Keep us posted on your progress and good luck. You may reach out to TMV - he's in the Atlanta area and knows a ton about these cars. He might have a scanner, but I'm not sure.

So great news to update- ran jumper cables from ground jump post to engine block and she cranked right up this morning.

Now my question- where to look

1- I had to replace the factory ground cable, factory cable is roughly 24", store only had a 30" cable, could this pose an issue? Should I get another ground that is closer to the 24" length or possibly a larger gauge?

2- is there an engine ground cable that could be loose/disconnected?

Well... that's great news. The only locations I know are below the engine on the Passenger side and the one on the battery in the rear.

Since the engine/trans assembly are usually located on rubber isolators there is normally a ground STRAP that links the engine/trans to the chassis. The ground cable from the battery is good since it is providing the ground to the chassis and the ground jump point in the engine bay.\

Check the ground cable at the alternator (see diagram item No. 12.

RealOEM.com * BMW E53 X5 3.0i Battery cable

Good luck

Could i use this to tactic to see if my slow laboured start is due to a bad ground cable somewhere? Saw a post YouTube for a much newer bmw and for x3s n52 engines...that bad grounds cause these laboured no start conditions....