To the engineer of the e53 early model window regulators...
 

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING/SMOKING!?!?!?!

The 4th one JUST broke, after just fixing all the other three, 3 weeks ago and I could have sworn I heard a faint laugh from a little bmw gremlin who seems to be primarily focused on messing with my X right now.....

What were "they " thinking? Why just how much profit is involved in producing an expensive premium level vehicle with high dollar per hour service costs that contains a host of designed to fail parts thereby keeping their dealers happy.
Cynical answer but the only one that would explain all the stupid little failures we read about on this and other websites.

:rofl:

As good as BMW's are, sometimes the parts and or designs they incorporate are just sub-par.

Yes, I know the market profit explanation, was more of a sarcastic post. Would like to go a week without having to deal with stuff. At the point where I am seriously contemplating parting it out.

i feel your pain... (as many here do) its funny how some parts are over engineered and some are seem to be sub-par. but she sure does go like a bat outta hell.

This is very true. sometimes that's all you need to forget about the little things.

I can understand the occasional part being defective. It happens with any vehicle. What I don't understand is why BMW doesn't redesign the troublesmome part to be more reliable. It seems they continue to use the same, unreliable part indefinitely.

Do you ever close the doors with the windows fully down?

Just wondering.

I have never had a window regulator fail on any BMW. And yes, I do raise and lower the windows.

Does anyone know of a way to strengthen it before installing? Specifically, I am wondering if anyone has a clever way to strengthen the clip where the cable snaps in so it doesn’t come out!

I am about to do my driver's side for the second time - I have done each other door one time and I have only owned the car a few years. Overall, I love the X5 but seriously, this is such an annoying thing - maybe if the doors didnt slam so hard it would help........ On a positive note, I can now take my door panels off very efficiently!

Look for the post with pics from mrbmwx5 (Tom) about a window regulator fix/modification.

He depicted a way of holding the lift cable into the plastic holder using a piece of home wiring (coat hanger would work ok too) Last time the rear clip let go on my drivers door window I stuck it back together like this and it has been holding up fine for months. This wouldn't be a bad idea to do to a new one to help prevent future problems I guess.

Good point JCL made about closing the doors with the windows down... that does put a lot of impact on the window regulator clips in a direction they weren't designed to handle and may very well be leading to most of the parts failures. As I say this I seem to remember throwing my door closed with the window down and heading an abnormal level of "clank", next time I went to use the window is when the rear clip failed. Not a coincidence!