Park Distance Control (PDC)
S522 Xenon Light
S536 Auxiliary heating
S534 Automatic air conditioning
S548 Kilometre speedo

Wheels and drive
S255 Sports leather steering wheel
S205 Automatic transmission
S249 Multifunction f steering wheel
S230 Extra package, EU-speciifc
S2CC BMW LA wheel, star spoke 132
S226 Sports suspension settings

Environment and safety
S851 Language version German
S879 On-board literature, German
S321 Exterior parts in vehicle colour
S302 Alarm system
S840 High speed synchronisation
S896 Daytime driving lights
S863 Dealer List Europe
S818 Battery master switch
S386 Roof railing
S8SP Control unit COP
S877 Omission of non-combined operation

Individual equipment
S775 Headlining anthracite

Other equipment
S1CA Selection of COP-relevant vehicles
S925 Dummy-SALAPA
S945 Dummy-SALAPA
S9AA Outer skin protection
S926 Spare wheel

[Clavurion]

Welcome!

That looks like quite well specked vehicle. Better get that dent repaired ASAP before the rust creeps any deeper. It seems you have the 536 Aux heating option. From the factory it only warms up the interior. If you want to use it as a pre-heater for engine too this can be changed with coding.

[wpoll]

Welcome and congrats on the very nice car! Nearly identical to mine (except for LHD vs RHD). Mine came off the assembly line line four days after yours.

[Overboost]

She looks beautiful! Welcome to the family!

[wpoll]

Oh, David - one thing I noticed - the lower trim is all painted the same colour as the body. Do you think this is factory or has a PO had this all painted?

Mine is the standard black plastic - which I'm fine with.

[GarageGuy]

Originally Posted by wpoll

Oh, David - one thing I noticed - the lower trim is all painted the same colour as the body. Do you think this is factory or has a PO had this all painted?

Yes, I noticed this as well. Not sure if this was a factory option, I don't think so because it is not listed in the option list from the factory. It looks like the PO paid a lot to get all these lower bodyparts painted in the same color as the body of the car. It's done very professionaly and looks like it came from the factory like this.


I like the look of the car better when these lower bodyparts are black though. I am planning to change this. The grill-inlays were titanium coloured as well, I have already blacked them out with plasti-dip.


First on the list is getting her ready for state-inspection!

[bradb]

With some minor bumps and bruises looks very good for 155k miles.

Wishing you many miles of smiles!

Brad

[GarageGuy]

After over 2 months of ownership it's time for an update!

First of all, I must say that I'm very happy with this car, I like the way it handles and especially the M57 3 liter diesel engine, lots of torque, great acceleration, even with the ZF6HP26 automatic transmission, which I was a bit sceptical about before buying.

I as well want to mention that that I was positively surprised concerning the build-quality, its a well made car, best thing is that these e53 do not seem to have any serious rust-problems. I had 5 e46's and every one had rust-problems, so that's a big advantage when buying and wanting to maintain a 15y old BMW.

I've done all the basic things I wanted to do to reach my minimum car-standards, but of course many other things will need to be done with time.

Done:
- Battery
- several bulps
- brake pads
- windscreen wiper blades
- washer pump
- state inspection
- fuelfilter
- engineoil change
- all filters
- black sideskirts
- black lower sections on front and rear bumper (pastidip)
- black hood grilles (was "titan" before)
- new tires (Falken FK510)
- brakefluid change
- new taillights (inner section)
- dent on rightrear side fixed profesionally
- 25mm wheelspacers on each rear wheel (eibach)
- axton active subwoofer in sparewheel-compartiment
- bluetooth aux-connection
- charged mobile phone holder (brodit)
- new satnav display
- oilflush/filter ZF6HP26 autogearbox
- brushed aluminium cluster rings
- found and activated the build in Webasto Thermocall TC3, I can activate the aux heating through textmessage from everywhere with this module. Great extra toy!

[wogboy_9000]

Do you have any close up pics of the plastidip? I'm sick of trying to redye my plastics.
Also, what's that in the trunk where the spare wheel usually sits?

[wpoll]

Originally Posted by wogboy_9000

... Also, what's that in the trunk where the spare wheel usually sits?

Sub-woofer.