I had 4.6iS in Moscow on mandated winter tires - i had 18" Pirelly Ice and Snow, with a scorpion picture on them... kept up with the locals... well... left most of them in the snowdust behind!!! lol... the 20" - not good in snow;)

Seeing that you live in Bellevue, WA, you should be fine with the all-season. We barely had any snow overthere during my 16yrs stay.
X-pipe sounds good. If I didn't have Dinan on mine, I would go that route too.
BMW did a good job getting as much power as they can from the engine. Aftermarket stuff won't gain much. S/C is the best bang for the buck, IMO.

Post some pics of your ride.

The tires on the 20s are all-seasons and not summers, I'm going to be making at least 2 trips over the pass to Eastern WA during winter and I will be in some snow.

Exhaust mods are never "effective" other than making more noise. From Youtube vids it seems to make quite a bit more rasp than stock. I'm used to quite a bit of rasp from my MCoupes exhaust and I think the X5 could be a bit louder on WOT.

Does it add much drone at cruising speeds?

Tubi's don't drone. No rasp either. Might have picked up a little power with them. Definitely lost weight.

Look into the Magnaflow dual in dual out resonator with built in X-pipe. I have a x-pipe by Dr. Gas but unsure if I want to install it.

Glad to see a member that's in my neighborhood!:thumbup: Although mine is a 4.8, it has the x-pipe with the resonators deleted and it sounds great, especially at WOT. The sweet spot is right around 3k rpms but no drone in my rig at all. I get compliments all the time with people asking what aftermarket exhaust I have. I often work in the Bellevue area and could meet up with you sometime if you wanted to give it a listen/test drive - just shoot me a pm if you're interested.

In response to your question about snow tires. I would guess with all seasons you should be fine, especially going over I-90. I have a ski cabin near Stevens on Hwy 2 and purchased a dedicated winter tire setup since I plan on being in the mountains 4+ days a week. My Continental DWS's seem to handle 3-5 inches of slush just fine as I test drove them when we had the early snow fall in the end of September and had trouble getting the DSC to kick in (it should be noted it was early enough to not have any compact snow or ice below the slush). I haven't mounted up the snow tires for a comparison yet. See attached photo - my dog approves of the snow holding capabilities as well;)

- Micah

No snow here, just fall color :D
http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n...psaa3d777b.png

Great pic!

^Thanks

Nice pic! Yeah I'm only gonna be making 2+ trips over I-90 and then potentially some snow in the "lowlands". Nice to know some All-Seasons will get me through.

I think the X-pipe mod on the 4.8 will sound a bit different on the 4.6, since the mod is not reversible I'm a little hesitant.

http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum...5&d=1384212655

Pictures from some of my car club members done this weekend

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/12/y2a4yzy5.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/12/meza3eru.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/12/y3ujypeq.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/12/e7uhesu7.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/12/guhysada.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/11/12/padymy7e.jpg