Pardon if i'm raining on your parade but is that dried coolant on the right side of your engine bay? If so, you may wanna have the expansion tank and water pump looked at.

Good catch. I was just about to mention the same thing.

Seems like there are a few sellers offering the same part. I wonder who actually makes it and where. Check out this one. I'm not clear on what they mean by "factory authorized" though.

http://cgi.ebay.com/STRUT-TOWER-BAR-...QQcmdZViewItem

No, I have a 4.4i 2001.

X5Girl, xxx

Yes it is a splash of coolant from when I replaced the hose into the expansion tank with the circlip fitting.

X5Girl, xxx

Sorry about that. Got confused with a different link!

those was made by asian company in Taiwan ...two years ago there was an ebay seller name speedattrac located in CA made those and sold for $174 each ,some came with,some came without logo.I asked him i want one with logo he said that is a BMW copyright so he can not embrace the name but some how he made one for me with BMW logo on it.
"factory authorized" i quess they saying they have the permission to put BMW logo on it.:dunno:

Yeah I don't get what they mean by it. I e-mailed them and details are pretty sketchy. They won't say whether they manufacture the part or just sell it. They claim that that strut bar is being sold by Taiwan BMW even though it isn't made by BMW and doesn't have a BMW part number. Sounds kinda strange to me. Their ad doesn't help either as it's full of contradictions. Compared to the look, design and quality of the OE BMW strut bars for the 3 series, 1 series (performance parts) this looks like a cheap piece of shit. For $100 more you can get a Dinan bar which at least is BMW approved.

Follow-up: the ebayer seller confirmed the strut bars are made in Taiwan, however refused to say what company.

I really wish BMW would make one that looked like the one they now have for the 1 & 3 series. Now THAT'S a nice strut bar...
(Oh and check out that intake... that's a REAL COLD AIR INTAKE!)