[Noah930]

I am never going to buy a BMW. OK, I never was anyway. But this week has solidified it. Heck, I won't even buy one for one of my kids, because I'll still have to deal with this type of ridiculousness.

My parents have an X1. After 6 years, the battery finally died on it. Holy smokes: it's nearly impossible to replace just the battery.

First, you can't even see the battery. It's tucked under plastic panels and splash guards and whatnot in the engine bay, kinda in front of the driver. OK, some indy mechanic posted a Youtube video on how it's done. Not difficult, just tedious. No way my parents could do it, but we're a hardier (and cheaper) bunch here on Pelican, so it seems pretty straightforward, even if you have to take out the air box to slide out the battery. PITA, but definitely shade-tree DIYable. On the way home after work, I can swing by Costco for a new battery, grab a toolbox from home to take over to my parents' house, and swap that thing out.

But then, you have to sync the battery with the car's computer?! I'm sure there must be some sort of proprietary BMW software to do it--I probably can't just plug in my OBDII reader to clear any codes. Grrr. And so, that $185 battery from Costco jumped to $500 when done at the stealer.

Made me wonder how much that software costs.

This is why I love having old cars.