Frightened

[Beamer]

Hi all, I am in th throngs of buying a 2006 X5 with 95K on the clock.

What I am hearing about the gear boxes and the torque converters is scaring the crap out of me to be honest.

In Northern Ireland specialist may be few and far between. Any recommendations ??

How can BMW not say that there is a fault in one of their products if the are failing. I have read that they say about a life time being 3 years or 60K. What a pile of crap to be honest.

Regards

[Steamyrotter]

Technically the gearboxes are not their products!!
They just buy them in.

But I know what you mean.

History of services and maintenance is a must.

AW8 has just updated his previously excellent buyers guide into an even better version and is well worth the read.


Just remember though that all makes have issues of some sort which you'd only find when you read up on them..
So the X are not alone.
(Discovery 3 had gearbox, timing belt and water pump issues for example)


Also as the model you are looking at is over a decade old you will need to expect that some things will need work.

[Colin]

Don't panic , when i bought my X5 it had 96k on the clock with full s history  but weeks before i bought this one i test drove many rough and a few over priced X5s  , but i have to say the reading i done here on XDrivers and the knowledge i gained from all the guys here  helped me get a good one  , i was like you about the gearbox so nervous  but on test drive listened intently for noises .... smooth gearchange  and no lurching between changes especially when coming to a stop , even went at opening time for a test drive so was sure i was driving it from cold  and not warmed up before i arrived , 3 years later and has 134k and going well  still enjoy driving it ,

[the shreksta]

I too was scared of buying an x5.........I've had mine 11 months now and I fekking love it, its an 04 with 111k on the clock, gear changes are smooth and it drives spot on.

I previously had a 450bhp impreza.......now that was big money.

As said above all marque's can and will have problems. A rebuild on the autobox will be around 1500-2k. I was going for a v8 x5 BUT after reading on here about timing chain issues on some and the later 4.8 with problematic air suspension I decided on a 3.0d sport and it's been the best motor I have owned.

[Beamer]

Thanks for all the comments. I most likely will go for it and cross my fingers. I do think I should get the oil changed though, thoughts on that one ? Is that expensive ?

[the shreksta]

[quote="Beamer"]
Thanks for all the comments. I most likely will go for it and cross my fingers. I do think I should get the oil changed though, thoughts on that one ? Is that expensive ?
[/quote]

I really wouldn't bother mate, it's around 250 quid to do and that will only clean out half the old oil and could cause more damage than good. I was gonna get mine done but as  the old saying goes.........if it ain't broke......don't fix it

[AW8]

I genuinely understand the concern for future reliability expressed here but some might say it will be wise to have more  realistic expectations with regards to used ownership......You are looking to bu a 10 year old used car with nearly a century of miles under its wheels.

As has been highlighted the auto box in the car concerned was not made by BMW. Jaguar Audi & Landrover also have vehicles with the same or similar auto gearboxes.

Yes failures have occured but not as often as some might think. We have a lot of members on here  yet new threads outlining new ZF 6HP24 failures are not posted on here weekly or indeed over frequently.


If you are convinced the box will probably fail in your ownership of the car then maybe take out a bmw driveline or component warranty....Which is effectively placing a bet the box will likely fail in your ownership & with repair cost likely to exceed the total of any premiums paid prior to any failure.

Whatever you eventually decide on...Do give careful thought to likely costs in ownership unless costs are NOT a factor.

Good luck

[graemeX5]

Hi

The best advice is check everything, and buy the best condition car for your budget. The advice guides on here do help check areas more thoroughly to hopefully get a good car and avoid issues of a bad car.

Preferably buy a car with as much service history and or evidence of maintenance, receipts for work or parts to prove it's been been maintained over a period of time, because if you have one of these cars for a while it will need some work.

All cars have issues but if it's been maintained there is generally less to go wrong

I walked away from a 4.8 with 45k miles as there were too many faults and bought a 4.4 which was 72k miles and £4k cheaper and was ultimately a better car without any problems, so it worth taking your time as it will save you money and a lot of hassle in the long run.

Graeme

[Horizon]

[quote="Beamer"]
Hi all, I am in th throngs of buying a 2006 X5 with 95K on the clock.

