Mileage / Estimated Life Questions

[bd3500]

Hey Everyone,

Just bought an X5 last week, and am still loving it. I have been reading about the Automatic Transmission issues and had a couple questions about estimated life expectency of the X5. I have a 2002 X5 3.0 w/ automatic transmission.

Is the automatic transmission issue like almost certain, or does it only happen say to 10%, 25%, etc of people w/ an X5. It seems common, but for everyone who posts w/ the issues, its hard to tell how many people *don't* have the issue.

The X5 I bought has 60000 miles on it, I put 15k miles a year on, and am just curious what to expect over the life of the vehicle.

Thanks!

-b

[alpac]

Congrat for your new ride. IMO it is very difficult to tell if and when you will have a problem with your transmission. It depends on different factors like if the car was driven hard or not by the previous owner, if it was used for towing, if it was used mainly in town or on highways, etc... I know some people who had to replace their transmission at 86k miles and others who passed 140k miles and still running great with no problem.

[Aimster]

100k here

going strong

01 3.0

[xnsf]

you will drive it forever, and love every minute of it...until you visit the dealer for major work done ()

[bd3500]

Thanks for the comments so far everyone.

I am just very skiddish about reading the horror stories of tranny's failing at 86k, 100k, etc. It seems to happen a decent amount as I read the board. Maybe I'm spoiled as I used to only drive saab's. typically ran then to about 210,000 mi's without *major* problems. I love the X5 though in terms of size, utility, and handling.

Hopefully if it is inevitable and its going to happen, it will happenw while still covered under CPO. In ideal world, it wouldn't happen at all.

Again, maybe its my perception as to the amount of people with the issue, but it seems crazy that BMW would not address this issue. I guess its not crazy from a business perspective, and everything does come down to money, but still...

I don't do any towing, but live outside of DC in Virginia, so lots of stop and go traffic.

[Krunk Man]

103k transmission running strong.
01 3.0

[bd3500]

Good to hear Krunk Man, thanks for post.

The more I think about it, it may be entirely possible that these things will run to 200k. Given the fact that they are only 6 years old, no one has hit that. So the horror stories we are hearing are just that unfortunately. It does appear there is a high incidence of reports of failure, however for every one failure, there may be 10 or 20 w/o failure.

Keeping my fingers crossed. I have 60k on right now, and the reason I posed question is I am thinking of doing a NAV retrofit, CARX PC, sirius satellite radio upgrade, Dice/Ipod install, JL Audio sub install, and finally bluetooth retrofit.

Dice will probably be first.

I'd just hate to put this my time effort if its almost guaranteed I'm going to be paying 5k/6k for a tranny 3 or 4 years from now. I want to hold on to car for long haul.

[xnsf]

you will be investing a lot of money onto you car. as for the transmission, it does not seem avoidable. the only option is to drive less...but that's the case for any car.

[bd3500]

Originally Posted by xnsf

you will be investing a lot of money onto you car. as for the transmission, it does not seem avoidable. the only option is to drive less...but that's the case for any car.

Yeah I hear you, I was planning on doing it over the next year. So I'll probably back off if it is truly unavoidable, as I will most likely unload the car in 2 - 3 years, and hope it doesn't happen before then.

Obviously this goes in to be a long debate that has been covered ad nauseam, I still can't believe that BMW would not have addressed this issue.

Time to start saving I guess, or plan on selling in a couple years near CPO expiration