Can you get in a dark blue or brown metallic?

Cool - looking forward to welcoming you to the Carmudgeons v8 X5 club. WDC can teach you the secret handshake. This thread is relevant to my interests as we will probably replace our 2016 X5 50i with a 2020 X5 M50i within the next 6-12 months (Cayenne Turbo is the wildcard).

Thanks for the heads up on leasehackr - looking forward to seeing how this all plays out for you.

how have the v8s been maintenance wise? I've been afraid of them ever since the N63 hot turbo debacle.

zach, how many miles are on yours now?

They updated the N63 for the F15 generation, thankfully. Mine has been flawless - no issues at all with this car in over 2 years of ownership. I have 32K miles on it now.

Fil, I know you're a bmw man through and through, but did you compare at all to Cayennes or Macans? The Macan drives great but is only spacious in the front seats, rears are like a 3er and the trunk is something between a hatchback and a wagon, not too big. The Cayenne is standard issue size (X5, JGC etc).

I'll echo the suggestion to try one / both of the Porsches, though at least for the Cayenne, the price gets astronomically high when you add options that either come with the X5 M50i for free or are reasonably priced add-ons.

The X5 is a relatively good value in comparison, even at a 6-figure MSRP. By most accounts, the Porsches drive better (steering, etc.).

Exactly. We loved the Cayenne, but the value isn't really there vis-a-vis the X5.

And its even worse when you compare leases

I like the look of the Macan. Have never driven one but might do that. Have sat in a few though and it just seems really tight inside.

Cayenne just seems too rich for my blood. I’m comfortable pushing the comfort zone on a BMW MSRP since I know I can get a good discount and leases are pretty good. Don’t think I can say the same about a Cayenne.


I’m at 40k on my 2016 550. It has been the most reliable BMW I’ve had. It has the updated version of the V8 after they made the fixes.


Yea, I’ll let you know what dealer I go with. I’ve been shopping them all and didn’t take me too long to get to >10% discount and no mark up on lease rate. I’m still hoping to squeeze out a little more.


They have a medium metallic Blue (Phytonic) and then a dark metallic individual color (Tanzanite - $1950 extra) which is really nice. They have some grayish-brownish-greeny colors on the non M-sport versions.

Awesome, thanks!!