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?