adventures with my 08 X5 3.0si

[mouncer]

Have been lurking here for a few months, mainly check when I have an issue with my X5. This is my first BMW, and I might add it is also my first luxury car. I purchased it in November of 2015. Flew from Rochester, NY to Long Island to pick it up from a Jeep dealership out that way. Had 63,000 miles when I got it. 5 hours into my trip from Long Island to Rochester, I hit a deer going about 75 on the highway, air bags did not deploy and it was only a shudder in the steering wheel when I hit the darn thing. Happened about 2AM, thankfully I was only about 25 miles away from home so was able to get a tow home and Insurance adjuster came next day. He did not total the car so off to the shop it went. They had it for 5 weeks, took a while for them to get genuine parts and to put it together. All body panels on the front end are brand new, and also everything in the engine compartment from the engine block forward. Total cost to Geico: $14,250!!

Anyway, fast forward a year, and my water pump died, so I am in the process of tacking that job now, the car is currently on jack stands in the driveway waiting for the new water pump, thermostat, and mounting bolts to arrive. I have removed everything in order to access the water pump following a thread that was posted here a few years ago from "it texan". so far everything has gone well, but it is not a task for the faint of heart. Anyway, I replaced the iDrive module a few months ago, that was easy, took 10 minutes but the part was not cheap! Other than that I love the vehicle, but some of the engineering aspects of it leave me scratching my head sometimes. Thankfully I am not afraid of getting dirty and have been a DIY car guy since I was a kid really, watching my Dad and brothers, then doing my own cars. Thus far I am finding the repair work on this vehicle to be the most challenging I have ever faced. And the cost of the parts, even off Ebay are ridiculous. But I do love it though. Definitely a love/hate relationship.

[mpe50]

So I'm not alone!!! Sorry to hear you're also having problems, but kind of nice to hear I'm not the only '08 3.0 owner seeing these issues.

And I agree. I'm a decent DIYer, but I'm often dumbfounded by how complex repairs can be on this car. Like the water pump. Common issue that I had too. You wouldn't think it's too big a deal...but my god is it hard to get at.

[mouncer]

It just makes me wonder what is next to go wrong, especially as I creep up on 100K miles. Thankfully nothing has left me stranded on the side of the road (when the water pump went, I was about 5 miles from home so only had to pull over twice to cool down). The water pump is a pain, almost impossible to get at. The DIY guide I followed was good, but still left a lot of guess work and trial and error, and God forbid you break something else along the way!!

[PHL08]

I'm surprised GEICO didn't write it off if the repairs cost $14,250. I have an 08 with 82K on it and bluebook now is about $15-$16K. I realize you're fewer miles, but not so many that it would make a big difference.

I, like many others have reported, had the water pump failure around 50K, less than a year after I bought it.

I haven't had any other gotcha's, though I had a nagging problem with the front left wheel carrier that was due to an accident I was in that required replacing almost every component in the front left area of the vehicle.

I can't recommend enough to get the BMWhat code reader and the associated smartphone software from Carly to read it. It's helped me keep tabs on the health of the car, as well as code and reset warnings and engine light indications.

I've done a fair bit of DIY stuff as they have come up -
Brakes (pads only) ~$80 for fronts, $50 for rears
Brake Fluid $20
Spark plugs $70 for the set
Ignition coils $30 (only one died)
E-Box Fan ($50)
Wipers ($50 for all 3)
cabin filters ($50 for the 2 in the engine compartment and 1 in the cabin)
Battery $150
Cooling system flush $30-$40 (need to buy the fluid and distilled water)
Power Steering fluid flush $15

I'm about to replace the serpentine belt, tensioner and pulleys. That kit is around $100-$125 and it's also an easy DIY.

I've had local mechanic do stuff that requires jacking the car up on a lift, as I don't have one. Oil changes, tire rotations, Differential fluid change, to name a few.

In my roughly 4 years of ownership, I don't think my maintenance has been anything horrendous, considering I'm pretty anal about keeping on top of the suggested maintenance schedule. I've known Camry owners with fewer miles an more problems, so I think if you keep up the TLC you'll go far.

Congrats!

[ard]

First, nice to see more DIYing.

On the Geico claim- I wonder if this was a matter of the initial claim coming in at 10k ish, they approve based on "its under 75% of value" (or whatever metric they use) but then during repairs more work was uncovered.... they had already started.

If so, it is a good example of WHY they use the 75% metric- to allow for the cost overruns

[mouncer]

Originally Posted by ard

First, nice to see more DIYing.

On the Geico claim- I wonder if this was a matter of the initial claim coming in at 10k ish, they approve based on "its under 75% of value" (or whatever metric they use) but then during repairs more work was uncovered.... they had already started.

If so, it is a good example of WHY they use the 75% metric- to allow for the cost overruns

Yes that was exactly it with the Geico claim. When the deer hit occured, I only had 53K miles on the car, and it was in November of 2014. The KKB book value of the car was a little over $20 at that time since mine has just about every option available except for navigation and back up camera. The initial repair estimate was around $10,400 if I remember correctly, but as they got into the repair it kept going up and up, eventually coming in a little over $14K. The repair shop said they spent about a week just steam cleaning all of the deer guts out of the engine bay, said they had never seen one this bad. It's funny because I hit the damn thing doing about 75 MPH and when I hit it I only felt a shudder on the steering well, have to give it to BMW on the crash test rating for this car. Had I been in a smaller car I am sure it would have been totalled and I probably would have been injured or even killed. Anyway, overall the car has been good to me except for recently when things have been going wrong. I will follow the advice and get the BMWhat app. I have a very basic OBD II scanner from autozone but it only pulls generic codes and apparently is not able to clear any codes at all on this vehicle.