Hello everyone, new E53 owner.

[ColinG]

Hello.

Stumbled upon this forum a week or so ago as I have been looking at e53 X5's to act as a daily car, mainly for my wife. It came about after getting a new F80 M3 and living in the sticks I'm fed up with it going out daily and never being clean at this time of year. So the plan is to keep the M3 for good weather and longer journeys where we can enjoy it.

Anyways after nearly scaring myself out of the idea reading through endless "problem" threads, today I went to see the car, it's a 55 plate, with 119k on the clock and was described as immaculate. As it turns out, the interior looks like it's a 20k mile car, and it drove lovely and smooth, it's a 3.0i petrol so sounds great, I noticed on the journey home that to gain pace at a reasonable rate (overtakes for example) you have to use full throttle and kick down. I guess I've been used to turbo torque for a while!

Anyways, I paid £4500 and I'm quite pleased. Is there any early warning trouble signs of things to look out for? The gearbox worries me most as I've seen the refurb price!!

[ColinG]

Here is some pics from the for sale advert.

[Colin]

Welcome to XDrivers , car looks to be in great order inside and out  enjoy the ride ..

Colin..

[graemeX5]

Hi and welcome.

Congrats on your new X5 and I understand your reasoning on wanting to keep your M3 clean but it is hard this time of the year, unless you own a car wash 

Graeme

[CondorX5]

Welcome to the X5 fold. My first X5 was a 3.0i, and as you have found the engine has to work hard to heave that big 2 ton body around - I always felt it was a bit underpowered, but its a great, bombproof engine, tried and tested.  Looks like you don't have the media pack from the pics, but very tidy for its age really. They are great cars to srive, enjoy it.

[grumpywurzel]

Welcome to the fold!

Nice, good looking car  fully agree ref keeping the your baby clean, I hate this time of the year. Too lazy to clean it myself (and I do a crap job of it!) So the guys are making a killing out of me at the car wash!

[ColinG]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome.

Today I washed the car and driving into town an hour or 2 later, the rear hatch kept opening, not opening up wide cause of the weight of it, but it opened and the interior lights came on..

The rubber button looks in tact but it's too much of a coincedence after washing it..?

I finally managed to pair my phone to it as well, they certainly don't make it easy in this model compared to the new ones!

There's a few little jobs I'd like to do to tidy it up a little and make it my own, ideally new tyres and an alignment, maybe refurb the wheels and sort some decent exhaust tips, those downward pointing ones are really awful.
Im a serial modder so the tricky bit is trying not to end up fitting 4.6i bumpers etc,

[ColinG]

This is the baby its helping to keep clean! Just 3 weeks old!

[Colin]

That is awesome , love the colour  and the wheels