First impressions of MT sport 03 x5
 

Well the truck rolled into the Sandy Utah Walmart at 9am this morning and within 30 minutes I drove away my 89k silver/black sport MT. Even has Sport seats.

The clutch reminds me of my 03 g35 coupe clutch. The engagement seems similar. I have not stalled it and do not think I will. The 1-2 shift reminds me of driving a small 4 cylinder car. Those things have no power and I have to do these quick shifts on those as well. 1-2 shift does not bother me at all.

I still have my auto x5 3.0 and will until the MT is perfect. So at least another year. I am shocked at how much the mT changes the perception of the driving experience. I am sold on keeping the MT forever, especially since BMW will likely never make another MT SUV given how poorly the MT E53 sold.

The dealer has some 'splainin to do since it was supposed to have changed the oil before shipping it. Umm the oil does not look new at all.

The 18's have to go and I am hoping I am get some OEM wheels with tires for a good deal. Or I can swap my 19's from my auto and give that one the 18's. 20's in style 87 or 4.6 or 4.8is wheels would be ideal.

Ebay wheels are about 900-1k shipped for 20's and the another 1200-1400 for tires and mount and balancing.

All black interior including the headliner makes the interior nicer to me. The auto is black with a greyish headliner.

Congrats, and the best of wishes on building her up. I do envy all you guys with the MT's..! Have fun with her...

P.S. I always love me some good pics! (Hint, hint...)

Thanks. I will be taking some soon :)

Pics or it didnt happen! :-P

Congrats, squid, on joining the three pedal army. I think the stick makes the 3.0L just sufficient for the E53, and it certainly handles like a top-heavy bimmer, though it also shows its limits when towing a couple tons. If you haven't already, even if you are 'used' to the CDV- limited 1-2 shift, delete that sucker, coincident to changing the brake fluid in the clutch and maybe a brake flush - if the dealer didn't change the oil, it didn't check the brake fluid, and I would get it on a proper two years schedule for brake flushes. I'm also sold on the UUC short shift kit. The sportsitze are certainly a nice feature! I'm on 18s, would have liked to find the nice staggered 5-spoke 20s, but they are spendy when you find them - I think the going rate is probably somewhere over $200 per wheel for decent examples. Too much investment for a vehicle worth south of $10k, in my humble opinion :)

Just remove the CDV? I thought I had to replace it with a different valve. That is what they say to do with the 545i. As far as the brake fluid, that I have confirmed was done. Between the BMW dealer that did the work and the color of the fluid I say I am good to know. But thanks for the tips.

As far as the wheels go I may just buy some replica style 168 with tires for 1500.00 or so. Even though it is an old car, it is a manual transmission BMW SUV and those are never going to be made again so I do not mind.

The old story was to replace the CDV with a modified valve with no restrictor. That was in the days of "warranty" with these cars, apparently some were worried BMW would deny a warranty claim if they deleted a CDV so they installed modified valves so that BMW wouldn't know it was missing.

You can unbolt the CDV and remove from the slave, and install the hard line directly to the cylinder. Bleed the clutch real quick and problem solved.

I bought staggered 168 replicas/Toyo Proxes STII 20" package on ebay the first year I bought my X (stock Mickey MXM4 tires were shot and I wanted the 20" look), and 3 years later its prob one of the best investments I made, no regrets even with replicas (at the end of the day they are new wheels).

Between some lighting mods, wheels, and perhaps a change in the exhaust tips (I hate the stock "natural curve" tips), she will be a totally different truck.


I'm glad to hear you are a believer, the MT totally changes the E53 even with just the "puny" I6. I have no reason to drive anything else for the time to come.

For the exhaust tips, do I need to buy the whole muffler assembly from a 4.8is or can I just buy some tips and replace the existing ones?

Even though this is a 10k old car I will treat it like it is worth more. It is to me especially since I will not have the option to get a new one with a manual. My hell, I wanted to replace my e60 with a newer f10 550i and you can not even get that with a manual anymore. That and it does not ride like the bmw I have known since my first m3 back in 1997. I fear bmw has left the sporting crowd behind on their new models (f platforms). But that is for another thread I suppose.

^^^Agreed and Agreed. The F models are quickly losing the purist manual option as well.

On the tips it depends how much you want to spend? I purchased used 4.8iS axle back sections for improved throatiness and flow out of the exhaust. If you just want to do cosmetics only, buy the 4.8iS tips, and just get a muffler shop to chop your old tips off and weld some Y pipes on, then the 4.8 tips go over those.

There is a thread about fitting to your stock cans from probably 8 years ago somewhere on a google search will show about needing Y pipes for the oval tips.

You could also just get some nice SS quad tips installed, anything looks better than "natural curve"

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...-my-4-6is.html

hmmm.. I am liking the idea of doing what you did. What did all that 4.8is stuff run you installed?