what is your wifes opinion/cmoparision of the two?
What made you decide to get the MDX?

Wife drove a 2001 GMC Yukon XL, so she isnt the best judge of a good ride. She really wanted the Volvo XC90.

The deciding factor was interior space. We have 2 young kids and she car pools to school so 3 days a week she has 4 kids in the car. The MDX had the best 3rd row of all the options. The XC90 was worse than the X5 (3rd row that is). She also had to have Nav and rear entertainment and the MDX had the best overall combo of nav, rse, 3rd row, gas mileage and safety.

We drove everything even the Honda Pilot, GMC Acadia, MB, XC90, Yukon, Highlander Hybrid, RR, Audi everything with a third row. We spent 60 days looking.

I think i saw it on another thread, but why did she not want another X5?

Chris

2 X5s? not a good idea. just like you have a perfect wife, do you one another perfect wife? of course they are both perfect, but putting them together in the same house, thats odd. but if you have 1 perfect wife and 1 perfect girl friend. thats awesome. in that case, they are both perfect, but one is a wife and the other is your girlfriend. just like 1 is your X5 one is MDX.

:confused:

Weights . . .
 

This is kind of a tangent to earlier discussion. But where did you find weights for the X5 3.0 and 4.8? On the BMW USA site, the unladen weight is listed as 5335 lbs. There doesn't seem to be any info on whether this is the 3.0 or 4.8 and how the weight would change with certain options.

Thanks for the help . . .

Page 244 of the E70 instruction manual. if i had known the 3.0 with 3rd row was this heavy, i would have gone this way.

chris

approx how much does the X5 net cost with tax write-offs ?

And I thought they closed that "loop-hole" ... or perhaps it was another one.

the cost of the X5 is the cost of the X5. What the deduction does is lower your tax basis so that your corporate/income taxes are taxed at a lower tax basis. Where it does come in handy tho, is if you own a business and take out a loan for say 5 years. You will only pay your payments, but you can take the deduction in the year you place the vehicle in service (essentially creating 25000 cash flow for your company).

Lets not sidetrack X5FXs thread, but in a nutshell, its not a loophole, but more about how business property can be "expensed" in the first year of ownership as opposed to 5 year depreciation. This is called the "section 179" deduction and must not exceed 108,000 for all equipment purchased for the business.

The old limit was the total of the expensing limit, 108000. The new limit is 25000. The vehicles must be over 6000gvwr (and used primarily for business) to apply for this expensing deduction under Section 179.

I am no tax expert (just a tax saavy business owner), and ultimately you need to talk to your tax accountants to see if this works for you.

Lets let this get back on track, and if you want, someone create a thread about Tax writeoffs either here or in the lounge, and i would be happy to participate.

Chris

Do you like the black plastic bamboo finish? I could not get use to that. Then again I tested a MDX sport tech to a X5 4.8 and there was no real comparison.

Does the big chrome grill bother you? When I was on their forum guys were starting to paint them black and it looked better IMO.