Just Bought an X5

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by Bianca98

Updates: Picking up my heated/sport/E46 seats this Sunday. Guy is giving me a decent deal. As long as they are in the condition he says they are, it should be a very clean install. If they aren't, the E46 ///M seats I had in my E36 are available and at a better price even! they came out of a wreck and are manual adjustment though. I would rather go leather and power for the X. Awesome, how much you spend for the E46 sport seats?

Just put in another order on Ebay! ABS Grills, hood props, E70 wiper (last guy cancelled my order because the last unit in stock was damaged), and the aFe intake filter cleaner. I also have my maintenance and upkeep order started. Fuel filter, plugs, cabin filter, oil kit. I also intend to do a full coolant flush, trans, and diffs. I used Redline MTL in gearbox, D4 ATF in our transfer case, and 75W-90 gear oil in front and rear diffs. Spark plugs I used OEM NGK plugs, fuel filter I haven't done yet, but cabin filter I replaced 2 years ago with OEM activated charcoal unit. Looking forward to your E70 rear wiper install! What do you mean by "ABS grills" did you buy new black kidney grilles?

Parts of the transmission/suspension feel a little sloppy. I need to have it diagnosed. Feels like the flex disc/guibo is shot. There is some pulsation when braking and at highway speeds. nothing major, but these things tend to implode quickly if left unattended. Do you have shaking in the steering wheel on the highway at all with the slight pulsating? I sometimes think I might have a flex disc thats loose too, although my whole front suspension is brand new, the rear is all original save for the sway bar bushings and end links. I only have 71k though. Pulsating when braking would be most likely tied to the thrust arms in the front however.

The shift assembly is GARBAGE! neutral position is under 5th gear, it has nearly 2in of play while in gear. and it has lateral, horizontal, and vertical play. It has me considering a full shift bushing refresh with a SSK install but I am also considering cheaping out. I might look into a shorter throw OEM shift arm but often times these are spendy anyways. Even with the $320 UUC SSK, although the shift action is worlds better than stock, to get rid of a lot of the free play laterally and vertically when in gear, you need a DSSR and they do not sell one for our application and I have not had mine off to measure it. It's because of the selector rod design on BMW's. Just FYI if you do a UUC SSK it will replace 90% of the bushings that have play in the shift linkage, you would just have 2 oval bushings on the shift carrier and the rear shift carrier mount ($30 in parts), and then the rod joint that connects the selector rod to the trans ($15), and with that you would have replaced everything. I left my carrier bushings in place since I couldn't remove the carrier, and the rod joint because I didn't take the selector rod off, but I bought a new rear carrier mount for the shifter which I am installing this weekend.

MID display is nearly inop, heavily unreadable. Ribbon cables can be had for under 20 bucks so I am considering tackling this DIY. Anyone here tried fixing theirs? If you don't have shaking alcoholic like hands like I do then it is doable. I had pixels out on my cluster and paid $120 to have it repaired by a local guy who threw a free set of Titan silver gauge rings on my cluster at the same time, I'm happy with the work and its lifetime warrantied by him, was worth the extra cost to not mess it up IMO.

In regards to my EML/throttle situation I think it is a fault in either the intake, IACV, or DISA. I'm not sure when I will have time to diagnose, but for the time being I am just driving very leisurely. As long as you confirmed you don't have a leak at the lower elbow (check the little Y hose that goes to the ICV, it tends to rip in the folds), I'd pop the 2 T40 bolts off the DISA and if it pulls out easily from the manifold, you know the seal is toast, it should give some resistance when releasing if the seal is good, its molded in the housing and tends to flatten over time. I would imagine its due, you can get a new seal for $6 or a complete DISA rebuild kit for $85 from German Auto Solutions as preventative maintenance.

Anyone with input on any of the above feel free to chime in!

See my input above man!

[Bianca98]

Seats are black leather, power, heated, memory on driver, sport with thigh adjustment. Didn't look like they had lumbar though. Guy was asking 400. we talked about 300. I intend to snake them for 275.00.

BMW E53 x5 Matt Black ABS Front Hood Kidney Replacement Grill Grille Cover Guard | eBay Link to the Kidneys. I paid about 4 bucks extra to get it from a retailer in the USA. Hope it was worth it.

Pulsating is all in the steering wheel. sometimes I think its a wheel weight. When I do an alignment I will likely have them check the wheels for balance as well.

I still need to investigate the rest before spending money on the other bits.

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by Bianca98

Seats are black leather, power, heated, memory on driver, sport with thigh adjustment. Didn't look like they had lumbar though. Guy was asking 400. we talked about 300. I intend to snake them for 275.00.

BMW E53 x5 Matt Black ABS Front Hood Kidney Replacement Grill Grille Cover Guard | eBay Link to the Kidneys. I paid about 4 bucks extra to get it from a retailer in the USA. Hope it was worth it.

Pulsating is all in the steering wheel. sometimes I think its a wheel weight. When I do an alignment I will likely have them check the wheels for balance as well.

I still need to investigate the rest before spending money on the other bits.

Nice snag on the seats! Looking forward to seeing them on your ride man.

Kidneys will look good as well, you may have to dremel a slight notch in them to accomodate the hood pull, I know on my Titan kidneys I bought, I had to. No big deal though.

Definitely get a Hunter Road force balance first, might solve your problems.

[ProfessorX5]

Welcome aboard!

[Bianca98]

Updates: We got our 5th in stock Camaro in stock and ready to show today. A coworker and I took a few minutes to take some nice pics for our facebook page.

If anyone here is in the market for a nice 1LE Camaro, its Chevy Open House and there are some steep discounts. Plus its an old in-voice, pre price increases. Plus if you guys buy it, I can buy more car parts.

E46 seats are in. they were direct swap, perfect fit. all the bolts were even well lubed. One of the easiest and fastest projects I have ever completed. I didn't realize how gray my X seats were until I saw them side by side with the Sport seats.

I looked at them to try and see all the differences. I found the headrests, seat stitching, seat plastics, bolster heights, seat backs, but I'm not sure how much of this is related to the difference in comfort seats vs sport seats. Pics following. I was sure to give it a solid vacuum.







And a night pic of them installed.


A couple of console pics and note the terrible condition of the MID. This will be my next DIY to tackle I think. Considering reusing my cable. Does anyone have a volume knob in good condition I could get off you cheap?

[Ricky Bobby]

You can't reuse the cable the cable is what goes bad.

I had my speedo repaired since I don't have the steadiest hands but it is a DIY job if you have patience, tmv did his on his old 3.0 by himself

[bcredliner]

Nice looking seats!

[Z@T]

Hi and congrats to the 5 speed X5. They are more than rare.

I'm so glad to see someone else who names cars. :-)

What is the X5's name?

[Z@T]

Hi and congrats to the 5 speed X5. They are more than rare.

I'm so glad to see someone else who names cars. :-)

What is the X5's name?

[tmv]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

You can't reuse the cable the cable is what goes bad.

I had my speedo repaired since I don't have the steadiest hands but it is a DIY job if you have patience, tmv did his on his old 3.0 by himself

Also did the cluster of my 540i and another local member E39
Haven't try the MID yet, but I don't think it's as hard as the cluster.