Overheated
 

After 300 miles my 2001 X5 with 175000 miles went from normal operating to red line in about 2 minutes. A huge cloud was visible out the back. I limped over to the shoulder 90 miles from home. A while back I did a head gasket and Bigsert project and it's been running great. I looked in the reservoir and can see coolant. I think my thermostat stuck closed after we stopped for dinner at Panera and I blew a lower hose. I haven't had time to diagnose. I had just picked up kids from the airport for Grandma's funeral and it was 12:30 AM when we finally climbed out of the tow truck.
Word of advise...Get the long mileage AAA Service, not just the local. I have local and my son who lives in very rural WA has the long distance plan. Fortunately AAA let us use his plan. Mine would have been over $700 for the 90 mile ride. My wife says dump the X5. I think I might replace her aging e46 with something newer to keep her happy. Stay tuned...

sorry to hear...sounds a bit strange. With the head gasket you did, I bet most of the cooling system parts were in good shape. Thermostats usually fail open. This is one of those situations where an audible alarm when coolant temps reach 110 or so would have really helped.

Take a day or two to figure out next moves.

Check the left-hand radiator tank about 3 inches above the lower hose. I had mine crack there and it would suck air into the pump on short cycles after highway driving (then it shit the bed) I hit 110c that time and shut it down RFN, it looked like the thermometer from the Riddick movie....

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Doing a compression test first to see what's up. I have a bore scope and will take a peek as well. It wouldn't restart in the driveway the next day which has me worried...

Ouch

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That stinks man, I’m sorry. The overheat is one of the things that keeps me up at night with the X5, especially the aluminum block versions. My one experience with it (threw a belt) showed me how car will go from running fine, to blazing hot in a matter of minutes.

not knowing anything about the nature of your overheat, just make sure that you have spark and fuel before you do anything hasty with the motor.

Ugh sorry to hear... hoping there is clarity to what is going on soon! Keep us updated

Update.. today I had the day off and planned on doing the compression test. I have a dead battery. Put it on charge and now get loud clicks about one second apart. I put my 32mm on the fan bolt and turned the motor via wrench. Seems normal. Easy since the plugs were out. I put the compression tester on a couple cylinders and there is some compression while turning with a wrench slowly. I believe I have a battery drain due to a RR air suspension leak or some other parasitic situation. I plan on jumping the vehicle to see if it cranks then. Any thoughts so far?
The borescope just showed the tops of pistons and the plugs looked a bit wet/oily but with everything that happened within the 2 minutes of chaos, i'm not surprised.

Anyone with dead starter motor experience have the same starter symptoms?