Which is why choice is such a great thing.

Done: Before and after pictures
 

Done the upgrade and very happy with it- car looks great now. Next in line are the front wipers. Had to modify the wiper so that it could fit in the attachment.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

More after pictures.
 

More after picts.

It looks good. How much did the Volvo wiper cost you?

$100 from volvo stealer.

what kind of modification are you talking about? any welding involved?

There's about a half inch of cylindrical part on the wiper arm that is not wide enough to fit over the base of the bolt on the wiper motor. I nicely ground it all off and the wiper arm then could sit all the way over the bolt and so the nut could be put in and tightened. That's all. It fits in snug and well.

The arm is all very hard plastic and works well. Granted the OEM wipers are metal but appear out-dated . I think the new arms + blades have transformed the rear of my X5 and it now looks smashing and different- may be I should christen her X5.5:D Next to be upgraded are the front wipers.

X5only, although this is an old thread I wonder how did that work for you so far. I am going to replace my rear wiper and I would like to know if the volvo option is a better one over the X3 or e70 wiper.
Did anybody figure out if the e70 rear wiper fits on e53 or not?

It's working very well- rains much in Seattle so I use it a lot. I just replaced the insert a couple of weeks ago - $15 from volver stealer. The wiper is of exact length as the X5 wiper, only that the bottom curvature is upwards whereas X5 is downwards.

Thanks X5only. It looks very nice.
I just found this thread but the pictures are missing. It looks like the e70 rear wiper fits the e53 withou mods.
E70 Rear Wiper Fitted to my E53!
If the e70 fits I might not need to cut the volvo arm to fit it properly.