I think we need another car...

[Josh (PA)]

Originally Posted by kognito

I remember driving one of the first group of 4.4 X5's at one of those Susan Komen cancer events. What I remember the most about the drive (I also volunteered to drive vehicles to their next event) was the very comfortable seat that had way to many things to adjust.

The seat reminded me of a 1978 Lincoln Continental

The e53 seats are straight bolt in to the e46, so when my old seats in the wagon started tearing I found a used set of comfort seats from an X5 and put them in. They were awesome

[Nick M3]

Fun fact about the E53: You can change the rear subframe bushings with no other disassembly. Which is good because they are a rapid wear item.

[Nick M3]

front control arms and tie rods swapped out today...

It appears the all of the cooling system, except for the radiator was swapped out in 2018.

The remaining to-do list is:
Rear control arms
Shocks
Radiator
LF axle
Alignment

As a side note, why were so few X5s ordered with a black interior? What's with all that freaking beige?

[SARAFIL]

Originally Posted by Nick M3

front control arms and tie rods swapped out today...

It appears the all of the cooling system, except for the radiator was swapped out in 2018.

The remaining to-do list is:
Rear control arms
Shocks
Radiator
LF axle
Alignment

As a side note, why were so few X5s ordered with a black interior? What's with all that freaking beige?

Beige, Grey… and they even had a pastel green option for the first few years. 🤮

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by SARAFIL

Beige, Grey… and they even had a pastel green option for the first few years. 🤮

Yeah, but why did hardly anyone order black????

[Nick M3]

Speaking of the “Comfort” seats….

[Nick M3]

Got the PDR done. The X5 is now mostly presentable.

As a side note, apparently there were roughly 3 times as many 5spd X5s as 6spd. Reportedly 1,079 6spds, and a total of 4,356 manuals in all years.

[wdc330i]

Neat!

[lemming]

Originally Posted by Nick M3

Got the PDR done. The X5 is now mostly presentable.

As a side note, apparently there were roughly 3 times as many 5spd X5s as 6spd. Reportedly 1,079 6spds, and a total of 4,356 manuals in all years.

This is pretty amazing to track all of the things you’re freshening up.

[Nick M3]

Originally Posted by lemming

This is pretty amazing to track all of the things you’re freshening up.

When you buy cars like this, you've basically got to fire the parts cannon at them.

I forgot to mention that I also installed an AVIN head unit. Notwithstanding my general antipathy toward navigation head units, it's OK. The good is that it's nice having carplay and a good iphone hookup. The bad is that the X5 NAV display angle is really stupid, so visibility is much worse than you'd expect, even given the low mounted location.

You may be wondering why I did this, and the answer is that like all E39 derived vehicles, the head unit display was going. The cost to fix that and get a usable iphone hookup was comparable to the AVIN unit.