[toss1]

Sad to see. I had an X5 from 2002 with manual 5-speed transmission (had to search hard), and it was excellent. Still somewhat regret trading it in after 287,500 miles, with very few issues. The only issue was that the brake calipers would start to drag slightly and warp the rotors, but I discovered that it was because I was using them too lightly; occasionally doing some serious braking (not quite as hard as bedding new race pads) was enough to get >100k miles out of a set of rotors & calipers. Similar with an E36 that I used for track days & time trials.

I found it really sad to see that Mini (owned by BMW) and BMW are pushing hard on run-flats. Hard NOPE from me, as I drive a good amount in fairly rural areas, and driving 50mi from a random point (the flat-driving range spec of a run-flat tire) still leaves me at a random point with no service. And the quality is just gone way down, as you've noted. Too bad.