XSeries-forum

Hi everyone

Just come across this site and had a good read through all the useful info!

I have a 54 reg X5 3.0d. It's coming up to 95,000 miles and so far it's had no major problems other than with the suspension and sunroof.
It seems that gearbox's and turbo's seem to be something that is prone to failure at my kind of mileage?

Should I be budgeting for a gearbox and turbo replacement within the next year? (I do 15K miles per annum) How much should it cost?

Is there anyone out there that has got 125K+ miles from their original components?

Any advice or comments appreciated. Thank you!

hi and welcome to the forum!

with regard to your question. my old 330d (basically same engine), is still going strong on original engine components at 180k+ miles and thats with a remap! its just had regular maintenance with quality oils etc.
i never understand all the negativeness regarding the turbos on these engines. probably only a few people have had issues - they moan about it on forums and before you know it, the car is marked down as having a weak turbo. when in fact the majority have no problems at all -dont moan and dont get their favourable experiences put accross.

similar with gearboxes i should think. all makes of cars can be said have a few issues but as already said- forums tend to discuss bad experiences and look for solutions, but dont usually mention all the good experiences because if people dont have a problem, they aint gonna moan about it!

anyway! enough said and i hope you have many trouble free years ahead of you...i'm sure you will.

Welcome fella!

[quote=""DiscoX5""]Hi everyone

Just come across this site and had a good read through all the useful info!

I have a 54 reg X5 3.0d. It's coming up to 95,000 miles and so far it's had no major problems other than with the suspension and sunroof.
It seems that gearbox's and turbo's seem to be something that is prone to failure at my kind of mileage?

Should I be budgeting for a gearbox and turbo replacement within the next year? (I do 15K miles per annum) How much should it cost?

Is there anyone out there that has got 125K+ miles from their original components?

Any advice or comments appreciated. Thank you![/quote]
Im on 138000 miles and just had my third gearbox fitted, The fist gave up at 117000 which was replaced with a recon, which wasn't rebuilt correctly so had to be replaced last week at a cost of £2000. The shop that replaced mine said they can do up to 5 of these boxes in any one week. And looking in their garage on both occasions ( to drop off and pick up) I found X5's , 5 series BMW'sand Range rovers up on the ramps!! Take from that what you will.

Dweeb

thanks for all the replies. I agree that people usually only post negative experience on forums which I guess has caused me to be worried about the gearbox. Seems to be some on here going at 70-80K!! I suppose some of it is just down to luck or bad luck in those cases!

i mechioned the gearbox issues to my indy and he said he anticipated it would fail anywhere between 40-180k they were totaly random basically!! as for turbos my mates 330d had done 160k and sold with original turbo but was a manual

I think you should watch out for the gearbox, mine needed changing at 120 thousand miles, I think it was the original one anyway I hope so.

Jason is based in London near Heathrow and at £1500 you won't get a better price and service, Jason also does remaps better economy and performance

I hate spending money on any car but on this one I make an exception it is such a lovely car to own Still making me smile every time I drive it and after nearly a year that's saying something and I've owned a lot of cars

Undoubtedly the 'randomness' of gearbox failure is linked to maintenance and driving style/conditions (eg town driving with lots of gear changes v motorway cruising)

Most folks don't maintain their car as much as think they do, or as much as they should, nor drive as well as they think they do.

Mechanical wear and tear then also falls into place

Touch wood I'm on 114K. I haven't owned the car since new but I suspect this is the original box

We shall see ......

[quote=""smeeagain""]Undoubtedly the 'randomness' of gearbox failure is linked to maintenance and driving style/conditions (eg town driving with lots of gear changes v motorway cruising)

Most folks don't maintain their car as much as think they do, or as much as they should, nor drive as well as they think they do. [/quote]

I disagree with this statement as it's a bit too sweeping. Linking the 'randomness' to driving style is I feel a little tenuous at best. If it wasn't then BMW would not do any goodwill replacements at all, and a fair number of owners have had BMW stump up for all or a large proportion of the bill. BMW GB refused mine as they said I had Warranty Direct Cover. The Dealer said it would be goodwill, but then told BMW GB about the WD cover and they walked away. Mine was BMW maintained throughout on a service plan and the gearbox destroyed itself at less than 5 years and less than 42,000 miles. These boxes are 'Sealed for Life' so there is no maintenance plan at that mileage. I have a normal driving pattern of mixed roads etc, normal driving style, never abused, raced or rallied etc. A cheap plastic part in the TC broke and by sheer bad luck and jammed the oil pump. Pressure failed and the rest is expensive history!! The repairer had 5 more BMWs with the same box (5's and 7's) and also other vehicles with the same transmission (Jaguar & LandRover) all awaiting rebuilds for either clutch failures or TC failures resulting in other consequential damage. What he did say is that the 'Sealed for Life' does not mean what you think it might. It is for the 'useful life of the vehicle' - which may well be 6 years or less if the comments of my BMW Dealer are anything to go by, and is probably why they will not offer OEM warranties of more than three years from new without additional expense to the Owner. If these cars are made from such rock solid, high quality components and were once the 'Ultimate Driving Machine' then they should come with a warranty commensurate with that don't you think?

There is a 'known weakness' of this transmission which has been accepted in the US but not in the UK (mainly down to weak rules about what constitutes such a defect and getting the manufacturer to foot the bill as a result). That being said, I have friends with auto's on their cars which are not ZF unit and have had failures too, some very early and again not connected with maintenance or driving style either. And again I have known of cars with auto's that have gone on for years and never given any issues up to the point the car met the scrappy's shredder But in all likelihood, the actual number of failures compared to the number of cars produced is still very low - people would not buy auto's otherwise.

There will be far more X5's which have never had any issues than there are with failures in the gearbox. As you say, we only ever read about the bad ones and not the good. And the odds are probably hundreds to one in favour of no problems. But here's a thought - ZF introduced a modified version of this box we have and the number of failures have dropped off if what I've seen reported in the various forums is anything to go by.. Might be something in it, or nothing at all. There are some pretty high mileage E70s about now though.

I would agree though that turbo failures are more likely with driving style, especially if the warm up cool down measures aren't adopted. There's nothing like shutting off a car with a red hot turbo and so cooking the oil to start a premature bearing failure.