[Spyro235]

Truthfully, you'd only be caught in California where they do the pull over mobile smog checks. I'm in NJ, where it's technically illegal, but I have absolutely 0 fear of ever being "caught." There's simply no way anyone could ever "catch" it.

I second the coolant temps- The thermostat is pretty much the most failure prone part other than the emissions systems. It fails open, and causes the motor to run cold, under 70c. Under 70c, the glow plug controller runs the glow plugs, which aren't meant to run all the time. The controller usually burns out from that, as mine did: still haven't gotten around to swapping it out. $105 for the controller, and a 2 hours or so to get it in. I have an annoying CEL from it sadly.

Mine had 204k when I bought it, I got an emissions code and deleted at 210k. I'm at 217k right now, I've driven this D 13k in four months and absolutely love the car. It feels 50% more powerful, with the combination of the DUDMD stage 2 tune, and the Sutphin transmission tune. After the deletes have been done, the motor is nearly bulletproof.

The best thing I've done, and highly recommend, is if you have an iphone, look into the unichip tech carplay box. I have oem feeling carplay in my X5, and it really brings the modern era into the car.

Enjoy those seats, you have my jealousy. One day I hope to find a beat up pair of AC/heated comfort seats and take on the challenge of making them work in my car, then having the refinished in brown to match my interior. That's the one feature that I'm really sad my car doesn't have, other than the self leveling suspension.