Lol Ard does not work for BMW. He lemoned an E70 for fuck's sake.

Jesus, if you put as much effort into getting your car fixed as you do getting back, or whatever you call this, at ard and others in the forum, maybe you wouldn't have anything to complain about.

I got a transmission replaced on a well-maintained and documented 2002 530i with 38k miles that was eight years old by being an adult and clearly stating my expectations and case to BMW NA and not by being an insolent child. If your demeanor and conduct here is any example, it's no wonder you've not had this basic, simple problem not remedied to your satisfaction. Good luck in your future endeavors.

Regrettably, I later sold the 530i and it's still going strong to this day.

$76K car.

Turbo crapped at 41K miles.
Transmission crapped at 51K miles.

I'm a BMWCCA since 1991 and have owned 20+ Bimmers. Currently own 5.

Further I sayeth not.

BMWAG has dinged me $80 on this months kickback because I failed to contain muleskinner. Dang it.


But seriously mule, I kick the crap out of BMW in many forums- although more dealers on the sales and service side. However Ive been very vocal- early and often- about BMWs atrocious behavior on their N63 recall/cover-up.


You have some really bad luck, and I felt bad for you. But the idea that you will come here on an enthusiast forum and abuse the people here as a way to achieve your pound of flesh seems massively misguided. It has quite blunted my sympathy.

You went to the dealer for the fix without asking here first, of course they are going to sell you a trans replacement. This is supposed to be a place where we can help. All of us find the dealer network to suck with troubleshooting. For one guy it was just that his fluid was low, another it was a leaky 10$ seal. The turbo I don't know because you saw oil leaking but did you see if the turbo was really bad or it was just a loose ccv pipe? I reread the thread just now and you didn't give proper feed back, the blown off hose could have caused the oil to leak but you didn't try with it back on.... I think these cars are indeed a pain but you jump to accepting failure from a dealer or Indy without skepticism of that diagnosis. Ard, I, and others have seen many misdiagnosed issues here. Maybe it's time to move away from bmw because they are becoming much less reliable, small things look like big failures and so on. Better to get a less over engineered (and badly engineered) car and just get a decent realiable car instead that can also be fast but doesn't need a lot of skills to diagnose or has mechanics and dealers that can and will overcharge/over replace because it's "luxury"

For starters, you bought a USED BMW WITHOUT A WARRANTY. Yes the car originally sold for 76k but you bought a car that lost most of its value since it is implied(the used car resale value) that it WILL NEED repairs. Look at how Lexus SUVs hold their value of the equivalent year and this is attributed to less anticipated costly repairs, hence it holds its value better. You're going to pay one way or another.

Sure you got unlucky. I know you said you knew the original owner but did they know how to properly warm up the car or how to cool off the turbos before shutting it off(taking it easy that last stretch.)

Complaining on these forums is like putting your wallet in your mouth. No one cares. The forum people are advising you to go to a BMW independent shop as the transmission may need to get serviced instead of replaced. At least call them and talk to them like an adult. The dealer doesn't care for small jobs, they just want to replace your transmission without even considering any alternative.

The transmission is manufactured by ZF. It's a very common transmission used in a variety of vehicles, brands, models, etc... ZF arguably makes the most reliable & powerful automatic transmissions for luxury brands / high torque consumer applications...

If the transmission is indeed "Failed" at that mileage, you unfortunately grabbed the poopy end of the stick... It happens...

If the dealership is saying the transmission is "Failed", I would get a second opinion from a competent transmission shop. Blindly trusting the dealership's diagnosis of a transmission failure, is like blindly trusting a medi-center's diagnosis of brain cancer... It's a bit outside of their expertise & area of ability...

Plenty of folks having their ZF 6HP transmissions completely rebuilt for a whole lot more power for only a few grand...

If the transmission internals actually are damaged & need replacement, I'd bet my left nut that there were subtle symptoms well before the catastrophic failure...

Wow... I came to get some INFORMATION and while I am very sympathetic to the OP, my trans has been making some high pitched whining noises (2011 e70 3.0, BTW) and I too have 50K miles on my clock. Took it to my indy (The Great Folks at German Car Shop in Edison NJ) and Serge and I went for a 15 minute ride. Of course, no whine (or cheese for that matter). So I asked because the manual says 50-60K get a trans fluid and filter change, how much might that be. That's when my jaw hit the floor... $1,000 estimate, mostly for parts and fluid, labor is a couple of hours maybe. So when I got home I went to REALOEM.COM, put in my vin, and it shows PNs but no prices.
Is there anyone here who can educate me? $1k sounds like a lot for (as I am told) mostly the filter, the pan, and the fluid.
Thanks
Ed in NJ

Except when I put in my VIN, FCPEuro states “This is not for your X5”.
Thanks for the help, but maybe I’ll send you my VIN and see if you get a different answer

Much appreciated!!!!
Ed

FOLLOW UP: There is no place to put the VIN on the FCP site when ordering, you just get the pull down menus, so I sent FCP an email with the VIN. Will let you know what they say