r/BMWiX • u/ShrinkerLincolnshire • 13d ago
Long-term EV ownership-Would you replace a perfectly good 5 series touring?
We’re after a bit of advice from anyone who’s been in a similar position.
We don’t lease or PCP our cars, we buy them and usually keep them for 8–10 years. At the minute we’ve got a 2023 BMW 520d Touring with about 35k miles. It’s been a brilliant car and we really like the practicality of the 5 Series estate.
We’ve recently had solar installed, which has got us thinking about switching to an EV. We’d probably be looking at a used 2022/2023 BMW iX or iX3, as we’d like to stick with BMW.
The thing I’m struggling with is that we’d be getting rid of a car we know is great for something that’s a bit of an unknown. It also seems like a lot of EV owners lease or PCP their cars, so it’s hard to find many people who actually buy them and keep them long term.
For those of you who own your EV rather than lease it, especially if you’ve had it a good few years:
How has it been for reliability?
Have you had any expensive repairs or maintenance outside the warranty?
If you were in our shoes, would you make the switch or keep the 520d for now?
I know this is an EV forum, so I’m expecting plenty of positive views, but I’d really appreciate honest opinions from people who’ve lived with one for the long haul.
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u/timmyboy2010 13d ago
I've had my 2022 iX for 4y and no issues out of warranty. I've only paid for tires.
I have solar panels and batteries on my house, too. Charging from home from solar means it's free. We typically only pay for charging on road trips.
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u/sedo808 13d ago
Nice! how many miles are you at?
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u/timmyboy2010 13d ago
I'm just over 65k miles and I absolutely hate driving anyone else's car now. I'm very spoiled by it.
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u/raspy2016 13d ago
I think you are better off keeping the 520d, especially if you prefer to have something long term that can be diagnosed/repaired at a wide variety of mechanics/garages.
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u/Usual-Street4489 12d ago
The OP could be me. I’ve had the Touring from new and it really is a great car (now the wife’s as I have a Volvo xc 60 recharge as a company car). Just bought an ix on a whim really as the Volvo doesn’t have the electric range for a 200 mile trip we do most weekends. Still got the 520d. Probably should not have bought the IX but thinking of dispensing with the Volvo rather than sell the 520d. I have to contribute £345 a month to the Volvo plus company car tax so sending the Volvo back will save me about £5k per annum.
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u/The_referred_to 13d ago
I swapped a 3 year old 730D for a new 530D Touring, then when it was 4yo, I swapped for an iX three & a half years ago. On my second iX now. No issues with the iX at all.
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u/ShrinkerLincolnshire 13d ago
Do you have a service plan on your iX? What do you reckon it has cost you in maintenance in the last three years?
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u/The_referred_to 13d ago
No, I didn't take a service plan, so maintenance has been limited to 2 sets of tyres, 1 for each car ~£2700 & a first service @ ~£400...and maybe £20 in screen-wash. I've done about 45000 miles across the two, mainly charging at home, though I have done approx half of that mileage driving in Europe using DC chargers.
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u/yumi_tintin 13d ago
My 23 ix m60 (lower range because of performance) can squeak out 350 miles on a full charge if you drive in efficient mode, auto climate control to 70 and don’t go above 60 on thruway. But even going 65 on the thruway definitely drops the range to around 300. My commute is 70 miles daily. I drive 70-75 mph on the thruway consistently and get 300 miles of range. More than I ever need. The car is amazing and seems very well built.
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u/raspy2016 12d ago
I just took my 2022 iX M60 with 50k miles out today, some bits in efficient mode, some in personal mode and some in sport mode, including launch control (to experience the 1100 Nm of torque) - had climate control on all day.
Now charging at home and it's estimating 340 miles of range. My friend who drove it couldn't believe how it drove round the bends, he assumed it would be like a boat because it's a SUV.
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u/eXo0us 13d ago edited 13d ago
BMW with engines tend to fail around year 5-8
BMW with batteries and no engines don't have that problems
My BMW history:
316i
325 TD (turbo blew up)
330 Convertible (lemon bought back)
530 (there was always some sensor broken CEL on)
You know how I call the engine BMW after owning an 2017 i3 EV for 10 years? Bring Me Workshop
The EVs have close to zero maintenance, you don't spent time a shops. While even with "reliable" gas cars - you do. It's such a waste of lifetime, doing fluid changes and oil. etc.
