Jan 8 - car adendum

I know that I write a lot about the X5 in this blog.  Almost all of it is about routine mileage related stuff such as tires, suspension etc.  Nothing is earth shattering or trip stopping except for the two alternator issues.  Even so, the second alternator is way beyond its warranty.  No-one will warranty a replacement alternator for 18 months and 50,000 miles !  If I brought home a new car tomorrow, I'd be as likely to have an issue with it in the next 18 months, at 40,000+ miles per year, and the cost to us would be way, way higher.

In fact, knock on wood, the X5 has been our best car ever, on a per-mile-driven basis, for show-stopping necessary repairs.  Another way of looking at it - the X5 has been our cheapest car per mile driven.   It's also better than Stef & Aaron's last couple of cars.  They don't put many miles on their cars but had starter problems with the last one and right-after-buying problems with the X1.  That's typical of people who don't put many miles on cars though -- time related, rather than mileage related issues.  David's been pretty lucky with his Honda.  Jeffrey has been lucky with his VW; Sara not so much with the now-sold Ford Escape.

Sandy's car has 125k miles on it.  That car has never had a show-stopping issue.  With the caliper sticking, I'll probably end up bringing up a pair of calipers for replacement along with pads and rotors.  It's easy to do that all at once.  I could probably skip the rotors.  The M5 had an issue when it was one day old, nothing since.