BMW 550i Journey – 4 Year Ownership Report

Hi guys and welcome back to the SimpleCarGuy channel. BMW 5 series is one of the most popular luxury sedans on the market and I’ve had the pleasure of owning this one for over 4 years. Welcome to my 4-year ownership journey with the BMW 550i where I will talk about why and how I bought it, problems over the years, some of the mods I’ve done, why I’ve had it for all these years and finally, why I sold it.

WHEN/WHY/HOW I BOUGHT IT:

About 4 and a half years ago I was driving a 2009 BMW 335i Coupe and was looking to upgrade to the BMW 435i M-Sport. It was a logical choice as both were 2 door sport cars with a 3-liter turbo engines, great design and very sexy curves. I visited all dealers in my area as there were practically no second-hand cars at the time and what I found was overpriced coupes that didn’t have the options I wanted and sales people that didn’t seem interested in selling me the car. There was one guy that seemed more interested in talking about cars rather than just trying to sell me a car and he offered me to go drive any car I wanted on the lot. We jumped into a few cars and most were great, but I was really, really impressed with the 475hp and lots of torque from the N63 V8 engine in this BMW 550i. It was smooth, comfortable and pulled harder than it had a right to being a big 4 door sedan. I never looked or even driven a 5 series until this time and I was impressed. The car only had 34000 miles and all of the options you could imagine. We’ll talk about those later in the video. I offered him $5000 less than what they were asking for and after some negotiations, I worked out a good deal and a set of 4 new run flat tires to boot.

PROBLEMS OVER THE YEARS:

BMW V8s are not known to be the most reliable and at the time, I didn’t have a garage I could wrench on this car if something were to happen, so I was a little worried. Luckily the car came with a little over a year of warranty. I never needed the warranty and honestly this was one of the most reliable cars I have ever owned. Here is everything I’ve had t o do to the car over the years. I changed oil every 5-6k miles, I changed the rear brakes and later on the front bakes and I replaced the sparkplugs and coils after a misfire when I did a hard pull on the highway. Luckily, I didn’t have, high pressure fuel pump, injector or any kind of oil leak problems that people bring up every time they hear a BMW N63 engine. I’ve made a video on Problems to expect on these cars and if you’ve watched it, you’ll know that the problems are mostly on the pre-LCI, 2013 or older version of the car.

WHY I KEPT IT FOR 4+ YEARS:

Whether it was luck or I just did a decent job at maintaining the car and not beating on it too much, it obviously has been very reliable for me. So, was that the reason why I kept the car for so long? Usually, I get bored of a car after a couple of years, I sell it and I get something different, but in this case, this car just had too much to offer and never felt outdated even after 4 years. Not only was this car powerful even by today’s standards, it had a very smooth power delivery (include 0-60 video), felt absolutely planted and stable at high speeds and handled road trips better than any other car I’ve ever been in. What I loved the most about it though, was how understated it was. I love flashy cars as much as the next guy, I mean, I have a blue Z4, but there is something about a car that looks like a big ol boat but performance on par with a lot of sport cars. Using launch control, it can do close to 4 second 0-60 and around 4.5 seconds for a regular start. If you remember that this car weights around 4400lbs, has space for 5 people and a few suitcases, features like heads up display, comfort access and soft closing doors, 18 way adjustable seats and you can even open the trunk with your foot, it becomes obvious why I would keep this car for sol long.

THE MODS:

Part of keeping the car understated, but also giving it a little bit of attitude and removing some of the mid-level manager feel of the car WAS to add a few mods. I didn’t touch any performance modifications on this car as I wanted to keep it as reliable as possible and I was happy with the amount of power it had, anyway.


One of my pet-peeves on modern cars is fake chrome and orange reflectors. The first thing I did was replace the chrome kidney grills and shortly after, the orange reflectors with grey ones, which I think fit the car much better. In fact, this was my first video that I posted on this channel, even before I thought of becoming a “Youtuber”. You can say that this simple mod started me on this YouTube journey and gave me confidence to continue working on cars. Over the next few months, I blacked out the chrome pieces in the bumper, on the side of the car and even on the door handles. Adding a spoiler to the trunk and tinting the windows completed the look I was going for.

One other item I would definitely recommend upgrading on the interior would be the navigation system. I added CarPlay functionality to modernize the car and bring it into this decade.

Thinking back on this, I do wish I would have gotten better wheels for it and maybe put a sporty exhaust on it, but it would also ruin the entire understated feel of the car I tried to maintain.

WHY I SOLD IT:

Now comes the big questions, why did I sell this car I liked so much? I wish I had a very elaborate and cool story to tell here, but honestly it was mostly because I haven’t been driving it since the pandemic started. Back when I was commuting 50-60 miles every day, this car made perfect sense, but now just watching it sit there for days at a time, not being driven, just didn’t make sense and she had to go to a better home. Of course, the fact that the prices are way higher than I could have sold it even 2 years ago and the fact that I have 3 more vehicles at home made that decision a little bit easier. Overall, these are still a great deal in my opinion as long as you know how to take care and maintain these beasts. I really do hope the feature owners enjoys and cherishes the car as much as I have over the years.

WHAT AM I BUYING NEXT?

This, of course, brings up another question, what will I get next? Well, since it doesn’t look like I will be going back to the office for at least another half a year, I will most likely keep driving what I have and keep getting better in the snow in my rear-wheel-drive Z4. I also, like the idea of BMW I3 and how quirky and weird it is, but eventually I will need a vehicle that’s be really good in winter. BMW Z4 is my current main ride and as fun as it is in the snow, it’s not very good once we have over a few inches. I’d love to hear your recommendations on what I should get next. Should I got for the BMW M550i, maybe a 6 series or should I be looking for Porsche? Leave your comments down below.

With all of that said, I’m sad to see my BMW 550i go, but more fun and fast cars to come in my future. Thank you, guys, so much for watching and I’ll see you in the next one!

BMW Apple CarPlay Retrofit

BMW never offered Apple CarPlay on the F10 NBT system, but luckily there are aftermarket kits that allow us to add wireless CarPlay to our 5 series BMWs like my BMW 550i, 535i, 528i etc. The kits come in different configuration and will work on CIC, NBT and EVO navigation systems. So, no matter what BMW you have as long as you have a screen, you can easily upgrade to Apple CarPlay or Android Auto on your car. In this video I go over the process of installing the kit on BMW F10, but this will work the same on the all of the below compatible BMW models:

1-Series F20/F21 – 03/2013 – 03/2015

2-Series F22 – 11/2013 – 03/2015

3-Series F30/F31 – 11/2012 – 07/2015

3-Series F34 – 03/2013 – 07/2015

3-Series F80 – 03/2014 – 07/2015

4-Series F32 – 07/2013 – 07/2015

4-Series F33 – 11/2013 – 07/2015

4-Series F36 – 03/2014 – 07/2015

5-Series F07 – 07/2012

5-Series F10/F11/F18

6-Series F06/F12/F13

7-Series F01/F02/F03 – 07/2012 – 06/2015

X3 F25 – 04/2013 – 08/2017

X4 F26 – 04/2014 – 08/2017

X5 F15 – 08/2014 – 07/2016

X5 F85 – 12/2014 – 07/2016

X6 F16 – 08/2014 – 07/2016

X6 F86 – 12/2014 – 07/2016

i3 – 09/2013 – 09/2017 (2018 model year)

i8 – 04/2014 – 09/2017 (2018 model year)

BMW F10 5 Series Problems to Expect

In the video above we will be discussing some of the more common problems you can expect with your BMW F10 5 series car. The BMW F10 was sold from 2011 all the way up to 2017. So, as you can imagine the issues have changed over the years. New ones came up and older ones have been resolved by the BMW. 

To start with, I have had my BMW 550i xDrive for 2.5 years and I’ve done all of the maintenance and took care of the car myself. My BMW F10 was CPO car from a BMW dealer and I’ve had zero issues for the year I had the CPO. After the warranty expired, I have replaced the ignition coils and spark plugs, engine oil, engine filters and that’s it.

I will be concentrating on the US spec cars as these are the ones I know about.

Right of the bet, we can split the cars into pre-LCI (model years before 2014) and LCI cars (model years from 2014 on). I would absolutely recommend getting the LCI cars as you get more features and most of the models have also fixed a lot of the issues in the previous version of the car.

The car has a great built quality, there are no rattles and the car really held up well even after 5 years.

All cars have run flat tires, so rim damage or deformation is not uncommon. Cars across the board have also had some issues with water getting into the trunk, back up camera and sensors not working well in the cold and other common BMW problems you can expect.

528i (N52B30 2010-2011)

  • Very reliable cars, but getting old now.
  • Oil and coolant leaks are the most common culprit when it comes to these engines and can cause engines to overheat.

528i (N20B20 2012–2016)

535i (N55B30 2011–2017 in US)

  • Early cars aren’t recommended (2011) due to having too many of the issues
  • BMW 535s with N55 engine is probably the most reliable car out of the 3 models we are discussing today. BMW are know for making decent straight 6 engines and this one is a good engine.
  • Known issues on early cars:
    • Increased battery drain issue
    • Fuel Pump
    • Leaking oil filter gasket
    • Belt Tensioner going bad
    • Turbos have issues, people have had them replaced under warranty
    • Oil Filter Housing and valve cover gaskets
    • Coil packs
    • Fuel Injectors

550i (N63B44 2009–2013)

  • Excessive oil consumption, although more so in the pre-LCI
  • Ignition coils and spark plugs around 60K miles
  • Valve Stem Seal Job – my friend has had this done on this 40k mile N63TU engine right before his warrant ran out and it was an engine out job. If done outside of warrant this could cost around $5000.
  • Timing Chains are also a common on all years to a lesser extent and is obviously more prone on  higher mileage cars
  • Known issues on pre-LCI cars:
    • High Pressure Fuel Injectors
    • Hot-Film Air Mass Sensors
    • Engine Vacuum Pump
    • Fuel System Low Pressure Sensor
    • Fresh Air Intake Turbo Seals
    • Crankcase Ventilation Lines
    • Timing chain
    • Fuel Pump
  • N63 Customer Care Package
    • The highlights are:
      • Check the timing chain for stretch; replace if necessary
      • Check the following items and replace if necessary: 
        • fuel injectors
        • mass air flow sensors
        • crankcase vent lines
        • battery
        • engine vacuum pump
        • low pressure fuel sensor
      • Change the oil service interval to 12 months/10,000 miles
    • This has helped many vehicles and many owners reported way fewer issues after this CCP. 
    • Most dealers and private shops recommend even smaller (5-7k) mile oil change interval.
  • If you go for a 550, it pretty much has to be a 2014 model or newer. The original N63 engine had a lot of problem. In 14, BMW switched to the N63TU for the 550.

LCI 550i (N63B44O1 (N63TU) 2014–2017)

  • BMW has improved the engine a lot with this update as well as increased the power to close to 450 HP from 400. Very solid performance. 
  • Parking Camera and Sensors issues are somewhat common.
  • Oil Pump Gasket leaks happen on higher mileage vehicles.

In conclusion, I would recommend getting the BMW 535i or BMW 550i that is 2014 or newer as you will have plenty of power and decent reliability for this type of car.