Hi, I'm currently looking to buy a diesel x5, looking to spend no more than £7,000 are there any years I should avoid and what should I look for? Thanks for your help in advance

ive just bought a 2002 3.0d in black (is there any other colour option? lol) id suggest trying a few as I wish I had as the rear rose bushes and integral links were shot on this one and took me a while to do them then found a snapped bolt in the subframe where someone tried to replace the bushes in that, was very loose and almost swaying left and right over man hole covers etc and was horrific round potholed backroads, I test drove on a straight bit of smooth road and felt lovely so bear that in mind maybe?

apart from that the usual for any car applies and don't get carried away at your first car viewing and buy it because its what you want, thell be more, also you ideally want the face lift model as they come with a more powerfull mapped engine and generally drive much better in my opinion although I love my pre facelift model now shes sorted

Great advice from boris also test all gearbox functions (hot and cold) and test all accessories fitted are working. These are complicated cars so test and make certain everything works don't accept any excuses like "you can get one on ebay for a few £" or "it just needs re-gassing" if that is the case then why hasn't it been done by the seller.

We have had 2 X5's and have been very happy with both but we did see a lot of Highly polished well presented cars that had many seemingly small faults being sold both privately and at showrooms. One example when tested the Nav didnt work "just needs a disk" said the Salesman you can get them on ebay for £20. We checked out the internet and found a replacement Nav disc was possibly not the answer and replacement unit is around £400 and could be much more, we walked away a found the car we have now. That car is still for sale ?? makes you wonder/

oh yeah definitely check all gearbox functions and listen out for a clonk when stopping as some people seem to have probs with first gear engaging early and jolting the vehicle which in most cases seems to require a rebuild which will be costly. and yes I fell for the on its only one sensor playing up and theyre 20 pound on ebay trick when the parking sensors played up at one point in the test drive! so far I haven't worked that one out but its going to be more than 20 pounds! if you get a listing from an advertisement let us know the number and may be able to point some usefull info out on it for you