I heard back from the dealer. They indicated BMW NA is willing to pay for 50% of the diagnosis. Since the problem has not been diagnosed yet, I guess I'm looking at $50 of the $100 diagnosis (plugging the X up to the computer) and than half of taking the seat cushion out and peeling back the leather cover to look at the sensor. At $130/hr X 3 hours +/- Im looking at about $200 out of pocket for that. This is a total of $300 with no guarantees of much of anything other than formal diagnosis. The service manager indicated that BMW NA wants to know the color of a certain wire on the sensor. This shows some acknowledgement that there are problems beyond the 11/2005 manufacture date. The service manager says "At least they are talking". I need to take this thing to an indy to run the fault code to see what it shows. I'm also thinking about just installing the bypass which I think I think I was able to find yesterday on Ebay. Such BS for a safety issue that should be taken care of with no questions asked. My car only has 36K on her.

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Current BMW's:
2013 E70 X5 xDrive35i Premium (mine)
2014 F25 X3 xDrive28i (hers)
Past BMW's:
2001 E46 325i
2001 E46 330ci
2003 E39 525i
2006 E53 X5 3.0i
2008 E70 X5 3.0i
2014 E84 X1