Fan Clutch symptoms?
 

I've got a few miles on my X5 2001 3.0L, 211,000 to be roughly exact.....

I get a raspy, kind of bad bearing sound at idle. Replaced fan belts
and went away for awhile. As soon as you touch gas it goes away.

One BMW svc advisor said I have a bad fan clutch. He grabbed the
fan blades while it was running and was able to hold it still. I don't
think I would grab that sucker while it was running!

Has anyone replaced one of these fan clutches? Looks simple to do
about $140 for part.
I heard that overheating was one symptom. However BMW temp gauges
don't really move with temp, just approximation as they are heavily damped
to stay at "normal" temp.

Any input on this would be appreciated!

Fan clutch problems will usually present as getting hot at idle

I would change the belt idler to start with, thats the most common place I find noise.

Agreed, those plastic idler pulleys are well known to shatter. Real nice ones available in alloy withy replaceable bearings at Home, ask for Tom, they are fitted religeously by the 8-series boys, or just replace with new plakky ones for the cheap temporary fix.

You can easily stop the fan at idle on just about any vehicle with a fan clutch when it is not engauged.... that is the point of a fan clutch, to release when not needed to lower load on the engine. Keep in mind service advisers are not techs.

Best bet is to pull the belts off and spin each pulley by hand looking for the culprit(s) with the bearing slack.