I didn't quite read the whole thread, but you think a dead bulb, be it even xenon, is the end of the world? Wait till you get to the transmission :)

Clearly you didnt read the whole thread, the xenon failure is just one out of a series of failures. If it was the only problem I had with my car, I would probably be a happy camper. :D

You need to read my posts more carefully,otherwise I am wasting my time!

I didnt say to ignore the injector issue!I said ,replace the glow plugs first ,as these are directly responsible for your cold starting problems,and then only will you see if you still have an injector issue!

Again,I didnt tell you that if you didnt replace one injector ,that the others would go bad!Injectors can be replaced individually ,unlike the glow plugs...
Maybe this was something the dealer told you,like they told you about the starter!

Please don't get me wrong, I really appreciate your support on this. I apologize about saying that u told me if I let the faulty injector for a while it might affect the others. Now that I remember, it was another dealer who told me this.
What I am thinking of doing, and please tell me if it sounds crazy, is to replace the injector and 6 glow plugs, get a 1 yr warranty extension on the car (I discovered that the dealer actually offers this) and just sell the car. If some new problem crops up in the mean time, at least the warranty will cover it and because it is tranferable, it should increase the value of the car.
What do u think?

listen to "powers1" he's on the money the reason your starter has to crank so long is that the glow plugs are faulty or not working, once you have that done you can then determine what else , if anything needs doing,

my advice would be , spend less time at your keyboard and get the spanners out and have a go.

sell the car and buy a newer one,the best car in te world- BMW

I have a 2005 3.0d that's done 70,000km or so and it's been the picture of reliability and has only been back to the dealer for routine servicing. All this despite being driven on rough gravel/dirt roads as much as on sealed roads. And most sealed roads that it covers are very poorly maintained. For me, the 3.0d offers a fantastic trade-off between effortless performance and low fuel use (average 8.6 litres/100km).

Ok, just to update you on the latest, I gave my E53 for repairs and, as mentioned, they replaced the faulty injector and all 6 glow plugs. I also extended the warranty (non BMW) for another 12 months.
Total cost (parts, labor & tax) came to the equivalent of $1500. Extending the warranty 1 year (full coverage) set me back an additional $900.
I can really feel the difference, the vibrations at cold start are gone and there is no strange smell. The ignition problem is also gone (I guess it was the glow plugs). So now I guess I am somewhat a happy camper although I still dont think it is normal to experience a whole series of problems for a car that a bit more than 5 yrs old.
Thanks again to all, especially powers1 for your guidance.

Glad you got it sorted,thats what matters.:thumbup: