New owner 2009 X5 3.0 Metallic Black

[x5mad]

Congrats and welcome! I was in the same situation with the choice of cars but was also considering the porsche cayenne. However I also feel the right choice was with the X5. I have now had it for 12 months and still love it!

As to your questions

1. The USB connector is only for hooking up usb drives and similar to play music, it will not work with iphone.

2. I think the only difference would be that you should have a dvd multichanger as opposed to cd multichanger. Otherwise pretty much the same (Im from Australia though so dont quote me!)

3. Black is a beautiful colour... when clean! I too ordered black and it looks stunning when clean, which lasts all of 5 minutes! Black unfortunately is very difficult to maintain as it shows up swirls, scratches etc far more than the other colours. I am quite anal when looking after the X5 due to the above. So I clean it myself (apart from today as I was feeling lazy - and let this be a lesson as it came back full of swirl marks and scratches as if someone had washed it with sandpaper! grrr!)

So apart from that one incident above I wash it myself. Twice a year I do a full detail, which includes wash, clay bar, polishing with random orbital sander - how many steps depends on how bad the paintwork, swissvax cleaner fluid, then swissvax concorso. Then roughly once a week I just do a normal wash - but I use something called dodo juice shampoo so as not to take off my wax layer, microfibre wash mits - much safer than a sponge i find, and 2 bucket method. Finally drying with a microfibre towel. (The steps are a bit more detailed than this but I have condensed)

So as you can see if you want to keep it it in pristine condition its hardwork! If you dont have the time or are too lazy then you need to find a good detailer, avoid car washes or 'express' hand wash places.

4. Ebay