So I'm taking a study break from school right now and have been thinking. I take the X5 to practice every morning, which is a 40 mile round trip through St. Louis into the surrounding suburbs. I also cart around 4 of my teammates at the same time. After doing this for a few weeks, I'm starting to notice the X5 is getting tired as it doesn't feel as good as it does with just me in it. It has 113k miles and is rising daily (40mi/day).

Now I have a few symptoms...
The brakes pulsate when stopping from highway speeds, and there is a slight vibration in the wheel at highway speeds. The front pads are fine, replaced ~3 years ago, but the rotors have probably been on the car for 65k miles. Thrust arms have been on the car for the same amount of time. Should I associate all these movements to rotors, or should I look at both my control arms?

The rear end compresses quite a lot with 3 college kids in the back. It also slams over bumps more now. I'm thinking to replace just the rear shocks with Billy HD's and leaving the front original due to cost concerns. The rear camber is also pretty negative...what control arm/ball joint would be the blame for this?

Fluid wise...never had a transmission fluid flush. I'm going to leave that alone. What about the differentials? 75W-90 is the common one for RWD non-LSD BMW's. Do the X5's get the same?

I'm thinking of doing the subframe bushings too (finally!), but I may not next summer. I'm looking for easy items I can knock out in a few hours in the summer. I've got another car that needs some serious work so I can't dedicate all summer to the X5.

By the way, I have some serious faith in the X5 for taking it from NJ to St. Louis with no tool box. All I have is 3.5 qts. of oil with me. It hasn't let me down after 1.5 months yet. Gas has been cheap too; my last fill-up was at $3.34/gal for Premium!

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