Newbie introduction
 

Good day all and hello from Saskatchewan Canada.
Purchased myself a 06 4.4i yesterday with 168,000 kms on it.
Needs some love and care ( Ac recharge, tires, misfire codes, goodies).
Been scanning through the pages and everyone here seems helpful and mostly considerate for new owners.
I am a journeyman electrician by trade, but now work mechanical and logistics with trains ( weird jump I know).
Always been mechanically inclined, and after owning various SUV's ( Ford Explorer, Mercedes ML 430, Nissan Pathfinder) I find it very rare that I'm taking my vehicles to an Indy or dealer.

They being said this BMW is a whole different game. Codes seem very vehicle specific as do the reset procedures ( I need a scanner to replace a battery??).

Looking forward to hearing from you all, I was quite active on the Mercedes forum when I had that vehicle.

I'm sure you're all wondering " ok, get to the first question" and here it is:
I have every component in the spare tire area for air ride suspension.... But no buttons to control it.
According to the manual I should have a controller to the left of the steering wheel.
Thoughts?

Welcome. Grab a foxwell nt520. Will do 99% of service work you'll need. Oh, and no need for battery reset procedures on the e53 via a scanner. That came in the next gen x5.

Your air suspension question. Do you have the module in the boot under the air pump? If so, you have rear axle air only. It's for load leveling. Only the 2 axle air setups have controls up front. But those have their control module up under the dash board, not in the boot.

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes I do have the module in the boot.
Anyway to test this system other than piling weight into the cargo area?

Newbie introduction
 

If the car is level the system is working. It checks for level periodically and much more frequently when the tailgate is down. In six years of e53 ownership I've only noticed mine kick on like half a dozen times.

A light will come on in the dashboard if the suspension is inactive.

Their is another possible option vs. foxwell that I'm going to get soon. It's subscription based like $40/yr but first two years come with purchase. It does coding as well as bidirectional scanning.

Called think diag iirc.