Jake's M-Sport X5 35i Build Thread

[SteelBlue]

RobZR said:

The Balkans are the Wild West of Southern Europe. 

What are the plans for mods?

[suspenceful]

GunMetalGrey said:

Neat car! The pictures look nice! 
It's always amusing seeing the pictures after seeing it in person. 
 

Sweet jesus, $1,000 for a hitch and ball with shipping? 
The wiring they provide with it sounds nifty though. 

Better or worse in person/pictures? Lol

The hitch setup is pricey to do right, but you can save a couple hundred bucks on a hitch that requires you to cut the bumper facia with an aftermarket harness. I'd rather buy once and cry once.

RobZR said:

Nice find!!!

looks like the one you really wanted, and this one doesn't need a blue tip wrench to work on.

You are so much better off then the other wreck.  "Balkan Motors" would have been my 1st red flag.   The Balkans are the Wild West of Southern Europe. 

Subscribed to the Mod Thread.

I'm glad I held out for this one instead of that one in New York. I do prefer the Alpine White exterior, but this Carbon Black is a unique color in person. It's a very metallic blue during the day and almost black at night. I wanted to stay away from black cars because they're a pain to keep clean, but I couldn't pass up this deal. I could always wrap it if I really wanted to.

SteelBlue said:

What are the plans for mods?

I already ordered paint-matched front reflectors, gloss black grilles, LED fog lights, LED interior lights and an OEM ///M gear selector.

More ideas include:

• Golf tee muffler mod
• Matching tint for the front windows
• Smoked LED side markers
• Very lightly smoked tail light tint
• Paint matched rear reflectors
• BMW Performance pedals
• H&R drop springs
• 22" wheels
• X5M gauge cluster
• BMS Stage 1+ tuner (+50whp/wtq)
• BMS air intake
• Tow hitch
• Remote start

[Jdesign]

Congrats, it looks like a baller ride with all the options!

[straight6pwr]

that's a handsome truck. sad that the white on brown combo didn't pan out.

breezing through this, three things caught my attention:

1. "girlfriend" - marry her already

2. "might wrap it" - don't you dare

3. "golf tee mod" - hell yass, glad this is a thing again. anyone who has rigged a cart to do donuts knows what I'm talking about.

[RobZR]

straight6pwr said:

1. "girlfriend" - marry her already

Now that's what I call a keeper.  Since, she puts up with this crazy hobby of yours and is willing to drive the 1er a buck-fourty down a runway.

You better lock her in before she changes her mind, and finds out how nuts you are.

[i_love_cars]

I would just like to say that I agree with all of the aforementioned comments. That is all.

[suspenceful]

straight6pwr said:

that's a handsome truck. sad that the white on brown combo didn't pan out.

breezing through this, three things caught my attention:

1. "girlfriend" - marry her already

2. "might wrap it" - don't you dare

3. "golf tee mod" - hell yass, glad this is a thing again. anyone who has rigged a cart to do donuts knows what I'm talking about.

Thanks man!

1. It'll happen, the engagement ring fund is a little smaller after purchasing this X5 though 

2. But white looks so gooooooooooooooooooooood. It's not something I'd do anytime soon though, only if I kept the car for a while and got bored of the color.

3. I'm not familiar with doing cart donuts, but I was referring to permanently opening the second exhaust tip flap. Most exhaust noise ftw!

RobZR said:

Now that's what I call a keeper.  Since, she puts up with this crazy hobby of yours and is willing to drive the 1er a buck-fourty down a runway.

You better lock her in before she changes her mind, and finds out how nuts you are.

Haha, I never thought I'd be fielding marriage advice on a local BMW forum. But yeah, she's pretty cool and puts up with a lot of my crap. I think I out-kicked my coverage...

[Jdesign]

I agree with the above as well. All but the automotive wrap. I would wrap it white as it will help protect the paint and white always looks great.

[Rekpoint]

Has anyone ever done the PE exhaust mod on an x5 like that?

