2006 X5 A Lemon?
 

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone else has had this much difficulty with their '06 X5 4.4...

First week of owning the car the "Self Level Susp Inact" error message comes on. Called dealer and reported problem and was told to bring it in the next time it occurred.

Few weeks later, same issue so car went to dealer and item was allegedly repaired.

Five weeks after that, same issue. Again, car goes into dealer, this time spending two days there and was told the item was, again, repaired. Indicated on our "satifaction" phone survey, that not so satisfied with the car given the recurrent issue. Was told that my concerns would be forwarded to BMWNA and that they would be in touch--never heard a peep from them.

Six weeks later, same issue AGAIN. Car is currently at dealer (tomorrow will be day two).

Have mentioned CA Lemon Law and dealer has filed a report with BMWNA and I will be calling them to follow up.

Any thoughts and/or suggestions?

Car is 5.5 mos old and has already needed service 4x for the same issue. I have young kids and having to take the car in so frequently is getting annoying, not to mention that I get saddled with a crummy Mini-Cooper each time as my loaner.

Jam,

Hi. I have a 2000 X5 and I get the same "suspension" message. I am taking it in soon. I have had a lot of problems with my X5, all of course, engineering problems and nothing to do with me. I thought spending this much money on a car was a good idea. I don't know now. I should have bought a Benz I think.

Change dealers. That might be the ticket. I hate to say it but some folks on this site have issues with dealers who it appears don't know what their doing.

:iagree:

Dealer quality is just as poor in the UK. We no longewr use our supplying dealer for any work as both rides always come back with the original work done but something else screwed up. When I'm paying $200+ (£115) per hour (plus tax) for labour they have got to do better.

Their service and support was great until the money was handed over - since then it's been poor and as we have a dealer 7 miles away rather than the supplier being 25 miles away it was no contest really.

BMW GB aren't much use either. I don't think the issue is with the make specifically, it seems (to me) that most auto-dealers have some serious problems keeping up with what the manufacturers are producing.

Don't think that Benz is problem free, in fact they have more quality issues than BMW. My relative bought an ML and he is one unhappy ML owner due to repeated problems. The transmission on his ML failed at 14k miles.
On the other hand there are several members here who are very happy X5 owners.

It's a common practice for manufacturers to set a reimbursement limit for diagnostic and repair work. If your tech is familiar with the issue you are in luck.
If not another service center may be in order.

Speaking from personal experience with a POS SLK350, their engine/transmission problems are much worse than any BMW issue. IMO

I have a 2005 X5 4.4 and have had very little problems with the car.

I agree with the suggestion of trying another dealer. Or maybe you should call the service manager at the current dealer and discuss the problem with him.

The problem you are having while aggravating will not leave you stranded.

I had a Volvo with a check engine issue that caused me to visit the dealer many times. I that case the dealer worked hard to solve it but it talk many tries. Today's cars re lie on computers and it is hard to solve an intermittent problem.

That message seems pretty common is not a cause to worry about the safety of your ride. We have a 06 X5 4.4 and I also got that message. It went out the next time I started the car, and never came back. However, before the SUV was 2 months old, I had to have the fuel pump and all 8 injectors replaced for hard starting problems. I know it was a bad injector, but inititally they must have thought lets also throw a fuel pump at it. That had no change, and only fixed when the injectors were replaced. Since then, it has performed flawless. Talk to the Service director and ask him to call BMW Tech assistance if he has to.

Sorry to hear about your problems - the truth is you are not alone in your frustrations. I have not had any problems with my car (knock on wood) but know several people who have and decided to cut their losses and move on to other brands. I hope this gets straightened out for you to your satisfaction soon.

Have you noticed any problems with the ride when the message is on?

This is a VERY common message (do a search) and appears to be related to some self-diagnostic that is going on. Most of the time, there is nothing wrong with the self-levelling suspension and the message goes away the next time you start it. Annoying...but not a driveability problem. I get it every few months...never felt a problem with the suspension and it always goes away the next time I start it. Thinking of having the TSB applied next time I'm in for service.


http://www.xoutpost.com/articles/x5/s...esolution.html

Burning oil problem, maybe??

My '06 4.4 now has 7000 miles, including a 5000 mile cross country trip to and thru the Colorado mountains and back. All at highway+ speeds. (Went over one 11000' pass with a Nissan Max on my tail at 90+.) I have the sport with adj ride height, and the car has been flawless! Not a single problem.

