2003 BMW X5 (E53)

I purchased this 2003 BMW X5 for $3,700.

The car spent most of its life in San Diego, has a clean title and only 87K mi. There is not a speck of rust anywhere on the car including underneath.

Its got the Sport package incl rear only air suspension, heated seats and park distance control sensors.

Other than minor damage to left rear it is in very nice condition. Everything appeared pretty much original on the car.

It didn't look this nice when I purchased it but after claying the paint followed by a polish and acid washing the wheels (which were caked in baked on brake dust) it cleaned up super nice ...

Slide out cargo tray.

Several things needed fixing, but all are pretty much expected for this car at this age and mileage.

1. Valve cover gaskets leaking (spark plug holes full of oil and oil dripping onto exhaust manifolds)

2. Upper timing covers leaking

3. Steering hoses leaking (high pressure and suction hose).

4. Coolant expansion tank leaking

5. Valley pan leaking.

6. Oil drain hose at rear of intake manifold disconnected (rotted away).

7. Radiator leaking.

8. Both front CV joint boots ripped open and grease flung out (wheels were caked in grease)

9. Missing pixels in radio/computer

10. Minor dent at the rear corner

11. Rear brake lights not working

12. Front turn signals not working

The car was almost 100% original with few signs of any previous work being performed.

Most of the work I did is well documented on the web so this is not a DIY, just a record of work performed.

First thing I dug into was the engine bay which was very dirty...

After removing the intake manifold you can see the valley pan is clearly leaking coolant. Also lots of oil seepage from the upper timing and valve covers.

Passenger side valve cover and upper timing case cover removed. The wire is just to keep some tension on the timing chain during this procedure. Everything looked good in the engine...

I spent a lot of time cleaning the engine and engine bay... I even used Q-tips to get into every little nook and cranny!

The driver side upper timing cover has already been removed, cleaned and reinstalled in the pic below.

I also installed a new set of spark plugs. You can see shop towels soaking up the oil in the spark plug holes...

A new valley pan was installed. There was no need to buy a new plastic cover... I applied heat from a heat gun to the tabs that lock it to the valley pan cover, can then gently pry the tabs and remove the cover without breaking the tabs.

Also a new oem (Hepu) water pump and Behr thermostat were installed ... in fact the complete cooling system was replaced including valley pan, water pump, thermostat, radiator, expansion tank and all the hoses. BMW's of this era are notorious for cooling system failures. The engine is now looking nice and much cleaner...

The oil separator (below) and associated hoses are the only parts I found in the engine bay that appear to have been replaced. It bolts to the back of the intake manifold once installed.

Next to the oil separator you can see the new intake manifold drain hose I installed (it connects to the base of the intake manifold when it is installed). I feeds reclaimed oil in the intake back to the oil sump. The original hose had rotted away and no longer connected to the intake manifold!

Below is the new valley pan, water pump and thermostat prior to install. I thought about dispensing my own gasket to the original valley pan but the new one did not cost that much and comes with a lifetime warranty.

I also installed a new Behr radiator (not pictured) as the original showed signs of a small leak.

And a new Behr expansion tank (the original has a leak at one of the seams)...

Everything for this project was purchased from FCPeuro and came with their lifetime warranty!

Everything in the engine bay now back together and looking much cleaner than it did...

I did not capture any pics but the Power Steering suction hose and main high pressure hose were also replaced as these were leaking.

A new air filter, new coolant , PS fluid and an oil change+filter (Mobil 1) were all completed along with the engine work.

Next job was to service the transmission... nothing wrong with it but at almost 90K miles it is time to replace the fluid and filter.

I drained it then dropped the pan, cleaned the magnets and installed a new oem filter and gasket. The fluid was dirty but nothing unusual.

The transmission oil capacity is about 9 liters total but you will only recover ~ 5 liters from the oil pan. The rest is in the torque converter and cooling lines.

After re-installing the transmission pan and re-filling it with fresh oil (Pentosin ATF1), I break the cooling circuit to flush the remaining fluid from the torque converter...

You'll need 2 x 5 Liter jugs to replace all the fluid (~ $100 but still way less than buying from BMW). The small red tool above simplifies removing the outlet hose connection on the transmission oil cooler (shown below).

I connected a piece of tubing to the oil cooler outlet and placed the other end in a collection container (an old 5 liter oil container). No oil will flow from the disconnected hose (it's the return into the transmission pan).

Start the engine and allow it to idle for about 10 seconds. This will flush about 2 liters of transmission fluid from the torque converter. Then refill the transmission and repeat. After recovering an additional 4 liters the fluid will start to look clean and this is where I stop and put everything back together. Then completed the fluid fill per the manual (small dribble from the fill hole at operating temp) and job done!

You can see the new High pressure Power Steering hoses running across the bottom of the engine bay in pic below.

To refill the transmission I initially run a hose from the fill hole up into the engine bay and attach a funnel to it there. I then simply pour new fluid into the funnel.

For the final fill I use this inexpensive Harbor Freight hand pump. It's advertised as fitting most Quart and larger oil jugs but it does not! After scrounging around I finally found something it would fit (an orange juice container from Costco).

You might have noticed some Valvoline Max Life ATF in the pic above. This was used to refill the oil in the transfer case (it uses ATF). It takes surprisingly little (less than a quart) which is a good reason to change it regularly. I also used the above hand pump for that job.

Brakes

The brakes looked ok but did not work very well when I test drove this car... The lack of wear on the front rotors makes me suspect grease from the front CV boots contaminated the pads. So the car got all new brake pads and I replaced the rear rotors (fronts rotors look almost new with no measurable wear). I installed Zimmermann rear rotors and Wagner Thermo Quiet pads front and rear.

Bleeding the rears.

