As of last week, I am no longer the owner of a 2014 BMW X1. Honestly, it feels so good to write that sentence.
If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ll be familiar with the saga of my old car. It came into my possession after my dad died in 2018, and I cared for it for almost six years. For a while, the BMW was reliable and took me many places — from jaunts around Milwaukee to a three-week road trip to the East Coast.
But as it aged, the car had more and more problems. Some of it was classic BMW stuff, like oil leaks in just about any crevice under the hood. Others were less expected, like the time last summer when the car’s electric water pump failed and I had to get it replaced.
Obviously, as cars age, they typically need more repairs. But an old BMW? Not only do repairs seem to happen more often than other cars, but almost every fix is ludicrously expensive. That’s the power of German engineering, baby.
To give you a sense of things, let’s compare a real-world example. My partner, Ryan, drives a well-maintained Chevy Spark, also from 2014. The only big issues he’s had in the last six years are burnt-out spark plugs, a cracked coolant bottle, a dead battery, and a flat tire. He’s spent somewhere between $1500 and $2000 getting those fixed, which isn’t a lot when spaced out over such a long time span.
I, on the other hand, have probably spent enough on BMW repairs over the past six years to buy two or three 1995 Miatas. In other words, repairs on my old car were getting so expensive that I could have just bought a different car, or several. (Not that I actually would’ve bought an old Miata, but a gal can dream.)
The problem with the BMW was that, every time I got it fixed, the repairs were so expensive that it made sense to hold onto the car for juuuust a little longer to get my “money’s worth” or whatever. But at what point do car repairs become so costly and frequent that it isn’t worth keeping the car for just a few more months anymore?
I found myself revisiting that question in January, when the BMW broke down in the middle of a snowstorm and I had to get it towed. The whole affair was quite dramatic — the car stopped accelerating in the left turn lane and the power completely shut off. I couldn’t go anywhere, and I owe it to my emergency brake for preventing me from rolling backwards down a hill.
The breakdown happened on a Friday, and our mechanic wasn’t in the shop until Monday. I spent the weekend speculating about what happened. Was it the battery? Alternator? Something with the electrical system?
Well, when the mechanic called on Monday, it was (shockingly) good news. The battery, which was a few years old, seemed to have frozen in the storm. It appeared that all we needed was a replacement. Phew.
Problem solved, right? Well, remember we’re talking about a BMW. Don’t get your hopes up.
The whole week following the battery replacement, the car drove fine. Then, the following Sunday, I noticed a vague warning light come on in my car. BMWs are known for their nondescript warning lights, which most owners decipher with a code reader. I don’t have one of those, but I’ve learned as the car has aged that it’s best not to ignore them (even if they’re yellow instead of red.)
The whole breakdown situation left me quite spooked, so I wasn’t about to drive my car with a warning light on the dash. I know, this isn’t typically BMW driver behavior — I should’ve been weaving in and out of traffic on the highway as the dashboard lights flashed and chimed at me. But alas, I’m not the typical BMW driver at all.
I decided to test drive the car around my neighborhood before taking it out on any main roads, just to be safe. That turned out to be a very good idea.
About five minutes into the drive, the same thing that happened in the snowstorm happened in my neighborhood. The car started chiming at me and all these warning lights came on the dash. Then, it stopped accelerating. The power cut out as the vehicle shuddered to a stop.
Thankfully, that time I was on top of a hill rather than climbing up one when the car broke down. Not-so-thankfully, I realized I was back to where I started a week prior — stuck with a car that would break down without warning. So I got the car towed to the mechanic again.
He was stumped, and suggested I get it looked at by a BMW specialist.
In case you’re wondering why I hadn’t taken the car to a specialist in the first place: There are very, very few European car mechanics where I live. This is one of the downsides to living in a semi-rural area (well, not a problem for most people, but definitely a problem for me).
One time, I called one of the only BMW shops in my area and they offered me an appointment a month and a half away. That was for basic maintenance. Imagine if I had a real issue!