As I always do with new cars, I carefully broke in the engine, following my own oil change guidelines. I had the oil changed before I left on the trip, and again upon my return. After 5000 miles at 70+ mph, including climbing several 11,000 passes at 70+ mph, the oil was one quart low (from normal fill line). Not bad oil usage!!

As to the dealers and their service writers, I've been more than satisfied every time I've gone in (There are two BMW's in the house) for service. They respond to customers the same way customers respond to them. They are human, after all, and we should use the same courtesy with them we expect to receive from them. I've had no problems either with my selling store or with the others I've used as I travel around the US.

I am also having problems with my 06 4.4, but different problems. I got it in July and it has about 4,700 miles on it at the moment.

I have posted a thread on it, because I am having problems with it when in idle. The car vibrates when my foot is on the break so bad that my water bottles will rattle, so I won't get into particulars. The nav screen sometimes looks faded and has a slow response, but when restarted it will be fine. A couple of times it had a terrible rattle and squeeking sound coming from the engine, but that only occured a handful of times. Once I started it recently and a huge poof of white smoke came out of too! I so love the fact that I spent $60,000 on a car that drives like this!

I have my third scheduled appointment for the 26th because I can NOT leave work early again over this car. I am almost hoping that it will break down and I will have the press the SOS button so that they will do something about this! At this point I am also very annoyed because I have been told that I am now imagining this problem, or that the 4.4 is a large engine and it is normal (why didn't this occur for the 3 months when I first got it then?) More about this in the thread I started (I will bump it for you).

At lease you are getting a mini cooper. Better than the Hundai Sonata that I have been so lucky to drive around in!

I am sorry I can not help, but do share in your frustrations!

Can you change dealers and still get a loaner? I had always thought you had to bring it back to the same place you bought it from in order to get the free maintance and loaner.

My 2005 4.4 vibrates at idle with the a/c off.

How severe is it? Very interesting.

It not so bad, if in turn on the a/c it adds enough load that the problem goes away.

I had to the dealer in the summer, they fixed it but in came back after about three weeks. It leased and don't really want to take the time to bring it back; I just keep the AC on.

So if i have you post correct the problem is an error message comes on "Self Level Susp Inact" and it's done this 4 times correct?

Could it be that your vehicle is not a lemon but the technicians who are trying to solve the problem don't know what they are doing?

As I mentioned i would head to another dealer. On the face of it your biggest worry is an error message and having to make too many trips to get it solved. Compared to the issues others are having your experience may be huge to you but in comparision to others ide say it's not that big a deal.

It may be a software glitch that BMW is having trouble chasing down. So as long as someone's trying to get it figured out hang in there and keep us posted.

The upside of this kind of thing is when you find out what the problem is keep a record of it then pass the word. X5world is a great resourse for solving issues the dealers don't know about and you can be a pipeline to help others if it comes up again.

This kind of thing is not new. A few years back many dealerships didn't know squat about the iPod interface but we did.

Yes, I had the same problem! Dealer trip 4 times, but the last time I went to Stevens Creek BMW in Santa Clara CA - They took care of the problem: appearently they replaced several parts - they mentioned $5000 for repairs if I didn't have the CPO. IF YOU LIVE IN THE SF BAY AREA, DON'T TAKE YOUR CAR INTO THE ALLISON (MT VIEW) BMW DEALERSHIP - THEY SUCK - POOR ATTITUDE AND THEY WOULD NOT REPAIR MY X. They told me to just drive around the air susp error and enjoy the rough ride and no DSC. I couldn't accept that. What a difference a good dealership can make! That was in June 06 - No problems since.

Apparently a well known MB issue.

I recently took delivery of a new 2006 4.4 and have felt a vibration in the seat, when the engine is cold and waiting at a stop. The vibration stopped when shifting into neutral, did not see any fluctuation in the tach.

After two tanks of fuel (SHELL) it stopped. Could it be the quality of the gas or water in the tank? This X5 was delivered to the dealer in 11/05 and with 400mi on the odometer it may have been sitting for sometime.

Yes, but try fitting TWO carseats in the back of a mini-cooper! :rolleyes:

When I was purchasing my X5, I asked about the loaner maybe next time.

My dealer has 325's as loaner, I like driving them more than my X5.

