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And usually 5 of them are with the NZ couriers lol

I was getting stuff over night in the US and no more than 10 working days in NZ. Try Spareto.com. They are much quicker. DHL from Europe. My last 10 or so orders have been from them. Not just BMW parts either. Best method with their site is input the BMW part number into the search. You will get a ton of options from brands you have never heard of to genuine BMW.

The mighty tractor successfully survived its first outing, although wasn't left completely unscathed. The main issues we did encounter were to do with the transmission. On the way there I went for a brisk overtake and was met by a slight thump, a warning gong and a transmission failsafe message on the cluster, leaving the car stuck in 3rd. Pulled over, off-on and she carried on as usual. The first subsequent shift from 5th into 6th came with a slight jolt but smoothed out thereafter. Still accelerated and changed gear without issues unless you were absolutely mashing the throttle. Knew to take it a bit easier from there on but same thing did happen once more on the way back on an uphill passing lane. Seems like the same issue @euroriffic is experiencing although flagged up different codes, 4F51 - Gear check 5 in my case. Another less pronounced issue I noticed was that when steadily cruising between 50-60 & 70-80 kph at around 1600-1700 RPM, the transmission would produce a slight jolt as if it was shifting gears but would then just stay in the same gear. If I kept the revs constant it would do it roughly every 10 seconds or so, so I just started slightly accelerating out of that range. This did not generate any fault codes. I've yet to do any sort of service on the transmission so that'll be the next mission. Will do the mechatronic sleeves, new filter and fluid as a first stage and see what, if any difference that makes. Will note down the separator plate number and then look into doing new solenoids & Sonnax Zip kit in the future. The only other, more humorous problem we ran into happened on the final toilet stop on the way back. Upon returning to the car the driver's door handle decided it'd had enough and left me stranded like a muppet. Turns out it had succumbed to a very typical fault with the door handle carrier where a pivot point for the rod just breaks off. Luckily managed to do a hack fix with some safety wire which is potentially sturdier than the original design. Will add a new carrier to the next order to have on hand just in case though. Must not have been the first time the car suffered from this issue as the vapour barrier was rather crudely hacked up to gain access so had to get creative with some duct tape until I source a replacement. Why people do this kind of sh*t instead of just peeling it back is beyond me. Overall though, really happy with it as a road trip car - nice and comfortable, plenty of room, cruises as a steady 2,000 RPM at 100kph, holds the road well and just feels solid overall. I find myself being way calmer at the wheel of this thing than the E46. In the latter you're just constantly tempted to row through the gears and act a bit silly, whereas in the less rev-happy X5 is a nice relaxing cruiser that keeps the heart rate nice and stable. Clocked up a good 1,200km's across the 4 days, averaging under 9L/100km, which for a big 'ol lump isn't all too bad. There's definitely something up with the fuel level sensor though. Filled her up in Nelson, clocked up 650km's since and it's claiming to still have over half a tank left in it. I somehow doubt it'll do 1,300km on a single fill but would be beautiful if it did. Who needs a Prius, ey...

Yeah FCP aren't as good as they use to be in general, seems hit or miss if they update you if a delay occurs. If its not shipped within a few business days then emailing them is probably a good idea, they do respond in timely fashion i will give them that. Spareto covers most of your typical wear items for the best value and fastest shipping, then Schmeidmann and NZ dealers for genuine only parts. FCP will sometimes fill a brand or stock gap the others have missed, but generally i dont see the point of using them these days.

FCP used to be good until a few years ago when they switched from FedEX to UPS, feel like the shipping experience has gone down the drain since and now only use them on the rare occasion Spareto or Schmiedmann don't stock the odd part. The latter two tend to be cheaper as well. UPS also use Aramex for the final leg of the delivery which is a disaster in itself. I did tack on a few bits onto @Eagle's FCP order recently and that turned out to be a clusterf**k. Ordered end of November, only got shipped 11th of December, then for some weird reason the package got returned to sender on the 18th, then sent out again on the 20th and finally arrived on the 30th so took a whole month in total. Previous experience with them was back in mid-2023 so not sure if this is a one off or the new normal. At this rate won't be in any rush to use them again any time soon.

FCPs customer service is next level good, if you are concerned flick them an email and I bet they will sort it.

Depends if the items are in stock, but never had an issue ordering from FCP. Typically orders have come through in about a 7 days.

Welcome. Make yourself a coffee and sit and read the 130i post for a few hours/days. Ton of info in there about the problems we have all had with our 130's. Tons of upgrade info too. Once you sort your oil leeks (I still have oil leeks on both of mine) look at upgrading the coolant connections to the engine block. Easy job. Keep asking questions. 1000's of hours of working on these cars between us all.

Meanwhile...

237,000km oil + filter + VCG. The 02pilot mod seems to have taken care of the oil consumption issue. 7000km with no topping up required. Gave it a quick clean.