X5 - The Ultimate Maintenance Machine - Maybe X5 means 5x the costs
We've had a full range of luxury brands, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Infinity, Acura. The Mercedes was a total hassle from the start, I won't bother even discussing it, and the BMW just seems to require an awful lot of maintenance at very high cost for no apparent reason. For example, take something simple like Antifreeze, a regular gallon that works on virtually every other vehicle on the planet costs about $10. But BMW requires a special antifreeze and guess what, it's $20 a gallon. As another example, most places offer wheel alignment on all vehicles, EXCEPT BMW, you have to have a special service to have BMW wheels aligned and it costs more. Then there are things like the battery - on a non BMW your battery is easily accessible under the hood with two connections. On the BMW X5, it's under the rear hatch deck, under a plastic cover, with more than five different things you have to remove just to get the battery out. Same goes for things like the air filter. On our truck I can replace the air filter directly under the hood by popping off a few easy clips, in 5 minutes. On the BMW, again, you have to remove multiple layers just to get to the filter and it takes about 20 minutes. For me, the BMW is OK, it looks nice, drives well, but it just seems like a lot of hassle and extra cost. The Infinity, Acura and the Audi had little to no problems and were very easy to maintain. On the flip side it's likely unusual for most luxury owners to want to do some of the maintenance or really care about the cost but for me, it still matters if I feel like the value isn't living up to other luxury options.
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