No jacks, sure, but I hope you at least used jack stands before getting under there.

Hahaha we have plenty of volvo and saab here. My better half drives an -07 9-5 2.3 biopower, and i drive a volvo v70 for the winter. But german cars are pretty common here 😄👍


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I always use jackstands before getting under the car 😄


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Has anyone found a source for these that is not at least $9 each? I can easily find M10 1.5 10.9 Flanged Bolts for about $2-$3 dollars. Unfortunately, they are all 40, 45, 50, or 60 mm and not the OEM 55 mm size. In some of the locations, a 60 mm bolt will not interfere, but it feels like they will in one or two.

If you are saying you used 4 cans of brake cleaner to clean the stiffening plate, then I would suggest that next time, get a bottle of dawn dish washing soap. I used about 4 drops mixed in water on my caked on grimy aluminum plate. It cleaned it like a champ.

Even though on the surface the cost seems ridiculous, since I don't know why they are the BMW spec and if anything else is the same spec, I pay the price. Seems logical the BMW engineers are the experts here.

I came from an engineering school. Almost all my friends are civil, electrical, software and mechanical engineers. I had a few of the civil and mechanical engineers look over the bolts and they tell me that other than the size and the grade (10.9), there is absolutely nothing special about these bolts. They aren't even "stretch" bolts.

As I have looked around the net, I find that it is extremely difficult to find these bolts in a 55mm length with the class and flange. It seems to me the low volume is the thing that makes them expensive.

Like you (seem to be), I am also a "purist" in many ways and all of my cars are now well up in the years (my sports cars are a 88 and a 95) and if I have the need for parts, I always go to Mazda and in the case of the X5, BMW first.

But when I can find nothing special about a part such as a $35 molded hose (slight bend), or a $20 cellulose gasket, I feel like this is the time to go away from OEM because their primary goal in this case is not high quality, but to suction dollars from my pockets.

My local dealer seems especially adept at achieving this goal, having their parts sell at about 30% higher than other dealers in the area.

In this case, I read that some people prefer to get the OEM bolts, I also see that many have chosen to go with a-m or to reuse. But I have not read of any case where there was a catastrophic failure of the bolts.

I will take the vehicle out on the road a few times, if I get any indication that the car is not right, I will then look into replacing the bolts, but as I said in the other thread, with the mileage, I do believe the chances of me removing this plate again soon is not low, and a cost of $95 (out of curiosity, I decided after writing this post to check the price at the local dealer $18.65 [$111.90]) just to replace 6 seemingly non-special bolts without proof or indications from engineers I know that they MUST be replaced, I am going to join the "I'll take my chances" (for now) camp.

But as always, I do appreciate the input.

This has been discussed before.
I re-used the bolts, zero issues.
Don't overthink this or blindly follow the book.

These bolts are BIG.

BMW mechanics are dealer re-use these bolts.

My dealer does not stock these bolts. They always reuse them when removing the steel plate. I plan on reusing mine or if I lose some of them I will go to my bolt and nut store and get something close.

I've removed the plate once and re-used the bolts, and most recently I removed the plate again— I plan to re-use the bolts again. I don't care what BMW says, these are regular bolts and will likely outlive the X5.