Test Drive Fails -- Found a good one

[jdstrickland]

I'm looking at the X5, used, as my next car. I drove two of them yesterday, 02/02, and both were disappointing. Sadly, I heard either tire or wheel bearing noise from both of them, one with 71k miles and the other with 113k miles. I do not associate the noise with the drivetrain, specifically. I'm pretty certain I heard a wheel bearing, or it was the tires. At low speeds, I could hear a rubbing noise, but at highway speed the rubbing just joined into regular vehicle noises, and there were many. These two vehicles made far more road noise than my E36 'vert.

Both also had burned out pixels on the radio/message panels, one had bad pixels on the instrument display also.

My goal is to get a vehicle for my wife, and she selected the X5 as her choice. I think that when she drives one, she might not be impressed because the behavior is so much like a truck.

I have had two different E36s, and both of my kids have had an E46 -- one still has hers -- and our experience has been very good overall, and this is driving us to the X5. Maybe my test drives have been in the wrong vehicles -- the one with 71k had a tire package from the F70, current X5, with staggered 20s and the other had 4 worn out tires that probably should not be allowed on the roadway -- and this makes my experience with this model to be so disappointing. We have had our share of repairs on the four 3 Series cars, but I have made the vast majority of these repairs in my driveway, and I find the cars to be pretty easy to service.

I have more X5s to look at, but frankly I will be closing the search radius so I do not spend the entire day driving 150+ miles round trip to see two vehicles. When I find one that I like, I'll insist that my wife drive it, but my instinct is that she will change her sights to an Acura MDX or other similar crossover instead of choosing a vehicle built on a truck chassis. Maybe if I find one with good tires, it won't be as bad as what I have driven so far.

Are burned out pixels common? My kid's car has the same display and the pixels are okay.

I've had BMW cars since 2000, and I have to say that I am not seeing what I thought I was going to see with the X5. I expected more refinement.

UPDATE
I bought a very nice X5 with the 3.0.

The main issues with it are that the nav screen has dead pixels, and two of the rings around the door lock buttons are broken. It's nice that a 10-year old car has as a major problem, two broken plastic things that cost about $3.25 to get new from the dealer. I'm on the search for a nav screen. The message display screens are all good, just the nav screen is bad.