Update...dealer called and wants authorization to keep the car for the THIRD flippin' day! Stick a fork in me, I'm done! it shouldn't take this long to fix this or to try and figure out how to.

The next closest dealer to me does not have a great reputation and since the car is still under warranty, I only want it at a dealer.

How can you say to him that nothing is WRONG (most of the time)?
There is something wrong and he needs it fixed. This is a problem to the X5 (small %) and it is a problem that the BMW service techs don't know how to fix. You need to get BMWNA involved and they will want to fix it the cheap way. They will try to fix it as cheap as they can; it will reappear again and again. Then finally BMWNA will approve the major repair.
Good Luck!

Because in many cases (as posted in this forum many times and my own experience included) it turns out that nothing is actually wrong with the operation of the self-levelling suspension itself, the problem turns out to be with the warning system. I didn't say not to get it fixed...in fact I pointed him to a TSB which might help.

I did not get the self-leveling suspension in my '06 4.4 sport and I'm hardpressed to think of any real problems it's given me - I've had to adjust to the "hesitation" when accellerating from a dead stop - I just hope posting this reply doesn't "jinx" me

Selflevel Susp. Inact
 

"Selflevel Susp. Inact" is back and I'm bummed out - back to the dealer again for this problem. (I already checked fuses - front/rear). This will be the 5th trip for the same problem. :rolleyes: Atleast I'm still covered under CPO.

more problem than MB ML320
 

I have 2006 X5 4.4. I had it for about 1 yr now with 15k. Previously I had 2001 MB ML320, for five years, several problems like broken window switch, ... etc. Nothing major, not a single time that car stoped.
On the other hand with X5. Yes it is a lot better acceleration & ride compared to ML. It should be for about $20k more. Three wks ago on Sunday morning after car wash, car never started again. X5 was towed to Riverside BMW, and I asked for Mr. John Horgan. I read about his good reviews here previously. No rental car of course, since I bought mine from Shelly BMW. They kept mine for two days, and they claimed that it was all fixed up. On the freeway back from Riverside BMW, engine failure warning kicked in and RPM hits floor. Every warning lights on the dash flash like crazy. I was on the first lane on interstate 15 N. Thank god traffic was light that day, otherwise I would have been stucked in middle of freeway. I called Riverside BMW, and explained what just happened. They towed X5 again, and guess what this time round, they had X5 as loaner ready. I guess they realized they did something wrong. This time it took them 3 days to figure out the problem, moisture in main computer chip, and 3 more days to fix everything.
After all, BMW service sucks compared to MB (MB service is not the best either). Yeah BMW covers breaks and 4 yr oil changes...etc. But when your car really needs service, all dealer service depts are all filled up for days. They wouldn't even look at your car for days. Service depts are already filled up, but BMW usa wants to bring in 1 series next year. I bet it is not going to get better than now.:(
By the way what is wrong with BMW loaner program. If we get toyota camry as loaner from enterprise, why did we pay extra $30-40k for BMW?? toyota camry owners get camrys as loaner from toyota dealership!!

I have a 2006 4.4 and have to say its been flawless.

But my 2004 4.4 has had several issues with the slef level suspen inactive message. They were chasing the problems for months. They changed every part in the suspension and it just kept coming back. Finally the last time it happened the X was in the shop for 2 weeks finally they had a factory rep look at it and he asked them if they checked the fault codes in the instrument cluster because they are totally seperate from all other fault codes the dealer techs didnt even know what the factory rep was talking about. so they check the instrument cluster falt codes and it has like 50 stored. for all kinds of shit and most of them were for the suspension. I guess the instrument cluster has its own computer or something and it was taking wrong readings from the suspension and thought it was inactive.

Anyway they changed the instrument cluster and have not had a problem since.

32K now on my 2006 X5 4.4 - still running great with no issues at all to report (knock on wood & said in a whisper) - 40K & inspection II should be in October in SC (my oil change interval is 20K per the display, but I also do one after 10K - Seems BMW won't pay for the inspection II until the 2nd indicated oil change vs actual mileage)

same here...my '06 4.4i has been mostly flawless. It is a last model year BMW and those are usually the ones with the least amount of problems. Good Luck...:thumbup:

http://www.xoutpost.com/attachments/x...g?d=1187558620
Picked up the X5 tonight - Air compressor was replaced.:bounce: