Read it.
Nice fix.

Might be over my head.
Anytime someone says it's a bitch, that means total nightmare for me.
The part with small hands, etc.

I'd like to inspect my brake lines.
Where is the 90 degree rust spot located on the car?

Are the X5/X3 less rust prone compared to other cars?
 

On left drive cars it's about exactly below the "dead pedal" where you park your left foot when driving.

If you catch before failure you can rust treat and should be good to go


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Thanks. I think you meant "dead pedal", not dad bod pedal, LOL.

Are the X5/X3 less rust prone compared to other cars?
 

You are correct good catch. Auto correct got me again. At least wasn't R-rated this time.

(My Google swipe type has a very dirty mind I get swear words auto replaced all the time for normal words)

Could not locate the brake lines.

I looked under the front driver's wheel area and only saw a plastic cover.
Are the brake lines in question hidden under a plastic panel that needs to be removed?

Can they be seen without jacking up the car?
I will be jacking up the X3 and looking around below for the first time this weekend.

In general, I would say they are better than most cars - however the front subframe on my '01 was very bad. I had to weld on some tabs to temporarily repair the bracket holding the tension strut bushing.

I thought it was going to be a quick surface rust clean up and spray job, but as soon as I hit it with the wire wheel, it became apparent that the front half of the bracket was almost entirely held together by rust. I would recommend a close inspection if you live in where salt is used on the roads.

I eventually replaced the subframe with a used one sourced on ebay. It took about eight hours and also required replacements for most of the subframe to body bolts.

You do not need to jack up the car but I recommend driving the left side up onto a couple bricks or such to make some room.

You need to remove about half a dozen screws that hold the plastic on then you can pull down the plastic to get a good look (you will need a torch/flashlight).

To repair you'll need to remove the plastic shield by removing about a dozen plastic rivets


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I see E53s running around Calgary all the time and I've never, ever seen one with rusty bodywork. Compare that to Mercedes ML from the same timeframe...

My brother ran a large cherry picker crane (4500#) into the back of my X5 with the hatch open.

It bent the bottom edge of the hatch pretty badly: about 3" wide was bent about 1" from the edge close to 90° bend.

I had to bend it back or it would not close. The paint came off right to bare metal on maybe 1/3" wide 2" long. That happened a couple years ago.

I put one coat of clear fingernail polish over to protect from rust. It looks exactly like it did two or three years ago. The base metal is clearly large scale galvanized (also clear from the color of the ba re email metal). Whatever process they use is a good one !

Can you take a photo of the part I need to remove?

https://xoutpost.com/attachments/x5-...uid-lines.jpeg