It feels like a taunt sports-activity-vehicle. Mine has no looseness whatsoever.

It's built to be stiff, and if you look in the advertisements for such things as Adaptive Drive it reads something to the tune of "Adaptive Drive [sic] compliments the X5's already stiff handling providing increased control, etc."

To me the ride is VERY similar to that of a 335i.

You feel small bumps in the road, you hear small bumps in the road, but you also have a tremendous amount of stability at speeds well in excess of those legal in all 50-states.

Yes this is an SUV, make no doubt about that, and it's a heavy vehicle at that, but for what it is, it handles rather well.

If you think this thing creaks, try a M3 for a weekend on a cold morning, on a rough road. You'll think it was made by Ford, if you closed your eyes and based your opinion on feel and sound alone.

Stiff suspension + automobiles = creaking cars on cold mornings. Materials expand and contract, as much as automobile engineers hate to admit it, metals contract and expand depending on temperature differentials. This "can" cause creaking, and rattling. There's only so much precision that can be built into a vehicle that has thousands of interlocking pieces, and also has stiff suspension. IMHO, it comes with the territory to a degree.

If your X5 sounds like it's about to loose a wheel, that's another story all together, and you may have a bad shock absorber (if you have adaptive drive, you should get a warning).

Nothing to see here folks...carry on...