E53 factory brake options.
 

My apologies if its been posted anywhere, I had a quick look and cant find what I'm looking for.

so my 2006 3.0D has 20 inch rims on it from factory, however I am looking for a smaller set of wheels to use both offroad, and in snow this winter. Today I went to pick up a set of 17s that came off an X3 and im glad I test fitted one before hand as there was less than 1mm of clearance between the caliper and the rim....Not enough to keep me happy.

With the large centre bore the X5 runs along with the pcd and offset its looking like the only wheels I'm going to have any luck with are smaller OEM X5 wheels. This brings me to my question, did the e53 run the same brake configuration across all models and options, or did some have larger brakes?

I would hate to drive 2 hours to pick up a set of X5 17s only to find mine has bigger brakes than the ones they came off, and they wont fit.

What spare tyre do you have? A 17" alloy wheel and tyre or the space save that the 4.8iS came with?

My 3.0D has 18" square set up and the 17" wheels fit fine. As long as your brakes are the standard 3.0D (or 3.0D Sport in some markets) brakes then any X5 E53 wheel should fit.

Maybe check by doing a brake parts comparison on RealOEM…

My spare is a 17" rim. It has no problem going over the front or back brakes. I'll give realOEM a check (tbh that's a resource I didn't even know existed).

If you have the standard factory 17" spare, then pretty much any E53 wheel will fit over your brakes. :-)

The 4.8iS has larger diameter rotors and has calliper clearance issues with some of the smaller wheels. Maybe the 4.6iS too - not sure.

The best way to use RealOEM is to enter the last 7 digits of your VIN - that way you can be sure you are looking at parts for your exact car.