SteelBlue

I did a car thing. More details soon maybe. Planning on welding the diff and doing a full rocket bunny kit I'm going to paint pink and rivet on.

After selling my F30, I bought an F150.  Drove my parents for a little bit and loved it, so I bought my own. Well after 8 months, I decided to move on from the truck and sell it. Loved the vehicle, just didn't love paying for it(economic crisis on the door step as well). MPG wasn't actually too bad, averaged like 17ish even with the bigger tires. On top of that, I wasn't doing anything to justify having a truck and just felt wasteful. 

Day before it sold.
2 weeks before the truck sold, I made a trip down to Chicago to pick up my brothers 2011 328xi. The car was having starting issues and he was unsure what to do with the vehicle. We figured it would be best if we brought it back to the Appleton area for further diagnosis and repair. Car made the 3 hour straight drive back to Wisconsin with out a hitch. It was around this time that I was looking for other vehicle options. I wanted to reduce my payment significantly or not have one at all, so I was looking at E46's, E70 X5's and E90s. My brother decided he wanted to find something newer so would be selling the E90. So I bought it.
2011 328xi Titanium Silver, Black Dakota leather, and Burlwood with 99,863 miles. No iDrive.
Car was running lean on both banks. After some research found it likely to be the valve cover with the built in CCV. VCG was leaking anyway so it was time for it to come off regardless. I also had the OFHG replaced along with the power steering fluid reservoir to address any immediate concern areas. Next will be cabin and intake filter, along with wiper blades.
The car is in very good condition minus a few minor things. Was a 1 owner vehicle up to 72k miles when my family bought it. Has always been garaged kept. 
Silver wasn't my first choice, but the color has really grown on me. I also can't say enough about how much I am enjoying the E90 platform.
Only two things this doesn't have which I want; Xenon projectors and comfort access. Comfort access is nightmare to add, so passing on that dream. I have been reading about being able to use the Euro Bi Xenon projectors and having to make only a few modifications to the harness for them to work as opposed to US which have leveling units.


My brother hit a construction barrel. I am going to do my best to get this looking presentable, but I plan to replace the bumper next year with an M Tech/M Sport one.


(Ignore my dinner)
 
If it's not going to be the weekend car, it has to look good and be enjoyable to be in. I have a fair number of things on the way to address both of those. But will remain largely stock( I say that now).
To start, the steering wheel. The stock one is fine, but we can do better.
Purchased this heated Sport wheel that I have some plans for. But first to clean it. I used Griot's leather 3 in 1 and leather conditioner in conjunction with a Colourlock leather brush, short hair detail brush, and a tooth brush.


You can see how much dirt is caked into the grain.

This was after one pass with the first brush.

This was after the whole wheel. Clean your steering wheels.


Grain clean, nice semi gloss matte finish.
More updates to follow.

Fixed the offroad issue with some 18's and 31" all terrains (Falken Rubitrek) 
I dig the look, and will enjoy it even more once I get the 20mm spacers in the rear! 



I've got a bit of clearance work to be doing, but nothing major! 

Really prefer the look of the all aluminum silver key fob casing, so I swapped the circuit board into a new casing. It’s a bit tricky to get the physical key cut on these, so just reused the bottom section for now.

Hadn’t seen the wheels on the car yet, didn’t have much to do today, so I did a test fit on one side. 
 



Between these and the style 225’s, I think the E9X had some of the best M sport wheels. Looking forward to these being on the car full time. Just waiting till winter(currently on snows as stated in previous post).
Think I am going to do some ST coil overs next year to get rid of just a little bit of the wheel gap. 

Hadn’t seen the wheels on the car yet, didn’t have much to do today, so I did a test fit on one side. 
 



Between these and the style 225’s, I think the E9X had some of the best M sport wheels. Looking forward to these being on the car full time. Just waiting till winter(currently on snows as stated in previous post).
Think I am going to do some ST coil overs next year to get rid of just a little bit of the wheel gap. 

Hadn’t seen the wheels on the car yet, didn’t have much to do today, so I did a test fit on one side. 
 



Between these and the style 225’s, I think the E9X had some of the best M sport wheels. Looking forward to these being on the car full time. Just waiting till winter(currently on snows as stated in previous post).
Think I am going to do some ST coil overs next year to get rid of just a little bit of the wheel gap. 

Hadn’t seen the wheels on the car yet, didn’t have much to do today, so I did a test fit on one side. 
 



Between these and the style 225’s, I think the E9X had some of the best M sport wheels. Looking forward to these being on the car full time. Just waiting till winter(currently on snows as stated in previous post).
Think I am going to do some ST coil overs next year to get rid of just a little bit of the wheel gap. 

Hadn’t seen the wheels on the car yet, didn’t have much to do today, so I did a test fit on one side. 
 



Between these and the style 225’s, I think the E9X had some of the best M sport wheels. Looking forward to these being on the car full time. Just waiting till winter(currently on snows as stated in previous post).
Think I am going to do some ST coil overs next year to get rid of just a little bit of the wheel gap. 