[patsbimmer1]

Nice!

As far as the hitch, I've installed a few on these and X3's and they're easy.  If it's truly the OE wiring then it's not that bad.  IIRC I had to pin the back of the fuse panel in the passenger rear compartment of the hatch.  In all cases I did the install and the customers took them to BMW for the coding.  As far as trimming goes, it's a 2 1/4" deep cut that you'd never see.  I certainly understand why someone wouldn't want to trim a bumper but it's really not a big deal if you do it right.

[YoungCR]

This is awesome, glad you found your dream SAV! The dealer installed hitches required a small cut too fwiw

[suspenceful]

Rekpoint said:

Has anyone ever done the PE exhaust mod on an x5 like that?

I'm not sure about a "PE" mod, but people do wire up the second tip to be always open. Right now it's closed with a flap unless you're flooring it.

patsbimmer1 said:

Nice!

As far as the hitch, I've installed a few on these and X3's and they're easy.  If it's truly the OE wiring then it's not that bad.  IIRC I had to pin the back of the fuse panel in the passenger rear compartment of the hatch.  In all cases I did the install and the customers took them to BMW for the coding.  As far as trimming goes, it's a 2 1/4" deep cut that you'd never see.  I certainly understand why someone wouldn't want to trim a bumper but it's really not a big deal if you do it right.

YoungCR said:

This is awesome, glad you found your dream SAV! The dealer installed hitches required a small cut too fwiw

Good to know! Thanks for the tips guys. I will probably look into a hitch sometime next spring.

[suspenceful]

First round of mods have been installed!

Paint-matched reflectors were at the top of my to-do list. I ordered a pair from ModBargains for $20 less than IND, but they just come from IND anyways. For some reason, I never took a picture of them as they arrived, but the finish was excellent. They use OEM reflectors and color match them in-house.

However, cars with the side cameras have a section above the reflector that remains unpainted. Not sure why, but BMW outlined this area with silver trim. I hate this silver trim, especially on a dark-colored car. It just draws your eye to a random silver square on the bumper. Nothing a little Plasti-Dip can't fix. Here's a photo before I sprayed the top section.

Next up was the LED fog lights. I ordered this set from Amazon and the quality was perfect. Installation was super easy. The fog light grilles just pop right off giving you access to both the light and the bumper reflectors. The bumper reflectors required a heat gun to pop off.

Before:

After:

The LED fog lights do trigger an error code upon startup, but I will code that out with the Carly app. More information on that to follow.

Before:

After:

Another gripe of mine is that a car made in 2013 still has regular halogen interior bulbs. It looks so dated. So I bought this LED interior kit from Amazon and loved the result.

And lastly, I did the "golf-tee" muffler mod... except it's not a golf-tee at all. These N55 X5's require you to zip-tie the actuator arm open. I didn't trust a plastic zip-tie, so I used a metal one.

I was actually very surprised when I started the car up after doing this mod. It's a lot louder, but it sounds great. Exhaust comes out of both tips and cold starts are noisy now! Best part is, it's completely reversible if you don't like it. Just remove the zip-tie.

[SteelBlue]

Changing the reflectors always makes a huge difference.

[straight6pwr]

"this one time, at band clamp"

[Jdesign]

But does it do burnouts?

[suspenceful]

Jdesign said:

But does it do burnouts?

I'm sure there's a way to disable the front part of the X-Drive system, but I haven't dabbled with it yet 

[Jdesign]

suspenceful said:

I'm sure there's a way to disable the front part of the X-Drive system, but I haven't dabbled with it yet 

PROVE IT.

[suspenceful]

Jdesign said:

PROVE IT.

It looks like I'll be able to do this for you in December.

[suspenceful]

I bought and installed a set of cheap gloss black grilles. I like the look, even though the stock grilles weren't that bad.

You also might notice that I got the front windows tinted to match the rears.

And I also bought an ///M gear selector indicator piece. Being an M-Sport, I thought it'd match the steering wheel nicely.