I replaced those two sliding covers with the help of a friend. It is not for the faint of heart, but certainly doable. My X5 does have 4-zone climate control as well as DVD for the rear entertainment, which made the process even more difficult.

Note that the entire center console needs to come out. I thought about a workaround but couldn't find any.

We followed the steps at newtis.info to remove the center console. Good luck!

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