The rule of thumb, replacing older car with similar one would be more expensive than maintaining it, unless the old car will soon need new engine or something(but it's not cool to sell your soon needing engine car to someone;)).

And of course you never know when that might happen. My wife's 2003 Mazda blew a radiator and the engine overheated and blew a headgasket and likely warped the head. I didn't want to throw good many after bad with a 120K mile motor, so I swapped it with a Japanese take-out for under $1500 including all of the new parts I included at the time. Too bad there is no silly law in Germany requiring motors be pulled before they hit 40K miles, or we would get the spoils of cheap replacement mills. Oh well.

oh - will add I've had my X5 for a year plus a quarter and logged 16K miles including the 4K to get it from KY to CA. So far all I have replaced is an AC fuse and a CV boot, for which I ended up just replacing the axle after stripping the threads on the original spindle. I think that cost me about $75. Oh - I guess I did a bunch of maint - replaced all the fluids, spark plugs, air filter, cabin filter, fuel filter, etc. So that was a couple hundred. And I did buy the hardware to replace front brakes which was about $400, but all cars use up brakes and tires and need periodic maint, so I hardly count those costs since they are relatively constant from car to car within certain classes and sizes of vehicles anyway. And of course if all of that had been done by a service dept instead of by me, the costs could have easily been well up into the $1K's, since I hear dealers charge upwards of $2K just to replace the brakes on a 4.6is.

Only things that went wrong on mine prior to 100K miles was water pump, coolant expansion tank, alternator and oil leaks from valve covers and the pan. All fixed under CPO. So much of the common failure items have been addressed. I need to watch for the valley pan failure - so far that hasn't happened. And I really should replace the radiator even tho the dealer checked it out 15K miles ago and all was good. Over 100K you are rolling the dice to some degree - although at least the expansion tank and some of the hoses were already replaced.

Anyway - all pretty common stuff from BMW's of this vintage.

I have an 01 4.4 Sport, sitting right at 100,000 miles. I do ALL of my own work, so the amounts listed below are only the parts costs. I drove 15,000 mi over the last 12 months, with the following repairs needed:

$350 Replaced most of Front suspension (thrust arms and ball joints, control arms, sway end links)--my ride was suffering from the brake shimmy

$780 Replaced most of the cooling system: OE water pump ($200), radiator ($200),every cooling hose under the hood (~10 hoses @$380) -- my water pump was leaking, radiator neck was leaking, and I blew one of the heater hoses sitting at a stop light

$400 Water cooled alternator--the bearing seized up on the way to work one morning

$100 Battery--died without warning, but it was 5 yrs old

$XXX other misc expenses for minor repairs/maintenance (taillight bulb $1, r134a recharge $8, inspection I materials $150, Bentley manual $70, rattling brake pad $free)

$1000 new tires all around (staggered 19" setup)


I've spent $1630, just in parts, to repair all breakdowns over the past year @ 15k miles/yr.

If you add in maintenance parts/materials and tires, I am closer to $3000 over the past year.

If I had paid an indy or dealer, it obviously adds labor costs which would have been LOTS more $$$, but I did have to spend a significant number of hours doing the work (whatever the value of that is).

The sad part is, at this point I still have some repairs that need to be done. I just found a slit in one of my front CV boots and my aux fan is dead.

Hopefully most of the repairs I did over the past year should be good for another 50k miles (cooling,suspension,alternator,tires) so I take some comfort in that fact.

The weird thing is, I don't seem to mind the expense. The X5 is so badass that the costs only cross my mind occasionally. I drive it everyday, everywhere I go. I've also used the vehicle to make several 4hr+ road trips (Houton to Dallas, Houston to San Antonio), and it was flawless.

That's the thing - what else are you going to drive that gives you what the X5 offers? Other than a Cayenne which are generally more problematic, or a newer X5 which will cost you significantly more than keeping an E53 on the road when you factor in all the depreciation. Plus not like the newer BMW platforms are devoid of issues, especially electrical.

Agreed 100%.

If I'm going to drive a used vehicle, I'll stick with the one where I intimately know it's maintenance condition, and drive it until the wheels fall off. (and by sticking with one platform over a longer time, you continually gain knowledge on how to fix the wheels when they fall off).

The more I learn about the E53 (and specifically, the 4.6iS), the more I love it. Thanks largely to the knowledge of you fine folks here at the outpost. :)