The New Guy's X5 revival.

[STLe90M]

Hey all I am new to Bimmerpost but not new to BMW at all. Last summer I picked up a High mileage X5 3.0iXdrive to be the winter beater. When I bought it I knew nothing but that it didnt run.

The cylinder 5 rod bearing decided to take a walk when (most likely) because the previous own ran it out of oil (oil change was due at 204k miles I got the car with 214k miles)

I got a 60k mile N52 out of a 328 and swapped over the X5 specific items such as oil cooler, lower oil pan, mounts and intake manifold.


I also picked up some OEM runnning boards as well as a good condition HVAC control panel becasue the previous owners really abused the fan buttons.

Overall I am so impressed with this thing even with worn out sport suspension the adaptive ride makes it handle better than I would have thought. I worked at BMW as a when these were new but didnt think much of the e70 as I had an e36 M3 at the time but this n52 really reminds me of the S52 in that thing!

[werdn]

Cool, I think the N52 is really reliable on these, but maybe a bit underpowered for the X5's weight.

By the way, what happened to the driver seat's left thigh bolsters?

[STLe90M]

Originally Posted by werdn

Cool, I think the N52 is really reliable on these, but maybe a bit underpowered for the X5's weight.

By the way, what happened to the driver seat's left thigh bolsters?

Based on all the unused little blood sugar test strips I found on floor under the seat I think the previous own was wider than the seat so it’s a bit pancaked. But it’s slowly seems to be coming back around.

The n52 isn’t great if you’re looking for a really sporty drive but since I also have an e90 M3 and JCW R56 mini this x5 is just utilitarian so I specifically looked for an n52 to increase reliability odds.