I believe the X5 35i uses the N55. From my research + owning an N55 335 recently I'd say they are pretty stout into the higher mileage. Most of the issues involve the common oil leaks - valve cover, oil filter housing (can drip onto belt and be sucked into the motor if it slips off, real bad stuff), and oil pan gasket. N55s also use an inferior oil pan design than the N54 or the V2 N55 used in the M2s (https://www.2addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1763724) where at high lateral Gs it can starve the motor of oil and run into rod bearing wear. Probably not super likely on a big X5 though...
Otherwise I've read the transfer cases and two diffs hold up pretty dang well! I'm planning on doing what I think is this X5s first fluid changes, so I can report back how that goes. Most of the F15 X5 issues seem to be with the 35d and it's silly emissions components.

Does anyone have some feedback on higher mile F15/E70's? I have been looking around but wondering if there are any larger issues that these cars face down the road?
I know some of the general stuff like 3rd row cars with airbags, general N55 stuff, etc.
I am kind of in your same boat with looking at an E70, but also seeing some higher mileage F15's for similar costs. I like the E70, but the F15 takes a huge jump in the looks.
The Imperial Blue and the brown is a great combo.

Got some new wheels. Style 193's from a coworker who was moving and no longer needed them, got them for a good price. They came on Michelin Pilot Aplin winter tires. I am planning on keeping these off until winter, running them with the winter tires, and then next spring, swap the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S's I just got onto them to be my spring summer tires.
 

Haven’t really done much with this other than drive it, which is good. Would like to change up the wheels at some point, but these fit the car so well and there’s not a lot of options for 4x100, or they’re $5,000.
 

Haven’t really done much with this other than drive it, which is good. Would like to change up the wheels at some point, but these fit the car so well and there’s not a lot of options for 4x100, or they’re $5,000.
 

Got some new wheels. Style 193's from a coworker who was moving and no longer needed them, got them for a good price. They came on Michelin Pilot Aplin winter tires. I am planning on keeping these off until winter, running them with the winter tires, and then next spring, swap the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S's I just got onto them to be my spring summer tires.
 

Got some new wheels. Style 193's from a coworker who was moving and no longer needed them, got them for a good price. They came on Michelin Pilot Aplin winter tires. I am planning on keeping these off until winter, running them with the winter tires, and then next spring, swap the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S's I just got onto them to be my spring summer tires.
 

Haven’t really done much with this other than drive it, which is good. Would like to change up the wheels at some point, but these fit the car so well and there’s not a lot of options for 4x100, or they’re $5,000.
 

Got some new wheels. Style 193's from a coworker who was moving and no longer needed them, got them for a good price. They came on Michelin Pilot Aplin winter tires. I am planning on keeping these off until winter, running them with the winter tires, and then next spring, swap the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S's I just got onto them to be my spring summer tires.
 

Got some new wheels. Style 193's from a coworker who was moving and no longer needed them, got them for a good price. They came on Michelin Pilot Aplin winter tires. I am planning on keeping these off until winter, running them with the winter tires, and then next spring, swap the Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S's I just got onto them to be my spring summer tires.
 

Thats Dan!

Bumper repair.
Could I have left this alone? Yes. Does it look better than before? Yes. Does it still bother me? Yes.
Just a temporary fix until I get an M Tech bumper next year and don't have a roached out bumper.
What it started as:

Disassembly:
 
As this being a temporary fix, I did what I could to make it look presentable, but not have this take multiple days. Used 220, 400, and 600 grit sand paper.






I chose not to use body filler with how flimsy these bumpers are and didn't want it to crack. And once again, temporary fix.

Needs wet sand and polish, but looks decent.


Polished up the side markers using the headlight restore kit.

M3 style trunk lip added.


Replaced the angel eye bulbs with LUX V4 ones. Tried my best to polish up the headlights, but they are still kind of pitted. Passenger side is cracked in the top, top corner. So it needs to be replaced anyway. Lenses look much worse in this picture than in person.

 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/767855784657677/
 

Great color combination. The F15 X5's are incredibly good looking.
 
Will be the most likely successor to the my E90 after it has served it's purpose for me. Or an E70.

Finally picked up the new daily! After ruling out many of the other European SUVs, I kept coming back to the X5. After a lot of browsing I realized I wanted one with nicer wheels and either sport or comfort seats. The other features weren’t as important. 
 
There were some in Chicagoland, but driving down there with my wife and then driving two cars back through there with her by herself isn’t something I wanted to do. Fortunately, I found a strong contender to the north of me in Neenah. We went up there Saturday morning, checked it out, and bought it. 
 
2015 Xdrive35i with M-Sport package. The PO also has an e70 diesel with m sport, an M650, e46 M3, and a new X7. He was selling the X5’s to make room for his new M3 Comp. So it was coming from someone who knew the cars and I really liked that. 
 
Anyways, I’ve only been driving it for two days, but it is so awesome. All three kids fit comfortably with three across forward facing car seats. The storage in the boot is great. The car in Sport mode is quicker than I thought it would be and the paddle shifters are reallly good. 

Using an easy up as a paint booth frame is a great idea.