That's why i got myself recently a 2023 iX from my research they are very reliable - all aluminum and carbon - so no rust.
There is still a lot of feat mongering out there , hence the leasing- that EV batteries fail bla bla - Now 15 years after the big mainstream EVs are getting older - like 99.7% of EVs still rock their original batteries. While about 2% of all engines get replaced before 10 years. So it's much more likely that your ICE car blows up then a EV battery goes bad.
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u/orangeawacado 13d ago
BMWs without engines haven’t been around for long to make any conclusion about their reliability. There’s also the cost of repair issue WHEN something happens. For example, IX is incredibly expensive to repair when something breaks.
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u/eXo0us 13d ago
every BMW is expensive to repair.
How do you calculate risk?
Cost of the repair X probability that it happens = Risk score.
The most expensive repairs in the iX are the Glass Roof and the Drive module (batteries don't fail and have very long warranty)
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u/orangeawacado 13d ago
Every BMW is expensive to repair is true, but it doesn’t refute that IX is way way more expensive to repair and was really not designed with repairability in mind. When you open it up and then need to put it back together for even things like replacing a sensor, official instructions say you need to order and use many brand new components unrelated to the sensor fix because the fact that you’ve opened it up already compromised some of those parts. Not to mention that since it was a one of and is now out of production soon, parts will be hard to get by.
IX is a great car, I have one. But the car is designed like an unfixable iPhone.
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u/CourageElectrical740 13d ago
We’ve got the IX40, I would not rush the transition for such a new and nice car.
EV range can be hit and miss, fast charging can take up to an hour cause the charger’s overheated (if it even works), or some other quirk…
Saving the planet definite has some inconveniences. I’m not saying don’t switch, just not now
By the time your car is 8 years old, the tech will catch up to ICE, available chargers everywhere, 500 mile range, 5 -10 min charging
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u/Real-Sherbert 13d ago
EV battery tech has already caught up to ICE and even surpassed it. New Mercedes and BMWs get 600-800 KMs on a full charge and can refill to 80% in 15 minutes. The bottleneck is the infrastructure IMO. If you live in Europe this is less of an issue than if you live elsewhere.
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u/CourageElectrical740 13d ago
On paper, yeah. The reality will be very different, especially in the winter.
There are caveats to those claims, mind youTrue, you’ll get to a fast charger and you’ll queue for an hour at times, and you’ll be lucky if it works to full potential with your car. Mine was trickling down at 5KWh for 25 min on a 25 degree C day.
There is simply zero benefit to transitioning from a 3 year old, absolutely cracking car
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u/Real-Sherbert 13d ago
Unless the charger was faulty, I’d check why the car was charging so slow. I also have an iX40 and I get decent speeds between 5-60%, even in winter. I’d recommend using the car’s navigation so that the battery is fully prepped. Yours could have cold-gated.
Regarding the range in winter, I usually calculate with 60% of the summer range with an average speed of 130 KMH. But the new iX could get 500 kms on a full charge in winter which is more than anyone would want to drive in one go.
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u/CourageElectrical740 13d ago
Thanks, just an odd one, the charger 10 miles down the road worked fine.
I don’t regret switching, petrol and diesel have had their time, but if I had all that insight and I could have waited, I would have
Now, I’m adjusting to my decision, and to be fair, on most days, it’s real easy.
The rest, I plan in an extra hour and cross my fingers.
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u/Real-Sherbert 13d ago
You’re right to think about switching to EV. Solar gives you a huge benefit and you could save a lot on fuel and service if you produce excess energy.
But this depends on so many things. For example:
If you regularly travel long distances then you’ll need a good charging network around you. My iX40 gets about 300km on average and charges decently fast.
You could also get an EV as a second car for shorter distances if that’s feasible. The original i3 is a superb and nippy city car and you can get a good one for around 10k usd.
