That's not a bad price! Probably adequate as well from a load perspective but I'd feel a little better with a 3 ton jack. Fortunately, my friend has a nice floor jack I have access to but no stands so I'm going to pick them up seperately to save the cash and get a jack down the road when my access to a loaner is gone. I'm planning to do the rear brakes this weekend so I'll be giving the 16" stands a go.

if you jack up, slide in jack stand, remove the wheels, you won't have a clearance issue at all. i think the 16" of clearance should be sufficient tho, but never measured to really know for sure...

worst case, you can use 2x4's on bottom of the jackstands to give it an extra 1.5" of clearance. just make sure the 2x4 pieces are large enough to give stable support.

Finally I successfully replaced my both rear air springs last night. It cost me 2 hours to complete the work, it was really easy job. I spent most of time on removing and installing rear wheels since the 20" wheels are really so fxxking heavy. One more thing I would like to share with all of you is that you can put the jack stands to support rear body at the rear axle carrier, where between the big bushing just behind the wheel carrier and the stabilizer bar.

Do you have a picture of the area that you're talking about? Thanks.

Sorry, I did not take pic when I was doing the job. However, after taking off the rear wheels, you can easily see it. It is located just between the big axle carrier bushing behind the wheel carrier and the rubber mounting of rear stabilizer bar. There is about 2-inch-long axle carrier that is not covered by anything, so you can use jack stand to support the rear body at that point on both side.

i understood that lifting the older x5's ( i have an '02) by the differential is bad, it is not a good idea to use the aluminum suspension arms as jack points either, as they willl then add tension to what you are removing! I am trying to remove upper rear control arms with stands and 3 ton floor jack, but there seems to be no good lift spots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have lifted my '03 by the differential, just be aware of the BMW instructions for doing so. The differential is fine, the cover of the differential is not. Since it is a hassle reaching in that far, I usually just used the side lifting points.

See this thread, my post there has a clip from the BMW instructions.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...-question.html