After replacing most of the front suspension I took the X5 into EuroTech in Minneapolis for an alignment. They charged $223 which felt pretty high considering these don't have camber adjustment. Anyways, while there they diagnosed an oil leak from the oil filter housing. I knew this thing seeped, but honestly just didn't care much until I read how these N55s like to suck serp belts through the crank seal if they get oily. Out of curiosity I asked them the rough estimate to have that gasket replaced - $1800! I was feeling lazy, but not for that price.

I was able to knock it out in roughly an afternoon and it wasn't too bad at all. The only tricky part is BMW designed it so that you cannot reach the 3rd bolt holding the housing to the block without removing the intake manifold. Other than that the trickiest part was just managing the fluids and trying not to spill - once again those giant 500ml Amazon syringes came in clutch to suck most the coolant out of the reservoir before starting. Also de-greased the hell out of the front of the engine while I was in there, but didn't take any great photos.

While in there I replaced:

- Oil filter housing gasket

- Oil cooler gasket

- Oil pressure sensor

- Accessory drive belt

- Belt idler pulley

- Belt tensioner

- All mounting hardware

Kinda silly the knobs are integrated, so you need to replace the entire iDrive control unit.

Attachments:

• IMG_8679.jpeg

Jdesign said:

Steering wheel looks awesome, I clicked your link to order the same kit and its no longer available

That is a huge bummer! I think I paid $65 with free shipping since it was on Amazon, but you can also buy it directly from ColourLock and pay the international shipping of $15 (and wait a bit): https://www.colourlock.com/Leather-Repair-Kit-for-Steering-Wheel-Black/850729-us/. Totally worth it IMO, I think it's enough material to do 2-3 wheels.

YoungCR said:

what MMI box did you go with? steering wheel turned out great.

I bought the Andream unit here: https://www.android-car-dvd.com/collections/apple-carplay/products/ew-bmcp-nbt01a. I see they offer a few variants if you have a CIC, NBT or EVO headunit.

These things tap into the car's AUX and some folks say its a tiny degradation in audio quality (phone pairs to box via BT, then the box to the car via AUX). I'm not an audiophile so this is an excellent option for me, works great! These do also retain the steering wheel controls too of course.