This is so BS. The X5 is not going to fishtail because of a stiffer sway bar, especially one designed for the X5. If anything, those 55 got the better end of the deal.

Folks, remember that the sports package stabilizer bars are the "active" components to ARS to reduce body roll, or lean, while cornering.

If the vehicle isn't equipped with the sports package, it does not have the necessary control systems to manage these components and are therefore unable to adjust the vehicle geometry (degree of wheel angle relative to the vertical position), they're just as dangerous as having air bag suspension that will deflate and inflate at random intervals.

55 X5 vehicles... it would help if they could tell us a manufacturing date range or something... that's such a small number ... wouldn't they have quite a lot of people calling just to see if they're 1 of 55? Right now all we have to work with is '08 X5 with sport pkg...?

No offense, but I would go with the opinion of the BMW chassis and suspensions engineers over yours on this one.

The problem isn't that it has a rear sport stabilizer bar, it's probably that it doesn't have the 'sport' setup in the front. Kinda like mixing tire brands?

So these 55 X5s were without the sport package and they simply added it on the rears thinking it had it?

Not enough information on this recall - so confusing. No email response yet.

Seems clear enough to me:

Summary:
BMW IS RECALLING 55 MY 2008 X5 SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES FOR PROBLEMS WITH THE REAR AXLE STABILIZER (ANTI-SWAY BAR). THESE VEHICLES WERE EQUIPPED WITH A SPORTS-SUSPENSION STABILIZER RATHER THAN A STANDARD SUSPENSION STABILIZER ON THE REAR AXLE.


55 vehicles with standard suspension got the sport suspension anti-sway bar put onto the rear by mistake.

What's not clear?

A front sway bar increases understeer and a rear bar decreases understeer. Too much rear bar will cause oversteer. Putting the sport suspension rear bar on when the rest of the suspension is standard is causing oversteer.

It's only 55 vehicles people, and it simply causes some oversteer in emergency maneuvers.

If you are one of the 55 vehicles, BMW will contact you.

It's not that complex.

When I was young I used to put heavier sway bars in the rear of all my cars to make them handle better.

Even my son-in-law put a heavier sway bar on the rear of his new V8 Touareg SUV, its a optional extra also

If it was my X5 I would get the matching rear shocks as well.