XSeries-forum

My 2005 E53 3.0d Sports is at at an Indy garage with the following diagnosis :

1) Straight front arms
2) Rear bent arms and ball joint
3) Front traction arm bushes
4) Power steering pressure pipe
.....

Still needs an oil service and possibly a brake fluid renewal
All (i.e. 1-4 ) is coming in at a little over £1400. I have owned the car for 13 yrs. Now I am thinking Is it time to cut my losses and dispose of the car?. Could the next bill on the car be just as high?.

cooa99 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:16 pm My 2005 E53 3.0d Sports is at at an Indy garage with the following diagnosis :

1) Straight front arms
2) Rear bent arms and ball joint
3) Front traction arm bushes
4) Power steering pressure pipe
.....

Still needs an oil service and possibly a brake fluid renewal
All (i.e. 1-4 ) is coming in at a little over £1400. I have owned the car for 13 yrs. Now I am thinking Is it time to cut my losses and dispose of the car?. Could the next bill on the car be just as high?.

Sometimes it's better the devil you know.
Having owned the car for 13 years you know quite a bit of it's history, good and bad, if you were to get rid of it you'll probably be offered stupid money for it anyway, then you'd have to find a few grand to purchase something new.
If it still suits your needs you might as well stick with it for now.

[quote=weirdfish post_id=178503 time=1629896319 user_id=705
Sometimes it's better the devil you know.
Having owned the car for 13 years you know quite a bit of it's history, good and bad, if you were to get rid of it you'll probably be offered stupid money for it anyway, then you'd have to find a few grand to purchase something new.
If it still suits your needs you might as well stick with it for now.
[/quote]

I am thinking the same as well, I won't want to spend money on another 2nd vehicle just to end up with major bills.

Maybe save money by doing (4) myself and sourcing the pass pressure pipe 2nd hand. I am hoping that's not a hard job to do?. Indy cost is close to £400.

seems a lot of money for these tasks.

X5-D-Sport wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:48 pm seems a lot of money for these tasks.

There are not much options for Indy's my side. I wish I knew a local mechanic that does bmw's.

If the work listed can be done by a normal mechanic/mot garage then that is likely to reduce the cost further ...

The jobs you've listed are not a specialist bmw job, any decent garage would be able to carry those jobs out, I use the local tyre and battery auto centre for simple tasks, they're quite good actually, and a lot cheaper than a specialist indie.
As for the pas pressure pipe, if you're going to to do it yourself don't buy second hand, you never know the condition of a used item, especially a hose.

Totally agree with wierdfish
All the jobs are well within the capacity of a reasonable home mechanic let alone a garage, the messy one is the power steering line as it will mean draining down the system. If DIYing Don't reuse old fluid.
Just check online realoem for the part number then google for a new price fitting as has been said is well within the scope of any competent mechanic.

I told the indy to now only do the 2 bushes they diagnosed as causing the noise I can hear from the front of the car. The rest I can take to my local mot garage and supply the parts listed in their estimate invoices.

Apart from the PAS pipe and front bushes, all the other faults they listed were at the back. I am wondering what the symptoms are for the faults they have listed coming from the back of the car, because I have not noticed any

The PAS pipe that needs changing is the one labelled 1 in the picture. Can it be replaced from the bottom of the car or the whole front bumper needs to come off to get access for connecting to part labelled (3) ?