Anyway, my best bet was to have the car towed to Milwaukee, where there are several specialty shops and dealerships that can service my car. So, that’s what I did, about three weeks after the car first broke down. (If you’re counting, this is tow number three.)
A few days later, I finally got a complete answer to why my car kept breaking down. Guess what: It was an oil leak. A MASSIVE one.
There was a loose gasket around the car’s oil filter, which caused oil to pour into the alternator. Thus, the alternator shorted out whenever I drove, which meant the battery couldn’t charge. So once the battery died completely, the car would just break down mid-drive.
Now, I’m no engineer, but who had the brilliant idea of putting the oil filter directly above the alternator? I never saw any oil leak onto the ground, so the alternator must’ve been sucking up all that oil like a big ol’ metal sponge.
That alternator repair was the mother of all repairs. It was so expensive that I debated just abandoning the car and telling the mechanics to scrap it for parts. But my mom and Ryan talked me out of it, and we got the car fixed with the intention of selling it ASAP.
I’ll be honest, I started shopping around online while the BMW was still in the shop. If we were going to sell the car, I had to have a plan for which car I was going to get next. I wanted something affordable and, frankly, boring. A boring car that could get me from point A to point B without frequently having massive issues.
I’ve wanted a Honda CR-V since high school, so I started there. Unfortunately, I found out that Honda CR-Vs are suuuper popular, and thus, too expensive. I probably could’ve bought one if I wanted, but I also wanted to avoid taking out a huge car loan or getting a vehicle that already had close to 100,000 miles on it.
So I ended up looking around for similar SUVs and crossovers. A lot of friends sent me suggestions for comparable cars, like the Toyota RAV-4, Honda HR-V, Mazda CX-5, and Chevrolet Trax.
In the end, I settled on a Chevy Trax. The new ones are really cool since they just got redesigned, but I like the old ones. Some people think they’re kinda ugly, but I love a big, honkin’ bubble-shaped SUV. It feels safe.
The day I went to trade in the BMW was a weird one. I couldn’t sleep the night before, thinking that the car would give me more trouble in the morning when I went to the dealership. Plus, I felt weird (and strangely guilty?) about making the semi-spontaneous decision to sell my dad’s old car just after it got fixed.
In the morning, I felt really sad. And I felt silly about feeling sad! The BMW was just a car — why did I have to be so emotional about getting rid of it?
I wasn’t even living at home when my dad bought that car. The first memory I have of the BMW is coming home from college and seeing it in the driveway. Dad and I never rode around in it together, and I actually don’t even remember a time when I saw him drive it at all.
The funny thing is that I actually owned that car four years longer than he did. Obviously, Dad couldn’t predict the future, but in a way, it was almost like he bought the car for me.
In the wake of his death, the car became a weird grief object for me. It was a practical thing to own, but every time I drove it around, the car reminded me of him. I felt obligated to care for the BMW, rather than just own it. It was the last thing I could do for my Dad, even if he wasn’t around to see it.
But selling the car meant that era was over. No more frequent oil leaks or crazy maintenance bills. No more having to explain myself when people learned I owned a BMW. No more caring for a vehicle that I would have never bought in the first place, or worrying if I’d even done enough to keep it in working order.
I felt ready to let it all go. But some part of me felt guilty, too, that I hadn’t tried harder. Then again, was it really my fault that the car randomly decided to break down? I wasn’t the one who decided to put the oil filter above the alternator, after all.
The final drive to the dealership was uneventful. It was a beautiful day, and I rolled down the windows in the BMW for the last time. My sadness turned into thankfulness as the unseasonably warm air blew through the cabin. The car had done so much for me over the years, despite its problems — and I got lucky that it hadn’t had worse issues as it aged.
I’m happy to report that almost two weeks after selling the BMW, I’m very happy with my extremely normal Chevy Trax. It’s everything I expected it to be. I look forward to living a normal life in my normal car that will hopefully have a normal amount of problems.
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Thank you, dear readers, for an incredible start to the year! Y’all helped me raise $229 in January and February. I’m still deciding what my fundraising goal should be for Spring, but you’ll see an update here next week.
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