Within the last two weeks, all DIY: 126,000 miles on the odom

• New L/F CV boots both inner and outer.
• New front control arms/bushings/ball joints
• New front rear (wishbone) control arms
• New rear shocks
• New front struts
• New back hatch shocks
• New timing chain tensioner
• Oil service
• Lubed all hinges and adjusted the back hatch rubber stoppers
• Lubed moon roof rail
• On order--new steering wheel clock spring/slip ring (got tired of the squeaky/rubbing/binding sounds).

The front ball joints were a nightmare to remove. They're original and only came off by completely removing both steering knuckles, put on vise, and hitting them hard from the top with a BFH for a solid 5 minutes.

I laughed at the Bentley manual, "...remove the two bolts, the ball joints should pop right out..." Not going to happen when they've been in there for 10 years though:D.

Thanks to this site and all the DIY information and my hands on DIY, I learned a lot a about the suspension system. The X drives like the day it left the show room. Everything is nice and tight again.

1st photo: view from the bottom of ball joint
2nd photo: top view of the evil ball joint

What Asian will you get?

Yesterday I had an upholstery shop transfer the foam and leather from a good-condition passenger seat I bought to my driver's seat.

Now I can turn the seat heat on without frying myself or the seat. Paid $220 for the donor and $180 in labor to make the switch, so $400 for basically a new seat.

Less than half the cost of new leather from the dealer.

So I took my x5 4.8is into the dealership today for a routine oil change ... Come to find out that they f***ed up my engine. Now with a loaner car. I was told that they accidentally put to much oil in ~4qt. To much. So now my lower engine is seized, may need new motor. Engine had only 50k on it. Wow. What a day... Bummer

New software update by the dealers is not e53 friendly I found, as per lots of my friends

I may be wrong and I hope so

Brand new engine??? thats a good thing no?

Yeah, we will see. They don't produce the 4.8 any more bit at the least they will rebuild it. And I'm going to demand a warranty on the work.

Lets just hope the tech that "put in too much oil" ain't the one changing the engine!

No kidding, what a day.

Sorry for that but ill keep the car and a new engine,,. I may need to visit that dealership since my X is 118k on it already! Lol. But i did my gaskets n seals already,, hmmm. GLw new engine and let us know