road trip from CO to CA and 4.6is purchase

[c4racer]

I picked up a 2003 4.6is with 95K miles from a CCA member and M3 enthousiast I knew through an E36 M3 email list. The car is in fantastic condition and looks and drives like new. It also has had all relevant preventative maintanence and normal service done by BMW, and was a former CPO car. Only problem was the car was in IN and I live in CA. So I ended up working out a plan to have a buddy from CO fly out and drive it back to his place near Vail. Then a week or so later I flew out to CO, spent a few days hanging out around Vail and then spent 2 days driving it home. It was a great trip, and the car was in even better condition than I had expected. I was also amazed by how tight the car was - feels like a 20K mile car. BMW's are certainly built to last.

OK - time to throw in a few pics.
Here is the view from my buddy's house. I can only imagine how sweet this looks in the winter. Straight across the valley you can see the runs on Beaver Creek. I should mention his house is at 8200 feet!!


And here is the X as I first saw it:



We spent the good part of one day hitting some serious off-road trails in a lifted Toyota Tacoma pick-up. That was a serious blast.






I took 70 West through CO and went through some pretty neat areas. I stopped a lot to check things out along the way.

[flatlander]

Sweet ride! Love the blue! Great Colorado shots too!

[c4racer]

oh - I have more!! I crossed into UT and found even more sweet scenery.

[c4racer]

I then took HWY 50 across UT and NV. This is dubbed as "the lonliest road in America" and for good reason. It was a bit spooky at first to be driving a new to me car with so many miles across a desolate desert with often 80 miles between any civilization and very few cars, and 105 deg temps!! So I tried to get it over with quicker and dialed up the speed accordingly That gave me a good feel for the high speed stability, which is very impressive for a SUV by any measure. Impressive for a sports sedan for that matter.

hwy 50 gave me the opportunity to stop along several dirt roads for some neat pics of the X:

[Tleong]

Wow. those pictures are amazing. Sweet new ride too!

[c4racer]

After 12+ hours I made it into NV and close to my target destination of Fallon, NV. I went through some nasty thunderstorms with impressive lightning and some wicked hard rain. As the sun started going down I ended up with a perfect scenario of lighting and a service road with the perfect background for some killer pics.

[c4racer]

After checking into the hotel, I was lucky to learn that the local 1/4mi oval dirt track had racing that night. So I went down to check it out. It was fun to see - we used to go in San Jose at the fairgrounds when they still had a track. It was a bit funny - I think my X5 was the only European car in the parking lot (which of course was dirt!!), and was nearly the only foreign car.

The next morning I headed out early and went through Carson City - I found a few interesting things to look at including a nice little classic car show.





I decided to take the scenic route home, since I had plenty of time and only ~400 miles or so to cover. So I went down 395 and over 108 - Carson Pass. That road was just amazing. The summit was at 9600 feet and the road is very narrow and winding and only about 1.5 cars wide. Luckily I hit very little traffic and was able to enjoy the wonderful chassis of the X5 and the sweet 4.6L BMW powerplant too!! The tiptronic trans really came in handy here.





All told, it was a great introduction to the X for me. I really enjoyed the car. It will serve duty as my road trip car, so how fitting to test it out on a killer road trip. I drove about 1200 miles. The first day I averaged ~71mph, even with all my stops. Second day was much much slower. I lost count of how many mountain passes I went over - well more than a dozen all told. The 4.6is performed flawlessly - even in triple digit heat at high elevation cruising at 90+. Total trip mpg was in the high 18's, which I felt was pretty good considering the speeds driven, the heat, the elevation and all of the mountains I climbed over.

[motordavid]

Titz ride, excellent pics and, that is a road trip!
GL,mD

[c4racer]

Originally Posted by motordavid

Titz ride, excellent pics and, that is a road trip!
GL,mD

Thanks - yes, it was a serious blast. I was going to do the whole thing from IN, but ran out of time and my buddy was quick to volunteer to go fetch the car for me, so it all worked out great. All told the car traveled close to 2500 miles across the whole country to make it into my driveway in CA. Better than letting it ride on a flatbed I think!!

[BMWLOVER]

Wonderful pics and x5 c4racer! congrats!