transfer case problems...
 

I called one of my friends, who is a BMW dealer technician, to ask him about transmission problems on the X5 and what he told me was kind of surprising, so I thought I'd share.

He said in his last 4 years at the dealership, he has probably seen 3 transfer case failures for every one transmission problem. Apparently the splines on the front drive shaft yoke do NOT go deep enought into the transfer case collar and they can strip out. This is a big ticket item, and when done at the dealer, costs as much as the transmision relacement.

Doing a quick search on this site, I'm not seeing nearly as much talk about the transfer case as the trans.

Has anyone heard anything about the specifics of this issue? (i.e, how prevalent, which model years, etc?)

First blown transfer case I've heard of.

Is this with or without x-drive? Or does it matter?

I believe most of these failures were without the x-drive because he said the vehicle won't move once the front drive shaft spline is stripped. (I believe he said it WILLL move if the front drive shaft is stripped on the x-drive vehicles).

All X's have X-Drive.

I think 2004's and up only.

All X5's have AWD systems, it was revamped for 2004 and made much more efficient. There were no transfer cases in 2001 type models and the AWD system was a 'permanent' type. Sorry, I should have said "all X5's have all wheel drive" And given transfer case is the problem, it has to have X-Drive to have the issue.

Actually the 2001 Xs also have transfer cases cuz the same exact failure happened to me a few months ago,
my drive shaft and transfer case blew out driving back from Jersey. The splines going in transfer case from the drive shaft got worn out.
You're right, it's a pretty big ticket item unless you take it to BMW independant mechanic.
The mechanic also told me it's a very rare incident, so check with your local independant shop before taking it to the dealer.
Check these threads for more details
http://www.xoutpost.com/x5-e53-forum/...illy-area.html

http://www.xoutpost.com/x5-e53-forum/...bs-update.html

Something was wrong in the BMW write up on the 2001 models then, the reference I used said there were not transfer cases in the earlier models. Learn something every day.

I needed to replace the transfer case, and the mechanic (expert on cars with automatic transmision) that changed it said to me the same, that is common to replace the transfer in x5