I rebuilt the front calipers... a precautionary measure. First I stripped them down and cleaned them. Everything looked perfect except 1 ea of the plastic guide bushings.

I applied a light coat of paint to the caliper and teflon tape to the bleed screw to prevent air entering during bleed process.

Worn guide bushings (below) were replaced with a new kit from ATE.

New front brake lines and guide bushings came from FCP Euro.

One caliper back together. You might notice the piston face is marked with permanent marker... a line corresponding to the slot on the back of the piston, this has to oriented to the top of the caliper in its installed position to facilitate bleeding.

Front control arm bushings

The bushings in the front lower control arms were torn...

I pressed in some new Lemforder bushings

They must be oriented correctly.

The front hub and control arms were removed facilitate replacing the front CV joints (boots ripped open and grease flung out everywhere).

Although you can buy complete (made in China) CV axles for about $70 ea and not have to mess with CV boots and grease I elected to repair my original axle shafts with new outer CV joints and boots. These cost about $70 ea also so there was no cost savings going this route. However, replacement oem (GKN) half shafts cost about $300 ea.

Here's the front hub removed form the car after I cleaned up the grease from the CV joint.

The lower ball joints in the wheel carriers still felt tight but they will never be easier to replace than now...

I was expecting them to put up quite a fight but they were very easy to replace... they dropped right out (no rust on this car)!

 New Lemforder ball joint installed

I also installed new TRW end links.

Then on to the CV axles...

The handy tool shown below cost only ~ $16 on Ebay and makes an easy job of removing the outer CV joints. It works in conjunction with another tool I have  that is designed to pull the shaft back into the wheel hub. It worked out pretty handy for installing the new CV joint as well.

All back together...

After replacing all these front end components (upper and lower control arms, bushings, ball joints, CV joints and steering end links) it is necessary to do an alignment...

The only front end adjustment on this car is the Toe. BMW specifies the total Toe as 0.1 to 0.5 deg (positive Toe is Toe-in... wheels point slight inwards). I'm shooting for 0.1 deg to minimize uneven tire wear.

To make the adjustment I placed each front wheel on a smooth aluminum plate and heavy plastic bag filled with a few squirts of oil to allow the wheel to turn easily on the ground.

I used a couple of harbor freight 6ft levels (about $15 ea with coupon) and a pair of tape measures.

This online calculator helps with the math...https://robrobinette.com/ConvertToeInchesToDegrees.htm

Using 70" for the length of each level, 1/8" corresponds to about 0.1deg total toe. So the front tape measure should measure ~ 1/8" less than the rearward tape measure and that's how I set it (76 1/2" front and 76 5/8" rear tape measure).

After 13K mi the tires are wearing perfectly and the steering nice and tight. My 540i used to burn through front tires in no time (wearing out the inner edge). This was after a professional alignment. I used this method and found it to be miles off. After correcting with this method the tires are wearing perfectly on it too so I am very confident in the accuracy of this method!

Front turn signals were not working.

You have to remove the headlights to get to these. It wasn't mentioned in the manual but I found I had to remove the trim underneath each headlight before I could pull the headlight out.

The problem turned out to be a slightly fried contact. I cleaned up the contact and applied a little solder to the contact on a fresh set of bulbs.

Other work performed.. 

1.     Replaced the LCD cable in the Radio/OBC. This I purchased on Ebay for $3 (from China). You need a solder iron with flat rubber tip activate the glue (I already had this from previous repairs).

2.     Loose door mirrors... I was able to tighten some screws under the driver side mirror but the passenger side needs more work inside the mirror assy (for now it tightened up after cycling it a few times.

3.     The rear brake lights were not working due to minor corrosion at the bulb sockets... I cleaned these up and applied some fresh solder to the contact areas... They work fine now.

4.     The nipple on the rear window cleaner spray pump broke off when I removed the washer reservoir under the hood so I installed a new pump.

Update 11/30/2020

This car has become my favorite daily driver and is seeing regular service driving back and forth to Phoenix. It has done very close to 100K mi now.

I've had no issues with it at all but the driver side valve cover gasket is now beginning to leak which is a bit disappointing since this was replaced only a year or so ago.

I noticed the front engine mounts had sagged a little and also some cracking on the front Guibo so I decided to replace these (it would have been much easier to do this job when I did the major overhaul).

Here are the new parts:

You can see in this pic of the old driver side mount where the support arm was resting on the body of the engine mount. There's not much clearance here even on a new engine mount so the mount doesn't need to sag much before the engine is resting on the body of the mount (and you start to feel a bid more vibration at idle). In hindsight these are not too bad after 100K mi.

Replacing these was a real pain, especially the driver side.

With front of car on jack stands I removed the front wheels and lifted the engine from underneath until the front drive shafts were just touching the inner fenders. This puts a bit of stress on some of the coolant lines and in my case coolant started seeping from a couple places, but once everything was back in its place this cleared up and I'm not loosing any coolant.

I then loosened and dropped the front sub-frame (this is the only way you can do this job on the driver side). Passenger side is easy but driver side will test your patience... The shop manual says to disconnect the steering shaft, I did not but did remove the bolts securing the steering rack.

Replacing the front Guibo was easy and doing so gives a bit more room to manouver the driver side engine mount in and out. Pic below shows the new Guibo fitted.

Another reason to do this job was to check the splines on the front drive shaft which are notorious for stripping out...

I was very pleased to find that the splines on this car are in absolutely perfect condition... being a California car all its life there was no rust which is most likely the catalyst to failure.

Total spend including the car is now a little over $5,700 now with most replacement parts carrying a lifetime warranty. I have put about 13K trouble free miles on it so far.

Many of the parts I replaced had not failed... I changed them for peace of mind.

Here's my list of parts purchased/replaced...