The new airbag; Gap issues?
 

Thoughts? Reminds me of a London subway "Mind the gap"http://i326.photobucket.com/albums/k...psbcuydkfg.jpg

It had a little gap before but now from the driver seat, I can read a magazine without holding it.

Take it back to the shop that did the installation and bitch about the crappy job they did.

Well lets see what other forum members with the airbag replacement report back. I admit that the gap is very liberal but it looks consistent around the rim of the airbag.

It's held on by tension tab/clip . not much adjustment in reveal though

They suggested A repair to the gasket (less than 9 months old) for a, I hesitate to call it a leak. Oil seepage? Barely visable. They only wanted $2,400 to do it. I guess it takes 15 hours and hundreds of dollars for the gasket...

One other thing I'd like to mention: As they did the inspection on our X with 181k on the clock, they noted the tiniest things that weren't important. The CV boots had cracks, oil dampness on the edge of the guide cover you can hardly see... Etc, etc.

You would think that they might have asked if the timing chain guides had been replaced seeing as how at this milage/age you're driving a rolling time bomb if you haven't. They did not.
I'll assume that they hope the guides will fail and boom, new car sale or money for a new car for them to repair it when it lets go
.
Never, never trust the salesperson unless you fully understand their motivation.

You have an '03 M62 motor Plattus1000, BMW built these engines with redesigned/longer chain tensioners.

I'm over 200k miles on OE guides.

Tiag -

I recall you posting this once or twice on this .....
I redid mine - same year, just to be proactive about it.
Isn't the root cause the plastic guides though - age...
It seems like forever. When I removed mind, the guides were not shot but the plastic was brittle

Maybe they didn't install it correctly? I know when R&Ring mine a couple times it has gotten hung up on something and wouldn't sit right. Just have to pop it out and try again. I hope that is the case and not that the new airbags really do fit like ass.

Mins scheduled tomorrow. Will report back.

I don't think it's a install issue.
The clips/tabs fit ~snap~ directly in and it's not as if there is a adjustment tolerance for how much or less it sit's in

I assume by salesman you mean service advisor. For a time I had the dealer do my alignments. I don't ever recall that the service advisor didn't recommend repairs that should be done. Same experience under warranty. As you mention, some suggested work is not imperative and will be fine for thousands of miles without doing other damage but my experience has been that they weren't making things up.

It would be poor business practice if the techs didn't do a thorough inspection and mention any findings--as a potential liability issue, customer satisfaction and dealer profitability. There is always the option of a second opinion from a well recommended independent which due to dealer labor cost is the best place to have work done if one can't DIY.

Those unable to DIY have to be more than extremely careful if they buy a used X5, and, even if they can DIY, take a very significant risk that they will become one of group that is extremely unhappy with the cost to keep their X5 running properly.

With all vehicles it is best to adopt the pay me now or pay me later point of view. A newer low mileage vehicle costs more and generally runs fine for many miles. When we don't want to pay me now we are hopeful, playing the significantly worse odds, that we won't have to pay me later. Because of the age of an E53 and usually miles on it the X5 is already in the pay me later stage of life.