After only about 70K, my mom's 2008 Mercedes GL450 was becoming a bit of a nightmare. After going to the shop three times in one month, my family decided it was probably time to get her a new car. Due to issues with the service department at the only Merc dealer in town and the fact that the GL hadn't exactly been reliable, my mom ruled out Mercedes and began to look at other SUV's, a bit smaller than her GL. She has very high expectations for her car...namely it must have a very good ride, be easy to see out of, and she had to be able to get comfortable in the seat. May sound weird but she's only 5 feet tall, so these things are surprisingly hard to find in a lot of cars She is also very picky about aesthetics, so many cars were ruled out from the start because of that alone. Oh, and my dad wouldn't let her get anything he thought was "too slow." She just recently settled on buying a very slightly used 2012 BMW X5, with only 5K on it. I have not seen the car in question, but my dad is supposed to be picking it up today. Will post pictures of it soon, and also expect to see a write-up for it as well Thank God it's not as big as her GL. Thought I would post up, it's always exciting when a family member gets a new car.
what, no X5M for pops? i am sure she will like it, I drive a lot of them at work and I would get one if i had the money
haha well my dad has a 135i with racing suspension mods, it's one helluva car As far as reliability goes, I am not sure. One of the deciding factors is that my dad has owned two other BMW's apart from the one he's got now, and all of them have been very reliable for us. They're actually doing a prepaid lease so all maintenance is going to be covered if it does go wrong. If my mom likes it enough after the lease I think they're gonna turn it in, and then buy it back from BMW in order to have it as a Certified Pre-Owned car. (Truly a great program). Even if it isn't incredibly reliable, it'll be better than the Mercedes...we've just had a hailstorm of problems recently. My mom didn't even have it for most of November, she was driving loaners.
I believe BMW has been moving production around to different parts of the world lately so comparing reliability is becoming harder and harder to compare until the vehicles have seen a longer run at newer plants. Good or Bad
I believe the X5 is built at Spartanburg, so not far from your neck of the woods, right ? Having been heavily involved with Bimmers for 13+ years and had many new ones including an X5, I can say that none of them even a couple of used ones have been unreliable. None have ever had to go to shops for extended, multiple times, as you described with your Mom's GL450. And since your family already has experience with German cars, you all know and accept that they all require preventative maintenance (like all cars), that because they are German cars, will tend to cost more. The new X5 is really nice, but since they were introduced, it has grown larger insomuch that people that compare them for a living are saying that the X3 is also a really nice SUV and is about the size of the original X5 ! In any event, having had a new X5 for several years, it was our go-to car to cut through the Cascade Mountain range between here and Spokane, in the dead of winter, and it never missed a beat, or got stuck, or stranded us. And we were making multiple trips a week to be with an ailing Father. I love the way the the older Bimmers gave you so much perfect feedback on what was going on with your wheels, and were just awesome road-trip cars, and I hear now that with the newer technologies being utilized, that their famous steering feel is slowly going away. This may or may not be an issue with the more casual users but the really serious drivers that go back decades are always up in arms about the newer things that take away from the original Bimmers.. I say, to each his own... Great vehicles, great drives and rides, really great linear power and torque from all of their engines, nothing smoother than their inline 6 cylinders; I have Detailed hundreds of them. Dan F
Wasn't there just an article published a while ago that said the Audi A6 all road is the number one LEAST reliable 4X4 on the market. With the X5 being the second most unreliable?
Love the X5, I am actually looking for one myself. My dad is on his second X5. His first one was a 2008 that he bought new and sold when it got to 106,000 miles. Now he has a brand new one that he just took delivery of a month or so ago.
I like X5's as well, I don't like how they have huge chunks of unpainted parts around the car but at the same place Bryan is talking about I got to drive a '12 5.0 in white with red leather and man was it a looker. I agree there better then merc or audi SUVs
Well as far as reliability goes, it's only got 5K on it so I doubt my mom will see any issues in the next few years, which is all I think she's going to keep it anyway. By the time the lease is up in three years my brother is going to be off at college so my mom really won't have much of a need for a big car any more. But something makes me think that, provided it is very reliable, she's gonna buy back the car after the lease. She likes sitting up high too much And now...pictures! Not the greatest I know but it's what my parents sent me. They said the dealership did a "B" job of detailing it, but that "they missed a lot of things that you would normally clean." Got them hooked on proper detailing too I'm not a huge fan of the exterior color myself, but my mom is really tired of driving a black car (she's had one since 2001, a Volvo V70 and her Mercedes) and she likes the color, which is all that matters haha.
