Should you buy an BMW E53 X5?

hey welcome to auto oscar i'm jk and today we're going to take a look at buying a bmw e53 x5 now these cars were first released in 1999 makes it almost 22 years old the design this particular model is a three liter injection from 2006 the last of the e53 i bought it last year for just 7 000 hong kong dollars and how's it stood up the answer that question is very well actually i've been looking for an x5 for a while i've driven a few of these many times over the years back when they're very popular and i always had a little bit of an affection for them including this these three liter engines obviously the v8s were a much much much quicker car and felt much better but a seems to have taken its toll on those v8 engines they they require seals they require a lot of maintenance i started looking for a three liter various reasons one most of them are calling spring suspension not the air suspension so there's very few problems there secondly the m54 straight six engine is one hell of an engine okay so i guess one question is how does she drive i guess my answer would be in 2006 superbly in 2021 actually not too bad the steering on this car is very very heavy oh there's a parking mode disabled the steering is very heavy i mean it's the same as the e46 and uh even the e90 series is it's it's actually very very weighty steering compared to cars now i actually have a 2020 x5 40i waiting for xbox which i was driving the other week and it's such a simple car to drive very very easy very light steering and does it move but it's still got that essence of bmw this got heavy steering but it doesn't make it any less agile i'm quite surprised actually let's go this way a second drive now this engine is supposed to only put out i think 231 horsepower i think some versions 218. and for some reason it doesn't seem to have any right to go as quick as it does it's a big car for a three liter engine and there's no turbos on this it's all naturally aspirated but it's just a cool engine it really does work fuel economy wow pretty poor really i'm here in hong kong we've got hills everywhere narrow roads it's city and that means i probably use a lot more gas a lot more petrol than most other people particularly in this but it's such a good car it's so practical now as i said there's been a few things that i've had to replace tyres radiator expansion tank uh and having the gearbox service last year that was on me i just wanted it done it didn't have to be done i just just chose to have it done so overall the repairs um fixes have cost me as much as i pay for the car and when you think i paid less than 1 000 us dollars for this with i think i had about four or five months license which is worth a good four and a half thousand of those dollars i was actually able to take the car and just go and drive i i didn't need to do anything to it to put it on the road here gearbox i did just because i thought it would be better you know keep it going so i had no choice and of course the radiation expansion tank etc that's something you can't foresee it had a little bit of a coolant leak last year just got worse i had to have it done well overall uh the cost of ownership's been pretty low pretty low for uh for a car that's now coming on its 15th year particularly a bmw and we don't know what bmw's the reputation they have it's not been too bad so let's go back on ourselves and first as i say this engine it goes a damn sight faster there we go there we go and it sounds good as well 80 clicks 9c i better back off there it really does go well that's uphill as well it just pulls like a train it's amazing and that's one thing all of these x5s feel good at they're very very heavy cars but they don't seem to go any slower than for example the e46 for the same engine and that is amazing maybe it's just a tuning but it does feel good one thing with this car i mean in the early 2019 99 2000 this car came out it was always lauded for its handling and i'll tell you what even in 2021 it's got good handling it does stick to the road it does go around bends more so actually than the bolstering in the seats can can support there's very little bolstering in these seats and you do find if you go around corners too quickly you kind of like get pushed out of the seat and that's you kind of trying to brace yourself with your legs and your arms and that's not good hanging on the steering wheel trying to brace yourself but overall the car it is actually still fun it's it's a lot of fun to drive brakes on it are absolutely awesome it's uh it's a great package no wonder back in the early 2000s everybody who was anybody had a bmw x5 here in hong kong there were so many of these things on the road everywhere of course mercedes got there first with the ml but that was still a ladder framed vehicle this was the first complete body chassis monocoque vehicle in this segment if you actually disregard the lexus the rx 300 but this from europe was was the first and it was much much better than the ml if you've ever driven an ml you had a good car is very practical but you can feel it's agricultural dna this this dna is a 5 series the e39 was probably one of the the finest cars bmw ever built and this was based on that that platform so it's got the electronics plus some electronics that uh from land rover when uh bmw owned them i think that the the hill assist system a couple of other bits couple of the other electronics are already wired up or there are parts of the harness ready to wire up things like bluetooth et cetera et cetera similar things like that um why bmw didn't put them in standard back then particularly here i do not know it's uh it is one thing that is missing i mean this is basic bmw always have been basic but the car itself is more than the summertime of this park so it's it's it's a great chassis it's great steering good brakes it sounds good it goes very well it's very practical load of space in the rear there and very very little be made sense that can actually better it of course technology moves on so these