BeEmDoubleEww – The Turd Act

Now then, more about that ZF 5HP24 transmission…

Big pimpin' style, uh huh uh huh.

I mentioned yesterday that 3 out of the 4 owners that I spoke to talked about how the ZF transmission in their cars needed replacement around 90K. Out of curiosity, I made a completely unscientific and far from conclusive run at how much a replacement would cost. I found a remanufactured unit on eBay that came with a one year, unlimited mileage for $2700, including shipping. Supposedly, labor is around 10 hours or so. Let’s say you could find an independent specialist in your area for $100 per hour. Total cost assuming those very rough numbers is just under $4K.

KBB private party for a good 2000 BMW X5 4.4i is about $2500, not including options. So let’s call it $3K. So one option to consider would be to buy an X5 cheap, discard it when something major like the transmission goes and just buy another one just like it. Considering that there are plenty on the market, that’s not a bad plan if for some reason you’ve got it stuck in your head and heart to buy one. Who am I to judge; whatever makes you happy.

Taking a quick gander at the Los Angeles CL, I found 37 examples for under $5K with clean titles. So you’d have more than your pick of options.

But enough with whether this vehicle makes any sense long term financially; what about how it drives? Is it better than the 3-series wagon or worse? Let’s get right to the spoiler. They should rename the first example I drove as the Crash5. Holy moley. I drove it on a road in relatively good condition and yet the vehicle literally smashed, banged and rattled like it was the Sopwith Camel. The suspension was to original specs, according to the owner of this 2000 white over tan lower mileage example with 130K on it. Another pampered car, the folder of receipts was about four inches thick and the dude had a new Cayenne parked next to it in his garage.

Front passenger interior room is far and away superior to the 3-series wagon.  But once again, I was surprised by the lack of rear leg room; it’s only about an inch more in comparison. Strange.

The V8 is absolutely lovely, with 282 hp and 324 torques and the transmission was smooth and confidence-inspiring. It’s nice. Really. Functionally it’s great, regardless of the impending doom to your bank account. But this is a THREE TON vehicle. Ouch. Still, some reports pegged the 0-60 at around six and a half seconds and I believe it. It’s got zip. And despite the unacceptable suspension harshness, it did result in great response in corners. Of course, this is the vehicle that really got the whole premium crossover that was oriented towards sporty driving thing going and it deserves a place in car history for that. Still, don’t drive one of these back to back with something like a Mazda CX-9. If a person could put brand snobbery aside (is that even possible?), the Mazda is so much more livable day-to-day that it isn’t even funny. Zoom-zoom that, BMW. I’m sure plenty of people would argue that all day with me, but it wouldn’t surprise me that they’ve only driven an X5 and wouldn’t even consider the CX-9 in the first place. There’s no pleasing everybody. Or even somebody. Anybody. Ack, forget it.

The other thing that really surprised me was the lack of cargo room in the X5. With all of the seats up, the X5 has only 16.1 cubic feet of storage behind the back row. By comparison, the E46 3-series wagon is rated at 25.7 cubic feet! That’s a huge difference. By the way, the Shadowagon has 37.1; all hail the box!

I wonder how hard it would be to install an AUX input jack?

But otherwise, my preference toward which dash layout I liked better was pretty much a tossup. Maybe the 3-series slightly, with the center console maybe just a little bit more to my liking. The accordion slider over the cupholders on this X5 was already a bit wonky and probably needed replacing. This one didn’t have the optional HUD, which is fine by me. Just another something expensive to break.

One thing I forgot to mention about the 323iT that I looked at; it had a hitch on it, which surprised me. The owner said that, in Europe, the vehicle is rated to tow up to two tons. But here in the litigious States, BMW was too afraid to go there and so it’s not rated to tow anything. He said he had no trouble towing a light, open trailer with tools and a lawn tractor in it. There’s no reason to not believe him and I thought that was very interesting. By comparison, the X5 is rated to tow 6000 pounds, which is pretty good and I have no doubt that the 4.4 V8 would be fine with that. The X5 itself weighs about 4800+ pounds.

Like Dirty Harry, I know what you’re thinking. MPG for the 323iT is 18/26, the 325xiT is 17/24 and the X5 is…wait for it…12/16. So, when towing, expect single digit results. Ouch, but what did you expect. It’s not surprising in the slightest and comparable contemporaries are not really any better.

This mind reading act of mine is getting tiring. Again, I know what you’re thinking; why not a 5-series wagon? That’s a good thought, but I didn’t look at any of those. Yet. Maybe another day.

Base MSRP on this X5 was about $50K. Chew on that. But I’m not done; one last X5 German chocolate cake sample coming right up.