The Fuel system flush that I had may have been an underlying reason that my cats got clogged up. I ended up cutting them down and hollowing them out and am working on getting an O2 sensor simulator that will get rid of my SES light. (keep getting an after cat O2 sensor aging errors, sim is to slow.) Cats are just too expensive and since there are two it is even worse.

If you are having the starting problem like I am having, but you only have 7000 miles on your X5 I would make the dealer or BMW NA fix it. Not worth throwing your own money at.