I hope you enjoy it. My experience is with the 4.4 liter gas engine. Many x5 have a cooling system with a pressurized plastic overflow tank. The pressurize plastic parts scare me...

I would second the suggestion to overhaul the cooling system before too long. Include the overflow tank, water pump and hoses.

I have switched to a 1 bar "radiator cap" (it's not on the radiator) instead of the stock 2 bar version. It does slightly lower the boiling point (something like 40F lower), but cuts the maximum pressure to protect all those plastic bits. I have no idea whether this is still a good idea in your climate and with that engine.

FWIW - a friend has an '03 (I think) 3.0D in NZ. He tows a 2 tonne tandem trailer full of glass (glazier). His X has turned over 400,000 kms and apart from regular maintenance items, has been faultless. He claims it's the most reliable vehilce he's ever owned, including his former Landcruiser (also diesel with 1HZ motor). Admittedly, his vehicle has done mostly highway miles, but that's in the South Island where its very mountainous so the motor has worked hard.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I feel very welcome on this forum already. I will pick the brains of the current owner about what items have been done when I pick it up.

I didn't have a lot of time for all that when I was at Mount Gambier looking at the X5 as we went down to see our new granddaughter born Fri 22nd May. It just so happened that there was this vehicle with the specs that I was looking for (diesel, black leather sports seats, and not black on the outside). (My E39 is black and never stays clean.) The X5 is silver with black interior and black powdercoated style 132 wheels.

I took it for a test run and everything was tight, it ran well and everything worked. I will post some pics as soon as it is parked in my driveway.

I hope you enjoy it Tom. I also highly recommend replacing the expansion tank cap with a 1.4 bar cap. I did it when I replaced all the cooling components on my X to prevent another blowout. All of the components when new have a failure point above the 2bar that the standard cap runs at but with a little age they seem to fall below that so the cap is no longer the fail point of the system.

The manufacturer part number is 17111742232 and it has a yellow disc in the centre.

Basically if the system overpressures it will leak out of the cap as opposed to blowing a hole in your radiator, in 12 months I never noticed any coolant loss electronically or visually so knowing that all the other parts were protected I couldn't see any negatives from it.

If you google that number it'll bring up numerous hits...

I just had a look on ETK and standard diesel expansion tank cap is 1.4 bar. (Totally different radiator setup to the V8). Possibly too, if the X5 is anything like the E39's the V8 versions have more problems with cooling systems components than the 6's

Lucky bugger.... :thumbup: