New to Us '15 35d Hope it's as Good as the E70 (Build/Maint. Log)

[jbfrancis3]

Originally Posted by crystalworks

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The X5 is going back to him at the end of the week for front bumper PPF wrapping. Asked him if it was going to be a problem with the coating being on there already. He said they prep it and then re-coat with ceramic over the PPF is put on. Nice. Also have some fender flares here that I ordered to put on it and then will move the 20's from the E70 over to this one. Should look pretty nice.

Great result! You'll regret not doing PPF on the hood, too. I am still kicking myself for not doing our vehicle (same exact model) at delivery, and doing the PPF 2 yrs after the fact. The chipping occurred more on the metal hood while the underlying plastic in the bumper seemed to cushion small stone impacts, and chip less.

[crystalworks]

Originally Posted by jbfrancis3

Great result! You'll regret not doing PPF on the hood, too. I am still kicking myself for not doing our vehicle (same exact model) at delivery, and doing the PPF 2 yrs after the fact. The chipping occurred more on the metal hood while the underlying plastic in the bumper seemed to cushion small stone impacts, and chip less.

Thanks. I asked the detailer about the hood. He said they could do it, but said it probably wasn't necessary. The front end on X5's is large and takes the brunt of the damage in his experience. That matches our results as well through 4 X5's so we elected to save some money and spend that on a new windshield. Hopefully we don't regret that. The front bumper kit ordered does include the front hood protection, but I can not stand the exposed transition between film and no film on the hood to say nothing of what it does to making the paint age at different rates. So we skipped that too.

01/16/2021

- Fender flares installed in prep for the 20" wheels.

First mod is complete. Got the flared fender arches installed. These are aftermarket and fit 95%. Cost was about $220 after tax and using Ebay bucks that I had stored.





The flares definitely look better, but now the 19's look totally out of place so am going to look for a place to swap over the TPMS sensors from our E70's 20" wheels over to the F15. Need to do this ASAP now.

Also while I was under and around the vehicle I took stock of the condition of the vehicle. Here are some things I noticed.

1. Front brake pads are almost new while the rears are at around 15%. Service menu confirms and has ~3000 miles left until service due. I'll do all 4 corners in a couple thousand miles.

2. The body shop who repaired the accident damage was sub-par, which does not surprise me in the slightest. I replaced all kinds of 8mm fasteners, 10mm plastic nuts, and rivets. Also found some overspray inside the front fender vents as well as one side that was not reinstalled correctly. At least they did a good job on the paint I guess.

3. Mechanically the X5 seems to be in good condition. Everything is dry and tidy in the engine bay. I dropped the front splash shield (16 8mm screws!) and had a good poke around. Suspension is tight all the way around with no signs of immediate attention being necessary. So was happy about this.

4. This thing is COMPLEX. Between the dynamic handling package, adaptive suspension, and active steering... this could get expensive. Hopefully used parts drop in price before any of these systems need work. The sway bars have motors on them, the steering rack has a motor, the front struts are adaptive, the rear suspension has air springs, and the rear differential is completely different than any I'm familiar on previous BMW's. Scary stuff.

That's it for now. Will update when we get the 20's swapped over.

[TriX5]

Hi CW,

Nice vehicle. Looking forward to seeing the mods.

I drove a ton of X5s similar to this one when we wanted a replacement for the E70. (I drove one '15 with a gas engine and it was nowhere near the diesel in torque.) We went down a different path in the end but I will be keen to see how the F15 diesel holds up over time.

And hopefully the F15 board will liven up a bit more :-).