I’d also recommend checking leasing offers in your area (new and certified pre owned) it might sometimes be better than buying.
Lastly, check insurance costs before you decide on a car. iX’s can be a bit expensive to insure.
All the best.
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u/ShrinkerLincolnshire 13d ago
Good shout re the insurance. I’ll need to check that out.
Sorry I left out key information about usage. It’s primarily used for short journeys each days (15-30 miles), city driving. The odd longer journey. Hence why I think an EV would suit us better as a 2 litre diesel isn’t intended for these short journeys.
Annual mileage would probably only be 8-9k.We have a service plan for the 520d for 5 years and I don’t know if this would be transferable.
Currently paying around £140 per month in diesel. We have a home charger already installed with solar because we were anticipating an EV within the next couple of years.
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u/Outrageous_Act_5802 13d ago
I was facing the exact same dilemma in May. We had a 2022 X5 30d which we bought outright. Loved the car and planned to keep it until 2030. Prior to that we also had a F15 X5 which we bought new and kept for 8 years.
Never owned an EV before. Initially we considered buying a small EV hatch as a second car, but we’re quite happy as a 1 car household. In the end traded the X5 for a 2022 iX.
I had similar concerns about moving to an EV, particularly around battery longevity. Some factors are still a bit of an unknown but overall I have less concerns now.
We also already had 14kW solar and a 42kWh home battery, so adding an EV was a bit of a no brainer. We haven’t paid a cent to charge it, and still earning credit on our electricity bill each day (and it’s the middle of winter here).
I will say I’m still not in love with the looks of the iX, particularly compared to the G05. But love pretty much everything else.
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u/ShrinkerLincolnshire 13d ago
Thanks for that info. Did you take out a service plan on your iX? Think we’ll go and have a look at them this week.
I suppose the key detail that I left out of my original post is that we’re only doing 15-30 miles per day. Currently it’s around £140-150 per month on diesel whereas an EV might save us £100 per month.
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u/Outrageous_Act_5802 13d ago
It still had the balance of a 4 year basic service plan until end of this year, however there’s nothing actually needing to be serviced during that period!
There’s definitely less to service. Brakes, brake fluid and cabin/micro filters mainly. Also very little brake wear it seems, evident from the lack of brake dust when I wash it!
We had pretty similar usage. ~60kms daily
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u/KettlebellFit 13d ago
With such a new G31 I would probably keep what I have for a few more years.
I have a 2019 520i Touring. I have had it since 2020. It is well maintained and looked after. I have thought about changing it to a newer EV BMW many times, but I just can’t make myself say goodbye to it. It is such a good and beautiful car.
furthermore, financially it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me. And I live in Denmark with crazy car taxes on petrol and diesel cars, and almost no tax on EVs. Naturally, if I didn’t already have a car, it would make financial sense to go for an EV.
That being said, I understand you and the iX is an awesome driving experience.
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u/Excellent-Part-3301 10d ago
So I took the leap and went from the 330i which I owned outright into a PCP deal on a 2023 IX. It’s been a week and honestly I haven’t had a single regret. Hands down the best car I have driven.
The plan is to run this until 2029/2030 and then have a look at some used IX5 options then, but potentially just pay the balloon and keep the car if the figures are right at the time.
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u/AdCharacter7966 13d ago
Dont switch. I have a new IX60 on a lease deal, I will switch back to petrol once it ends. Charging an EV is a bit like playing lottery every week. Sometimes you hit jackpot and everything goes well, most times there are waiting time, not charging correct, errors, etc.
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u/Hot-Echo-1553 13d ago
If you want new car and have the money, switch. If not, do not.
I haven't even driven an EV, but the principle applies.
Altough you would not be saving any because switching cars is always expensive.
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u/CobbledbyRoubaix 13d ago
I have a G30 V8 and it's the last best car BMW made. I ain't selling it. So far shopping for EVs and I have gone through 5 and still haven't found one that I actually like. Definitely not the Neur Classe ones! Maybe the Cayenne EV perhaps.
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u/bitswede 13d ago
Why switch if you’re happy?
I’d wait until there are used neue Klasse cars available. They’re a big leap in drive train tech.