Well, clearly the shaft is badly worn. I think I'd go for the longer shaft from Cobra.

Tough call on the output shaft...it's not exactly inexpensive. And the longer driveshaft can make up for some damage. I think if I were you, I would clean it up as best you can, then try to take a little higher resolution photo. Talk to the people at Cobra, email the photo to them, and see what they think. If this car is going to be a long term keeper, it might be a good thing to do the output shaft and chain.

My guess is that it's kind of like a suspension problem. In a suspension, once a bushing or joint fails, the rest of the components take a beating from the slack caused by the failed components. If the bad part is not replaced promptly, others will fail soon. With the driveshafts, once one component fails, other parts are soon to follow. I'd bet in many cases, a failed Guibo starts the the chain of events, but so could a worn chain or bad CV joint. Anything rubber underneath the car is only going to last so long. I'm sure driving habits can be a big contributing factor as well.

And it may be that you haven't heard about these issues on X-drive cars because they are not old enough or have enough mileage.

The output shaft is $400, chain another $70, bearings and seals another $200. So MAYBE under $700 for everything.

OR I could have a rebuilt TC with warranty on my doorstep for $1450. Yeah, it's twice the cost, but it saves me a lot of time and headache and I know it's done right.

Add the front shaft and components... $700. Rear shaft and components... $700.

So almost $3k but I will have a perfect driveline.

F$%K

Do you have a pick of the guibo? Just curious to see what it looks like after this many miles.

I can try to snap one today, if not, next week.

Open up the TC case drain and fill plug, and test the chain for stretch. You might not need to do anything with it. I have a feeling you do though just because of the power this car has, and the mileage.

I assume at this point you have looked are some tutorials about pulling apart the transfer case. It really is NOT that hard. About the only special tools I needed for the last case I did, (a 242 for my Jeep), were retaining ring pliers, snap ring pliers, a blind bearing puller, (ended up buying three before I got one that worked right) and my shop press to press the bearings into the case. I used some big sockets to press the bearings in, so you will need something the right size to press them in.

If you want to increase your comfort level, you could also look at some videos from Extreme 4X4 online. They rebuild transfer cases all the time on their TV show, (usually to put in lower gears or a rear driveshaft slip yoke eliminator). For that $700 labor, it's really at MOST 2hrs of work to change the chain, output shaft and all the bearings and seals, even if you've never done it before. Really the only tricky part is making sure all the case bolts go back in the holes they came from....there are identical looking bolts in differing lengths.

As much as any warranty is nice to have, I'd say this transfer case is one of the more bullit proof components in the drivetrain of an X5, expecially freshly rebuilt. The one thing really likely to fail is that output shaft due to the improper engagement of the driveshaft...and I doubt they'd warranty that.

Yeah, I'm going to attempt it myself. Hope to have the TC off on Sat or Sun hopefully.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. This will definitely be a test of my skills.

Just examine everything once it's apart. If there's any damage to other components, and the parts bill runs too high, there's always the option of bolting it back together, and getting the rebuilt TC. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Also, you implied it was going to be $700 for your rear driveshaft. I thought just your intermediate driveshaft bearing was bad?

Yeah, I'm debating doing both shafts "while I'm in there". As you know that phrase can be dangerously expensive. Assuming the TC needs to come off then I will certainly pull the rear shaft and do the guibo/CSB and determine if I want to replace the entire shaft. Somehow the complete rear shaft, rebuilt, is $438. The front shaft is closer to $600 and is shorter and far less complex. Figure that out...