It could be simple or it could be $$$$$$. Have a complete vehicle scan completed while it is on a battery charger. Follow any diagnostic trees you have available for the codes found. Send me the codes you can't get help with via email and I will see if we have the diag charts available if YOU are going to do the diag.

I have no desire to ever own a BMW, but, as a European shop owner, I am so thankful they sold so many cars.... :)

^^ So Jeff, no desire to own a BMW but have a Mini Cooper S?

Did they figure out what went wrong with the X5?

Not yet. It sounds like the gateway?

Aaaaahhh, the "gateway"!




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LOL you got me! :) Had that car for 10 years and we use it as a courtesy car from time to time. We originally got it as courtesy car so that our clients could drive something that likely wanted to, but would likely never purchase. Feedback was greet from clients getting to try it out for the day. The first gen Mini's have been the most reliable of any on the models the brand has produced since. It has been dead nuts reliable. However, what we find in the shop is that the Roundel vehicles require a ton of repair once outside of warranty. See it weekly in the shop.

Cheers

It is with an Indy mechanic in town. It still is not back home and I’m afraid to ask the status...

I feel terrible for him, I don’t think he is prepared for a $5000 repair which this may well cost.

If this car is under 75,000 miles or just outside of warranty that is preposterous. If Toyota and Honda (and Hyundai, etc) can build relatively trouble free cars than so should BMW.

BMW, for all their (German engineering) claims should be setting the bar in reliability. In this day and age there's no excuse.

I've been extremely lucky with my '04 325i, it's been incredibly reliable for 239,000 miles. No way I'd buy a new or late model BMW, or any Late model German car.

They decided not to fix it, prohibitively expensive.

What year is the X5? So it sounds like the tec has no idea what he is doing with that car?

LS swap time....

Seriously, how can it be unrepairable?

It is not unrepairable, it is going to cost more to fix than he wants to spend on it. He sold it and bought a new Mazda.

Make sure you let him know, that it is perfectly normal for the Mazda to function normally without any warning lights on . It may seem foreign to him at first.
Where did BMW go wrong ? I used to love them , a well built, quality german car , that handled well, had a silky smooth i6, and was overall, pretty reliable .
Now, a plastic gadget laden pos , that can't make it 50k out of warranty without eating up the purchase price of a new Kia in repairs .

You can be sure these 'problems' aren't a secret at BMW. Someone, or some group(s) have made a conscious decision to worry about the vehicles under warranty and screw the rest of the vehicle life.

Somewhere there's a cost analysis of building better cars and the benefits that accrue to BMW, versus the cost of a cheaper vehicle that just squeaks past the warranty phase.

Maybe the high percentage of leases,and the high turnover rate and end of warranty split the customer base into a group of people BMW cares about (original owners) and a group they have abandoned, the second/third owners.

It has been said before (but I think about Porsche), BMW is in the business of selling new cars to the original owners.

As long as there is a perception of quality, uniqueness, and a driving experience and they last the lease / warranty, they have succeeded in meeting the needs of the original owner (the market segment they care about).

The only way they make money off of the second and third owners is by implementing systems that fail and can only be repaired at a BMW facility using BMW part$.

All in all, its typically not the mechanical moving parts that fail anymore, its the gizmos and their controllers that cause issues.

In the late part of last century, Detroit found out about reliability and reputation.
It was a lesson that lasted.

Perhaps BMW believes the consumer will confuse a HF one-use widget with a vehicle nearing a hundred grand?

It will be really interesting to see how the new Toyota Supra does over the next 10 years...
Me thinks it will be riddled with all sorts of issues and not consistent with the Toyota quality that buyers of the marque come to expect.

For those who don’t know, the new Supra is a BMW Z4 with different clothes and hairstyle...

With the Supra, Does anyone know who's electrical system is in there? I think the Germans are not as good with electronic systems or just make it too complicated. But they do make some pretty cool speakers MBL, but I am not sure if they continue to work once off warranty.

BMW everything in the Supra. Toyota does not build these.

That is well stated.

I just like to own a car ten years or so, sometimes longer, and ride that wave of soullessness, competence and reliability.

My Tundra will be the last 1/2 ton I own not because I want it to, but the numbers say it will.