Reminds me of an old joke. A guy gets a flat in front of an insane asylum (excuse the politically incorrect term - OLD joke). He takes off the lug nuts and puts them in the hub cap, but leaves them a little too close to the road. A car comes wide around a corner and hits his hub cap scattering his lug nuts everywhere. He searches and searches, but can't find them. He sits down and says "what the heck am I going to do now?" Then he hears a voice from inside the fence of the asylum, "just take one lug nut off each of the other three wheels and use them to bolt the spare on." The guy says, "that's amazing!" "I never would have thought of that!" "How did YOU come up with such an idea?" The asylum resident says, "I'm in here because I'm crazy, not stupid!"

My joke begins there but diverts a bit.... (and while having ZERO to do with lugs, the joke isn't complete without nuts...)

But he hears the most amazing music coming from within... So he walks into a garden to find a choir of patients dressed in white, tapping apples in their hands
to keep time as they sang the sirens' songs.

"This is amazing!" he says to the director. "They should be on the circuit! What is the name of the group?"

"Well, isn't it obvious? They're the Moron, Tap an Apple Choir!" :bustingup

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

OMG...I feel awful as I laugh my a$$ off..and it's worse if you actually speak it out vs reading it in your head...it made me laugh even worse.

God...please forgive me. :lmao:

I have the 19" donut spare, (and the big 4.8iS brakes) I can confirm that the 18" stock rim will fit, IF you don't have any wheel weights on the rim!
(don't ask!!) The 17" rim WILL NOT fit! If you raise the X5 with a jack using the front jack location, it will raise the front wheel, and the rear wheel too, without any issue. (maybe not on the side of the highway going down hill)
The donut spare fits nicely in the spare tire spot, not sure if the larger wheels fit in there as well!

So now I need to buy a spare since I upgraded my 4.4's front calipers/rotors to the 356mm rotor and calipers from a 4.8IS... I'm hoping to find a suitable spare to fit in boot properly. I'm in a bit of a rush so buying an emergency spare is nice sounding but I won't get it in time for my road trip in 7 days.

Fair to assume the 19" wheel from e70 (or any x5) will not sit properly under rear cargo shelf?

Any of the 18" or larger wheels will clear the calipers. If you stick with a 235 width tire, it will certainly fit in the spare bin as that's what most came with in terms of a full size spare.