Bought my daughter a 2002 X5
 

I just bought my 17 year old daughter a 2002 X5. This was a reward for getting very nearly a full ride to college. It is a 4.4i Sport model, in dark grey. It has sport seats (no heat unfortunately!), Sat Nav and 6 disc changer..but no DSP. Rear air shocks only. It also has the 20" wheels from a 4.6i. I shopped around for quite a while, and I think found a decent example, and the price was very right.

The good is that the car is near showroom condition. There are three small dimples that PDR will fix in the next 10 days or so. The right mirror is scraped, and the roof lip above the windscreen needs to be painted, (requiring the first foot or so of the roof painted and blended near the sunroof). Needs a new windshiled as well. All that will be done this week. That's it for cosmetics. So in about two weeks the car will be basically perfect cosmetically. Not bad for ten years old. No one who has seen it, (who can't tell a year of a BMW by exact styling cues,) can believe the age of the car.

The bad is that it's got it's share of typical X5 woes. Indicated mileage is only 85K, but according to the Carfax, that's been tampered with. Given three missing years on the Carfax, my guess is closer to 130k. It needs two of the front control arms, and sway bar links. Rest of the suspension is fine. These are repairs I can deal with easily.

It's got a pretty good amount of oil leakage, so I'll start with valve cover gaskets first, and may as well do the plugs at the same time, (given the unknown mileage.) I'll need to check the CCV gasket as well, and get a look at all those hoses from the OSV.

NAV screen has some bad pixel glitches, and a new LCD is on it's way from Hong Kong. Given how good the NAV is on my only two year newer 2004 Infiniti, I can't believe how bad this system is; but it better than nothing. It seems to have a very hard time finding the best route, and is quite cumbersome to use. The map is virtually useless, and unless I'm missing something, it does not seem to have things like schools, parks, hospitals, restaurants and gas stations programmed in. Oh well.

Well, that's it for the "easy" problems. I've got a few issues that have me scratching my head a bit, which I will post to this thread.

She's a lucky girl! Not only for the scholarship, the new ride, but especially for you fixing it up! Congratulations to you and her both!! Sounds like a sweet X.

Sounds like you have lots of works waiting for you. Did you get a really good deal for it?

What maintenance history does it have? Cooling system overhaul? Tampered cluster isn't exactly easy fix, unless you have BMW coding software. Is there a tiny red dot in front of the trip meter?

Whoever tampered with the clusted had access to the proper equipment. Mileage on the cluster agrees with the mileaqge on the light control module. No red dot. There's nothing to fix...everything abpout the cluster is perfect; except that I know the mileage to be false.

I got no maintenance hiostory with the car. For most of its life, according to the carfax, it went to the dealer on a regular basis. That's about all I know.

Thanks. Definately a really nice car. Drove it 300 miles this weekend. She loves it.

what about the DOT records? in many states, when a car's registration is renewed, the DOT will ask for the current mileage, not really exact mileage but some number..,That number should be increasing from year to year accounting for the miles driven, and technically should throw a red flag within the same state, if the "new" registration shows the car with less mileage then the previous registration of the same car... i am not so sure about the out-of-state cars... besides, the seller MUST indicate if the odometer reading is actual or "estimate"... verbaige will vary from state to state...

From what I remember, the odometer reading is registered in the cluster, the LCM and the ABS unit, where all three must be within 200 km (or is it 200 miles?) from each other.

I would not rely on the CarFax, as it listed my own car as being in the US (which it was), then all of a sudden coming into the US from Costa Rica in 2009 and NEVER indicating that the car left the US for Costa Rica in 2007... so, it looks funny... Then it shows as being exported to Belgium even though it was sent to Finland via Belgium for final destination in Russia, and then it shows as coming back from Belgium and the car's origin being in Germany... the X, that was born in the US... lol... Do your research and do not rely on the CarFax...

of course, if you care to know the history of the car... otherwise, just have your daughter enjoy it... hopefully her college life will not destroy the car prematurelly - my sister-in-law got an E36 coupe for her 17th B.day... her, and her friends thrashed the car that in a couple of years that poor thing looked like an old, beat up honda civic...

Yeah I concur. When I old my Z32 a few year ago, it had 52K original miles on it. When I was looking for my new E53, I got a carfax and just for giggles I looked up the VIN on my Z32. It never mentioned I was an owner of it and said it had odometer rollback on it. Stating it currently has 51K on it. That was 2009; the last record. SO I don't trust Carfax for mileage, but for history.

A lot of people this it is worthless, but I think it is helpful. But again, even that doesn't track everything.

Another example was my Acura Vigor. I got into an accident into the car. I was T-boned in an intersection. Went through insurance and everything, never came up on Carfax.

Woah! This is very similar to my story! I'm 18 I just got a 2002 X5 not to long ago with just about the same share of problems. Can I marry your daughter?


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You're too funny. When I think about the rusty MGB that was my first car, it's not much of a comparison to the X5s you kids have.

Luckily for my daughter we have a very well equipped home garage. I have just about every tool a good Indy would have except a lift and only have a basic scan tool. But I've also got a friend with a very good German car specialty shop less than 1/4 mile away, for when I get in over my head. So in a month or two, my daughter's X5 will be fully sorted.

Well if the Carfax is wrong, and the car's mileage is accurate, that's just another plus. But when a year or more passes, and the mileage reported at state inspections dropped something's fishy. But I don't really care. This car is too clean for its age to be too worried.

As far as my daughter ruining it at college, time will tell. She can't have a car freshman year, so she'll have two years of "supervised" ownership before she's on her own. But she'll only be 150 miles away, so she can always come home for repairs and service.