X5s had several well known issues - well known by people who ponied up the money to own one anyway. Despite several well eduacated guesses from posters on this thread, they had nothing to do with proper break in procedures, indifferent maintenance or, ahem, vehicular karma.

They had everything to do with crappy interior trim pieces, a spotty electrical system and several mechanical issues - one being the fueling system, the throttle bodies and (one for you Mini owners) spontaneous engine bay fires. Its a fact - X5s are consider unreliable cars, with a reported problem rate almost twice the average vehicle - but you all knew that anyway right? That the X5 is a reliable piece of feces? Of course you did............

BTW - none of these problems had anything to do with my wife hot rodding the car while shuttling the kids to school or going to her aerobics classes - or her repeatedly redlining it while taking the dog to the groomers - it had everything to do with the car being a piece of crap. My old man's X5 suffered the same problems ours did - proving that if you can call a BMW reliable, it can only be in the fact the it is reliably unreliable.

Having the throttle body go into limp mode while my wife was shuttling three kids to the zoo on the freeway scared her a bit. Having the fuel system shut itself off while driving through the Caldecott Tunnel was terrifying for her. We sold the car.

Ah,the reliable little Z3 - no sarcasm here - the issue turned out to be related to the M roadster which had several known issues - primarily with the rear differrential mount - lemoned.

I got a chance to speak with my brother about his 1998 740i - his issues were all related to the wiring harness (deja vu for the Mini owner - again). The car spent 35 straight days at the dealership, was reportedly fixed, died two weeks later and then spent a whopping 42 days being dissected. Here's the kicker, this wasn't even the car that was lemoned.

BMW offered to replace the first 740 on their own, and the second car managed to stay off the lift for a repsectable 6 months before the electrical system had a grand mal seizure - stranding my sister in law and my 2 year old nephew in Podunk, Western Illinois at 10 PM. The second time around, BMW wasn't so eager to take the car back and it took a succesful lemon law suit to force them to accept the inevitable.

I loved my Mini to death, but it proudly upheld the BMW tradition of crappy electrical systems and shoddy interior construction. A brief check of the current R53 tsbs indicate the age old Bimmer bugaboos with electrical systems and the sinister engine bay fires experienced by X5 owners can be researched on this forum.

 

My co-worker is trying to sell his 2003 X5 4.4 as we speak. Low miles, meticulously maintained. All records.

Care to test your luck?

 

Skiploder, not all BMWs are junk. In fact, I kept buying BMWs because of the reliability of the cars. When I use to lurk on Roadfly you could go into any car forum (Mercedes, BMW,Porsche) and read about issues. Yes, every single model that BMW has mass produced has had it's share of problems, just like every other auto manufacturer on the planet. X5 did have issues, so did the M3 (clunk on shifting, blown engine,etc) and all the other models. But I can tell you that I never experienced any of the major defects and my time with those cars was first rate. Apparently you ran into a bad batch of bad luck on BMW products and I can understand your frustrations. However, you seem to try and make the case that the majority of BMWs have these issues. At least that seems to be the underlying implication in your statements. In my personal ownership of these vehicles I have had the complete opposite experience you have had. I know several BMW owners (friends, work relations, family) and none had any major issues. While I'm not doubting you or the problems you have encountered, I do find it interesting that you take your experiences and make it seem more the norm than the exception.
My praise for BMW comes from my experiences from the car, it's as simple as that, they make a good product. I strongly disagree with you that their line up is any more prone to issues than anyone elses. In fact, I would say the opposite is true.

 

I have a question regarding "lemons", what happens to the cars that are found to be real lemons? Are they sold to some unsuspecting buyer? Are dealers required to disclose that the car was/is a lemon? Just curious...

 

Like I've always said, someone's got to be out on the end of the bell curve.

Lemons are often due to service incompetence, IMO. Sometimes there's a subtle problem such that they they never find and fix the source of the problem, they just treat symptoms. Like replacing dead batteries over and over and then the alternator when the problem is a bogus voltage regulator.

-W-

 

Very true. I went through the very painful Lemon process with a car that just wasn't fixed correctly. Once it was repaired, the car ran just as beautifully as the day I bought it.

 

For '06 only the 3 (non M), 6 (new model) and 7 series BMWs were NOT recommended by Consumer Reports based on reliability. The M3, 5, Z4, X3 and X5 were. The MINI finally IS recommended since the '05 refresh.
Overall they generally beat all the US and other European cars for reliability.

The '07s will probably have enough "1st year" problems that they won't be recommended but hopefully not as much as the '02s.