Rolled the dice, $59 shipped US seller and a 2yr warranty, not that the seller will be around in 2yrs but....

replacing it is easy enough so if I get 2-3yrs out of it I wont care.

I also have a clunk in the front end now, well last few months. Today was the first warm enough day to put it in the air to take a close look. Cant find anything. I replaced everything with good stuff about 75,000 miles of Michigan roads so in Cali miles that is like 300,000 :rofl:
Guess its just got to get worse before I can find it, its not bad, mostly into the driveway. I am sure by late summer I will find it, and its not that bad.
Time to go get the Z4 and M3 out of storage anyway

Try flexing the thrust arm by hand and/or use a pry bar on it at the bushing. That is the most likely place for a front end clunk.

That was my first thought actually.... nope and tried everything loaded while on the ground and in the air.... when I did them they got the MEYLE HD bushings and still look great. It is not bad enough to start unbolting things yet.

Speed bump test..

Clunk going over on compression is usually the long control arm, on extension w/air time (not airborne!!) it's the the short control arm.

Approach speed bump square and just fast enough to have car drop off the backside

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What did you do to / for your E53 today??
 

If the sound is more of a rapid tap vs. Clunk and it happens while you’re driving over offsets in the road like expansion joints that usually means the swaybar links.

When you cannot find the clunk anywhere it is usually the bearing at the top of the strut tower.

And there was one guy I’ve ever heard of where the clunk was a broken coil spring so if you have coil springs and not air you can look into that too

Nice. I used an SAS rebuild kit and it was 90% the cost of that part. But I didn't have to program it. :rolleyes: Woopee

Oldest has his license now and the X hasn't been home much. He brought it home with a dead alternator. It has a 2yr warranty on it and it was done April 22, 2019. Fingers crossed - I don't usually get to cash in on warranties with this money pit :)

The main reason for the rebuilt solution. No real programming just recalibrate

Since it looks like the rebuild is just the wipers/contacts, wonder if I can just steal that part out of my new non oem replacement. Probably look to see how the paths look on the mating part and make a call once I get it out.
I can reprogram easy enough so either way works

Well, the alternator was covered under warranty (yay!). The centre muffler/resonator has some holes starting to let the exhaust out too early.

Off chance anyone have a centre resonator you replaced on your 4.8 and in Southern Ontario? If not I'll have to start sourcing aftermarket replacements for a weld in.