I read the first three posts and that's about it. Sounds like your BMW was not so "lightly used" as you thought. My mom now owns a 2003 5 series and has had 0 issues with it. Before that we had 12 years of 3 series that my mom had, passed to my sister, got her through college before it was finally sold of to another family. And other than having to replace the brake booster once, Nothing other than regular maint. was required.