rear suspension check, ball-joint and upper wishbone...
 

I checked mine just to see if anything obvious on wear but it looks like everything is tight. Deflate the air-sping, jack the car up, release parking brake and try to move the wheel (grab 3 and 9 o'clock or 12 ad 6 o'clock spots) nada no movement etc.
Is it possible @80k both ball-joint and wishbone still good? or I am doing this rudementery check wrong.


TIA.

It's more likely that the parts are worn out and you're not able to test in a way that exposes it. There's a youtube vid that shows how to test, but at 80K, just replace ALL the steering and suspension parts that have ball joints and/or bushings, front and rear. Go to realoem.com and you'll see the service value line, which shows you what to buy. Shop around for pricing.

When done, you might not even need an alignment- I've seen others post that, but I did just because I am OCD about my X.

That's the thing I saw the youtube and that one on E46 3-series is obviously bad, it clanks when the wheel is jiggled. Mine is tight, I even put a jack while the car on the stand to move the arm/hub up-down, all action is smooth and clearly no play on the ball joint.
The reason I am in this situation is my SA at the dealer says I need rear ball joint cause the inner tire wears. I called an indy which specialized in BMW and they said it's not common for rear ball joint to wear before 100K-miles. I bought all of the parts thinking I can do this to save money but looks like I'll just bring it for alignment and monitor the tire wear closely.

Ok now go to YouTube and search for x5 how to check rear control arms.

i dont know if you try to do this......heres a link..
VAC Motorsports - Correcting tire wear on a BMW X5 E53 - YouTube

Not true on a X5.
My ball joints and upper arms were bad at 70000km (43000mi).
Same thing for other members here.

Thans alot, that's what I was looking for. I jacked the wrong part to see, I jacked the bottom of the hub-carrier not the spring sprocket.

no problem HPIA4v2.........were you getting inner tire rub too?>...

Kinda, cause I notice when I swap my snow tires out and put the 19" summer back in, I can see there is almost no room between the wheel-well lining and the inside tire when the car still on the jack (I thought that was weird). though when the car is on the ground the space widen quite a bit.


BTW, did you replace those two parts yourself or got someone to do it?


My only concern is like that guy says, I know I need to release the air out of the air-spring but not sure if I can just push the hub-carrier (#1) up using like a bottle jack and have enough room to put my extractor tool on the swing arm (#15). Cause I heard that ball joint is tight on the carrier, and if I had to remove the brakes and the whole suspension off is just too much work.

RealOEM.com * BMW E53 X5 4.4i Repair kit for ball joint

Hope the link creator worked... anyway, just noticed on realoem.com this new "Value Line Ball Joint Repair Kit".

Is this the part your mechanic says to replace... in addition to the upper control arms?