We bought a 4.6is. A few questions..

[rwm514]

After a little search we found a black on black, silver trim, babied 03 4.6is in a neighboring state. The owners turned out to be well known Hollywood movie makers lol. Selling because "it's not environmentally friendly"
We drove it from Santa Monica to flagstaff, and I was shocked to realize what a freeway beast this thing is!! Rock solid at 115, so stable and handles extremely well.

Nearly mint, really nice. We are loving it. We got it with 68k miles. so now the questions. We've been getting some intermittent "service engine soon", stays on for a few days then goes off. I haven't scanned it yet. What is a usual cause of this?
Next we got the "check brake linings", the rear pads are almost gone and the fronts look pretty new. There is a tiny lip on the rear rotor but it looks good otherwise. Is it ok to just replace the pads?
That's it for now. Thx

[Naz24]

Congratulations and Welcome! my mom drives an 02 4.6is, great car!

Anyway, its hard to tell what the Service engine soon light is from without reading the codes....

as for the brakes, the BMW dealer replaces just the pads when the car is under warranty, i'll go ahead and say its totally fine--assuming the rotors are in good shape. I'm not sure if you do brake jobs yourself or not, but a reputable independent shop should be able to help you out in that regard. (PS, my indy told me that BMW uses Zimmerman rotors..just repackaged with a BMW stamp).

Have fun with the X5, and you cant tell us who you bought it from can you?


PS, before someone else tells you, I'm pretty sure we all want to see pictures!

[JCL]

SES warnings are often related to evaporative emissions control systems. That can be the gas cap, or any of the vents/lines/air pumps that maintain pressure and check for evaporative leaks. You need the codes to know for sure.

Brake rotors have a minimum thickness stamped on them. While you can technically reuse them if they are above that thickness, I don't tend to. It isn't worth my time to go back in and do the brakes again if they have noise. But if you want to try just doing the pads, and they are above the minimum thickness, go ahead.

[rwm514]

The previous owners were Jamie Marshall producer, and Catherine Harwicke, director. She did twilight. Jamie picked us up at the airport in it, really cool guy

[AeroJammin]

Welcome!

FWIW. In the case of my wife's last X5 SES light mystery (according to the dealer), it was a damaged lower intake hose.

As for the brakes ditto what JCL said.

[TwinTurboGTR]

WELCOME AND CONGRATS. I concur with what JCL said. You can get away with re-using the rotors, but when I did mine this way after my X was out of the maintenance terms, everything was fine for a few thousand miles, then I got a shimmy and shake and ended up being the rotors. Only way i found out was when I took them off, took it to my fathers machine shop, placed the rotor on a hardinge turret lathe with a dial indicator, spun the rotor at 300 rpm and the needed jumped around like crazy. I guess when the dealer did it, they just changed the pads, so really they were being used 3 times. With the reduced thickness, there is more of a chance to have the rotors warp. if I were you, i'd just go to ECS tuning, get a brake kit and re-do the entire system, this way you know you are starting fresh. Then when it comes time to do the brakes again, you can use them a second time usually without a problem.

Also, just for fun, the shop has a NDT, or non-destructive testing/magnetic particle testing machine. Hooks that sum-biotch up, hit the go button and HELLO! 3 splash cracks along the rotor surface. Yeah that rotor was shot. I have fun at his shop, haha./

[c4racer]

welcome to the 4.6is fold! And post pics ASAP!!

Agree - it's a great highway hauler - in more ways than one. I drove mine out to CA from CO and had a blast flying across desolate hwy 50 at 90-100mph. And I averaged 18.5mpg for the whole trip so it isn't so bad on the gas considering it's built for performance and it's a heavy SUV!

[rwm514]

Wife with the new x5, she looks happy

Maybe a dumb question but is it ok to post some extra x5 wheels I have for sale on here?

[rwm514]

Inside, I really like the silver trim instead of wood, seems like that is hard to find on the 4.4 models.

[Naz24]

Originally Posted by rwm514

Wife with the new x5, she looks happy

Maybe a dumb question but is it ok to post some extra x5 wheels I have for sale on here?

Looks very clean!

Become a premier member and then you can post in the for sale forum.