Glad to hear it was fixed!

cn90, how much does rear suspension wear really contribute to this? Most of my rear is original at 77k miles at 11 years old except for the subframe bushings.

^ My thoughts exactly.

Mine is all new and it still popped. If you think about it, the shock body length and rear swaybar link limit downside travel physically on maximum bound, beyond resistance from the a arm bushings being tightened under load.

And I shouldn't think full compression would generate travel problems at all.

So, I would at first think this would not be a huge factor--and from the look of it neither did BMW, since the thing that holds the output shaft in is a $.03 piece of metal wire that snugs in hand tight in the differential.

On the other hand, I could see cycling the a arm rapidly up and down could shake it out. Since that is what happened to me, and it makes sense that even without hitting maximum bound a quick cycle might wiggle it free.