Educate me (or talk me out of) the 35D...

[garagelogician]

After almost 10 years in a 2000 New Beetle TDI that I bought for long commutes, I'm going to be in the market for an X5D sometime this coming summer. I'm a married man now with three 55 lb dogs in the family, and we're trying furiously to make some kids, so the old girl just isn't practical anymore (I'll keep it as a spare).

Looking for a 2012 or 2013 model, preferably with less than 50k. The only must-have options for me are the cold weather package, backup camera and HIDs...everything else would be gravy. I test drove a base 2009 model and even the seats in that felt like a Lazy Boy compared to the seats in my VW.

I grew up on a farm and am a diesel junkie, I love the torque and growl of a diesel. I know the diesel isn't going to save me money, and could even cost me more, but are the gassers that much more reliable than the diesels? Can you give me a reason that I should just go with a 35i?

If I go the diesel route, I'm already planning a full ABC delete and stage 1 tune (no emissions testing in MN), but I'll keep a high-flow cat on it. With a diesel, once I remove all the emissions stuff, I will only need to get the intact tract cleaned once...where gas engines need regular CBU removal.

I DIY as much mechanical work as I can (rebuilt the TDI due to sins of the previous owner, and I swapped in a 5 speed when the auto trans crapped the bed) so I'm trying to learn as much about these as possible. Also hoping that Bentley Publishers comes out with a service manual soon, the current options out there for service information seem to be lacking based on what I've found so far.

Is the Carly app as good as it seems? Does it have equivalent function to VCDS for VAG cars? Does it give better fault codes than a standard OBDII scanner?

[Ricky Bobby]

Well shes about to close on a one owner, 42k mile, White on Cinnamon with Sport Activity, Premium Sound, 214's, running boards, 5/2013 Build and in service of 8/2013 tonight, Florida car, and CPO -

I'm debating extending the factory warranty on top of the CPO for a year just to have a bit more peace of mind, 8 months of factory warranty and 2 years of CPO is pretty good though and I hope all the kinks have been worked out of the E70 by the last 3 months of production....

[Thecastle]

I'd personally recommend the extended warranty....

I've had enough failures on my 335D, and my X5 to say if you can get one for less than $4000 its probably worth while but a BMW warranty. I've had a lot of repairs on both cars and have spent well in excess of that price on my X5. I do indy's or diy. The 335D has been under warranty and had likely in excess of $15K in warranty work.

Right now I'm working on broken heating (no drivers side heat) in my X5 and the dreaded parking brake failure. I've already replaced my alternator, and I'm going to need a new power steering pump. The break downs seem to be endless with these cars, but I enjoy them.

So in 3 months of ownership on my X5... I've had the alternator fail, CCV fail, Heater Valve fail, Rear cooling fan fail, parking brake. I've also spent a lot on fluid swaps, etc. These cars easily out of warranty can take 5-10K a year in maintenance and repairs. Mine was a CPO until a few months ago. BTW nothing replaced under CPO is warrantied after the CPO is up.

[Ricky Bobby]

^Yep I have 8 months of factory warranty left (in service date 7/31/13) so I will decide whether to just keep it with just CPO or extend factory -

I have the service records from BMW - and I'm in a California Emissions state (for now) so it qualifies for that coverage (CA emissions coverage is more than the Federal 8y/80k - and that is the stuff I worry about failing, urea tanks, DPF's, sensors, EGT sensors, etc etc

To have another 12 or 24 months of Bumper to Bumper I may purchase the BMW plan with $0 deductible to overlap the CPO, I haven't decided yet, we got a good deal so I'm going to give it a couple months and see how it treats us, as long as I purchased before factory warranty is up I can extend it

[Thecastle]

Yeah my 335D is under california emissions as well. It covers certian items on a diesel longer than the 4/50K mile warranty. But some items are not covered as I've already discovered. Such as the SCR tank, which commonly fails on these cars, however I think on the X5 BMW has extended the warranty on them to 100K. The sedan's no... The tanks seem to die about every 50-80k miles.

[Ricky Bobby]

Emissions components like the urea tanks etc should be covered under 8y/80k federal emissions or in CARB states 10y/120k I believe - on later gen vehicles the component lifespan was upped to 150k as in the Gen3 TDI

Trust me with all this emissions nonsense going on the last thing BMW wants to hear is a call to the EPA or the CARB that they have federal emissions components failing way before the federal and CARB emissions components mandate and are expecting customers to foot the bill. Sure there are people who won't fight back but if my urea tank took a dump at 60k I'd laugh if they expected me to replace it on my dime. It's an essential part of the emissions system.

Same as if a catalytic converter died at 60k, anything that fails early directly relating to the emissions of the vehicle should be covered.

If for some reason it's not, well a DPF and EGR and urea delete would happen a lot sooner than needed.