things are much more electronic now if you go to 2020 i was just driving the other day full tft dash full tft display in the middle it literally costs you i mean you you put your foot down and it just goes but of course smooth silk now i've driven this right up against the e70 as well just the other week i was dealing with p70 i drove this to get the e7c and i had to drive the 70 backs pick this back up and maybe that was not a great example of an e70 but there wasn't a huge amount of difference between the two cars you know it was uh it's getting sunny now in fact one thing i've always liked about the e-70 is particularly in the three-liter engines the power he's got more power this 256 horsepower or something like that but it does have extra weight as well it's got that all that air suspension and everything else to lug around a lot more electronics and it doesn't actually feel any more lively than this i remember driving the first of these the first one i ever drove the three least one many many years ago i meant with silver black and cereal grains here i thought this is a great car it really is a good car i think back then i mean he said he had just come out and i drove a couple of the v8 versions which were absolutely brilliant and i'm quite surprised that 10 12 years later i've got this and it still feels fresh it still feels good that steering feels a little agricultural but there's a lot of feel for it you can really when you go into the bends you kind of got a good idea of what the front wheels are doing the car itself the grip is absolutely amazing i absolutely love it now i'm actually going to sell this car now i i bought this dry lips i wanted to make a video on this when i bought it last year and i wanted to go through it but obviously with the covid and everything's been going on i've been a bit slowed down on on what i'm doing so it's only now oh god february now 2021 kobe is still rampant although there are some encouraging signs from around the world and i'm hoping to get some more uh car videos together particularly digging on some of these older cars i mean they're absolute bargains here in hong kong cars this age always concise and scrappy people are just want new all the time so once a car gets up to over six years of age which when it needs its first road worthiness test they get just tossed to the side depreciation is huge some of these cars that come on the market i mean some deserve to be cheap as they are lb and w7 series those things were just garbage rubbish trash whatever you want to call it but there are some absolute bargains out there old mercedes s-class again climate here can kill a car very quickly so you've got to be very careful but uh something like this which is now i mean it's become a little bit cultish this car when i bought it and i started looking on facebook and what have you i always have a look at the groups same as when i'm riding my motorbikes i always look at the groups of the same bike to see you know just resistance for ideas for help if you need it and the e53 there are so many different groups around the world and so many worldwide groups they seem to have a universal love there's a lot of people who really love these cars there's a lot of people who really want these cars and that's a good thing because they are a good car unfortunately as with all cars get to a certain age you do start getting to the point where parts in that become unavailable or very very difficult to get and that is happening now with this car although in saying that there are a lot of aftermarket pieces there's a lot of breakers so you can usually find what you need what you want it's just a matter of if you have enough patience and know kind of how to search on on on google on on the internet if you do you'll uncover some absolutely amazing bargains there's some absolutely amazing little bits and bobs that you can add to your car i'm not gonna add any aftermarket parts to this but so i'm gonna sell it anyway it's why i kept the original wheels on it's more practical if you need tires and i think one thing i don't agree with a lot of people were lowering these cars and i i have no idea why you would lower an x5 you buy an x5 because it's a high car lowering it seems to defeat the objects i mean if you're going to lower it why don't you just buy an e39 touring that's a damn sight more practical wouldn't lower him one of these but hey who knows it's just one of those things isn't it now here we are i mean we're stuck in traffic now car just smoother silt going through no problem at all there's no hesitation in this engine there's no roughness no nothing it just it's a lovely silky smooth six cylinder bmw engine and it just picks up when you want it it's great so here we go i'm heading home i've done some video i just wanted to have a quick run through this car you know i think it's a nice piece of kit i think you know i'm hoping it'll be an enthusiast buys it because it's well worth well worth buying i've sorted out all the problems i'm the one who's done the cooling system i'm the one who've done the transmission fixed all the little niggles around it's going to make somebody a really really nice car [Music] since we shot that video the other day i put the car for sale in fact that evening and by 2 p.m the next day i'd sold it i made all my money back and some more and in fact i had people afterwards asking to buy it for more than asking price i guess i'm quite surprised at just how in demand these are now even in here in hong kong which begs the question should you actually buy an e53 if you just get the cheapest thing that you can find or even that you're given it will have the shirt off your back it will be so expensive but if you spend the time and find a good one then you're gonna have a great time and totally enjoy the car anyway please like the video subscribe and i'll see you next time goodbye

Channel: Jay Kay

Views: 42,319

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Id: 2AdNhmH54xQ

Length: 16min 31sec (991 seconds)

Published: Sun May 16 2021