The 325XiT Era Begins -- So Far, So Good

I picked up the 325XiT this morning. I'll leave the story of the purchase for a Roundel article, but $5800 bought me a 145k mile rust-free car, 5-speed, sport package, black with tan leather interior, clean Carfax, two owners before being wholesaled, so no repair records exist.  Mike Miller warned me that if there's no record whether the transfer case and diffs have had the fluid changed, they probably haven't, and there could be trouble, but for the price I couldn't pass it up. I saw it and bought it on the spot.

I drove it home from southern Rhode Island, then used it to run errands all day. After putting a hundred miles on it, I like it a lot. The seats are very interesting. They're sport seats (as one would expect with the sport package) with side bolsters and an extendable front support, but for sport seats they're very soft. And they're unpowered. Very surprising. With my bad back (bulged L5 and sciatica), I've become increasingly sensitive to seats. This has made my Z3 M Coupe uncomfortable. I recently did the tilt mod (putting a threaded coupler over the front seat stud to raise the front about an inch), and that helped, but using the Z3 M as a DD was driving me nuts. The XiT feels much better.

As soon as I got the XiT home, I put it up on the lift and drained all five boxes (engine, transmission, front and rear diff, and transfer case). The diff fluids looked and smelled fine, possibly even recently changed with standard hypoid. The trani and transfer case fluids were thin and black, like old brake fluid, but could've been worse. Could've smelled like burnt coffee. Redline MTL for the trani and transfer case (Mike Miller's recommendation), Redline 75/90 for the diffs, and Syntec for the engine. I'll bleed the brakes in the morning.

Doing all the fluids is a pain and a mess, but there's no better way to acquaint yourself with the car. Pulling all three plastic under-covers and lying beneath it for the afternoon, I didn't see anything scary. The engine isn't pissing or weeping anything.

I'll bleed the brakes in the morning, and begin the task of looking for the date codes on the cooling system parts to see how recent they are.

But... so far so good.