Gearbox Failure

[Sudesh]

Just over the weekend my dad's 4.6 came to a hault. He was driving along when he noticed a noise coming from the X. Then not long after that the X went into the trans fail safe mode which then wouldnt allow him to select gears or drive up an incline. So being that the vehicle is under warranty I had BMW assist come out and lift the X and transported to the dealership and upon inspection yesterday they have said that it needs a complete new gearbox, apparantly the trans oil was black and needed changed but on the last service at 50,000miles the dealership didnt do this. His 4.6 now has 55,000miles. Best thing about this is, I told BMW just before christmas that I though the gear change was hard on his 4.6 compared to mine, his also had the dreaded thump into gear every so often but of course BMW told me they checked everything and there was no problem, I guess another case of BMW thinking they know what's best!!.......NOT!!!! Anyway all I can say is, thank god he had extended his warranty, a possible lesson to be learned also is a gearbox oil change is something that SHOULD be done at around 40,000miles and to push your dealer to do it as it seems to be an over looked part of servicing the X.