today I got the valve covers off and things look ok in there. chains are snug and tensioners appear in tact. I can move the chains about 1/8" or with my finger. I watched a video the other day showing the valvetronic motors being unscrewed to remove. mine didn't go like that. when I got the last bolt out ; they both popped right out like they were spring loaded. this gots me thinking that maybe they were stuck with the eccentric shafts holding the intake valves open. would this make it run like crap ? and could this be a result of low oil pressure ? I am going to get a leak down tester and see what I get tomorrow. I'm not sure how well it would work to do compression test with valve covers off, and lower oil pan off; or if I could damage anything with valvetronic motors off. leak down should tell me if I have any bent valves or bad rings. if test is good; then I think I'm goin to pull off the upper oil pan to get a look at bearings. much to my surprise; there are no videos and little info out there on pulling off the oil pan of an X5 with n62 motor. my Bentley manual has proven to be utterly useless with this problem because they don't have shite in the book for the n62 motor. someone should really tell them TARDS that BMW made an n62 motor; and that they actually put it in the X5.