What I am hearing about the gear boxes and the torque converters is scaring the crap out of me to be honest.

In Northern Ireland specialist may be few and far between. Any recommendations ??

How can BMW not say that there is a fault in one of their products if the are failing. I have read that they say about a life time being 3 years or 60K. What a pile of crap to be honest.

Regards
[/quote]

I've had several BMW's in the last 20 years ranging from E30 325i, 2x E46's, 840ci , E60 330i, E53 3.0d sport E93 330i. All autos . And never once had any major problems. Biggest was a failed cat on the 8 series. £250 replacement from ECP. I've fitted a few batteries as a precautionary measure,  it apart from that very happy with them all.
The trouble with reading forums, you only hear of the problems people have, never the miles of trouble free motoring most of us have had for years.
Up with a good head, there are nice cared for examples out there, and when I'm looking for a replacement car, I very often walk away without even getting the attention of the salesman. I've been to look at loads of cars that frankly I would be embarrassed to own. There are so many "Dogs" for sale on forecourts you can't believe they have the front to sell them.
Cars that were someone's money pit part exchanged to be some new unexpecting owners nightmare.
But be sensible, look at the history, check out the sellers/ dealers reviews.
These were once very expensive cars when new, but now can be purchased for the price of a replacement gearbox.
Good luck with the search, hope all goes well.

[Beamer]

Far from putting me off. This thing has been well looked after. The body work and interior tells me that the owner was very fussy so I have bitten the bullet and am going on Monday morning to purchase it. I will put photos onto the forum.

[Steamyrotter]

To echo Horizons post..

I may have had a few "minor" problems, but the 35000 miles i had out of her when she was alive were probably the best ones I have ever driven.
The smile factor of it outweighed the small hassles i had.

I suppose it helps if you are like me and want to know as much as you can about it and do everything yourself, that keeps the costs down, and you try pulling one over yourself!!!


The thing is you don't see many posts starting out..

"Everything's OK, what do i do about it?!!"

When all is well you leave alone and don't need advice.
so when you search on the net you don't get the hundreds and thousands of good posts, but all the ones where someone has asked for help.....

the other way to think, the gearboxes in these were fitted to many different makes of cars, probably into the millions of units, yet there is relatively a small percentage of failures.
And of those you'll probably see the majority are age related and due to no maintenance, not helped by the "sealed for life" scam......
There are those that will fail for other reasons, as anything mechanical could fail from something simple and unfortunate..


The X5 is a beast of a car, a comfortable and enjoyable drive, and is a very safe car which I can vouch for unfortunately, and is why next year i will definitely be getting another..

[X5Sport]

Funny you should say that.  I swore I would not touch another BMW after all the silly niggles, and one major failure, with a supposed luxury car.  Most if my annoyance was actually caused by BMW 'Technicians' who had little idea on how to sort things out meaning mine was frequently being looked at multiple times for the same issue.  When it was finally fixed it was a very good car and I was sad to see it go....

BUT, I still went out and bought another big BMW, my X6, and it is much better.  Definitely once bitten, thoroughly smitten.  I can't afford to buy another one now so am keeping the X for as long as I can and on the few occasions I do drive it, I am very glad I bought it.

[Beamer]

Thanks to everyone who has given an input and helped me make my mind up.
This has to beg the question of how many gear boxes out there have never given any problems ? It would be interesting to see the facts on that. I know any make or model can go belly up. There must be more cars out there that have never stopped.
Thoughts on that one.

[X5Sport]

Many hundreds of thousands built with perhaps a 5% fail rate?  Hard to know really as BMW won't say and I don't suppose anyone else is keeping score either.

Still means that 95% are good.  I think I was just very unlucky when mine failed - it was the TC that caused the chain of events breaking the box as part of it.  No one else on here has reported the same failure mode.

[Beamer]

I wonder how much someone's way of driving contributes to the failures ? Me I am a slow old farting not wanting to go from 0 - 60 at warp speed. Would racing a 2 ton car place a lot of pressure on the gear box firing it up through the gears. That's only my thought. Being a newbie I will take any advice as I have not got a clue.