How Has Your X5 Embarrassed You?
 

I work for the school system as a Computer/Network Technician.
Today, I pulled up to a middle school and the principal ran up to greet me saying. Wow! is that your beamer?! I'm like yuppp... he asks me many more questions about it... Than say he had a 2002 or bavaria and it was good for skiing. After all this bmw talk, I get my work done. Get to my car, unlock it. sit down. key in ignition... its about to start and than dies. No lights. Try again nothing. I think its the key at first. I step out. try unlocking... no response. get back in...still not lights... Than crawl to the back... open the rear door. fold down seats and start moving stuff to get to the trunk. finnaly open the truck using emergency latch. than pull the floor board, tire, get to the battery and it looks fine... look at it again and notice the negative (black cable is a bit loose. Push it down and the car comes to life! Than put all the stuff back and drive away. Embarrassing when about 10 people wearing suits with ties are all staring at me and the guy that just talked about how great BMW's are is starring at my embarrassing moment. So this is why I carry...... Tools and diag laptop. Has you X embarrassed you? post below and any tips on how to prevent the cables from getting loose? its tighten all the way but still moves up. I dont like putting a rag over it.

2nd owner here, bought at 100k miles and over 160k now. The X has never left me stranded/embarrassed, but I do everything DIY except for alignment. Battery replacement is repair 101, who leaves a battery terminal loose? ALL vehicles are NO more reliable then the lamest dumbass to have EVER worked on it.

do you have an aftermarket battery that has different (smaller) terminals than stock?

In Moscow I lived in an upscale neighborhood, where Bentleys were rather common vehicles... I was always greeted by the neighbors, everyting was OK, until one day, when I was swapping summer 20" for the winter 18" myself, one of the neighbors was driven by his chauffer in his carriag... er... in his Bentley, and he rolled the window as he drove by me, looking down on me from the open window - you could see on his face: I was greeting you in the mornings, thinking you were the OWNER of the BMW, and all you are, just a DRIVER!!!

^^^That's some funny stuff ^^^

With the 01 4.4: I get out of a dinner meeting a few years ago. I just detailed the X so the white was really popping in the moonlight. It looked great. As I am talking to the guests, we start talking about the car... I unlock and open the door, Door handle carrier broke. Go to the passenger side, door is locked, hit the button, still locked. Door actuator is toast. Go to the back seat and had to open the door from there. After that moment and the guest looking at me, I said, "I dont call it a BMW, I call it BMTroubleU. If it ain't broke, it will be." They laugh and I go on my way.

04 4.8is: I was screwing around the with suspension in the parking lot. Don't know why 3" of lift and drop is so damn spectacular to witness. Had some people looking at it and one came up and starting complementing me on it. He gets curious about the suspension and such... So I turn hit the switch to get it to normal ride height, lol bells, dings, warnings, DSC, ABS, Brake, SLS Inact error,... just starts flipping out. The guy sees and says, sensitive littler bugger huh. I say, "You;re telling me.

So yeah... there have been moment.

you are a lucky owner :yawn:

aftermarket bosch

haha, ti cho ez moskvi???

не, я там был по работе, почти год, 2009-2010... жил на покровских холмах...


for the non-russian speaking friends:

are you from moscow?

no, i was working there almost a year, 2009-2010. I lived at the Pokrovskiy Hills

Drove onto the Washington State Ferry for a 45 minute ride across the big water. Listening to the radio, watching the nav.

Get to the other side, and the thing wont start. Had to get pushed off with the push cart, and then jumped.

Sad.

Bought my X5 2006 4.4i 2 months ago.
First ride with my wife the X started with heavy misfire (cold weather) and all cockpit was shaking badly...my wife (driving 2012 Mercedes Benz) give the one of a kind over look .telling me : what the hell is this ? .LOL ...no, not good ...

CCV failure in downtown Minneapolis during rush hour. The truck died during a red light. When it turned green I tried to fire it up. It eventually started, so I revved it. The smoke show was so intense that I smoked out an entire city bus behind me. He was laying on his horn throughout the red light, finally when it turned yellow I dropped it into drive and left him to wait for the lights to cycle yet again. Luckily the truck seemed to run OK during the rest of the ride home. I was pretty pissed off about it right away, and now it's just funny as hell.

our X5's seem to give the owners trouble... But when we drive it, the feeling we get. THE DRIVE, its a forgiving feeling.

russian edit- Kapreznaya mashina!

had a bunch of people standing around my car in the parking lot during high school. few guys wanted me to start it so i got in and fired it up. all you heard was a loud knocking noise as the engine started. a common problem in the 4.4i m62 engine. literally everyone looked and asked wtf is wrong with my truck

they must have thought you're a rich kid. chain rails?

That doesn't sound embarrassing. That sounds like you manned up and took care of your stuff. I'm sure they were all impressed. They're not about to diagnose any problem however simple it may be while they're wearing suits.

On a side note something similar happened to me and I just fixed it. Who cares if you get your hands dirty. My hood latch lever broke off so I couldn't get the hood open. Used the OEM jack bar with the small hook in it to reach into the grill and pull the latch open. Any BMW owner worth their salt will know the reliability issues that come with it. Being able to take care of simple things on your own make you a better owner.

never diagnosed what the problem was with it. dealership wouldn't even attempt to fix the problem, they said the knocking sound was normal :dunno:

Unreal! Engine knock is NORMAL??? I love how so many issues are considered "normal" by the dealers. The best one is how drastic oil consumption in the 3.0L engine is "normal".

My wife was driving the X5 and twice after the ccv valve froze the X put out clouds of smoke behind it, you could not see anything. Once we were together and it happened. Litterally you could not see anything behind us. Luckily we were not too far from home that i could drive back. I made sure to roll into our driveway so the neighbors would see the cloud of smoke :dunno: