Diesel filter on left or right on a uk x5 e70 SD 2009 ?

[Leslie]

Anyone who these things have a habit of changing sides between left and RHD , and all I saw on youtube were LHD ones , anyone know ?

[marti]

Looking at the diagram on Realoem its on the left??

https://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/showpa ... Id=16_0695

[X5Sport]

The TIS says to remove rear underbody protection (behind the engine) and left side underbody panel (sill cover) so I would assume it’s under the near side as above. Lots of nasty plastic rivets involved too.

It also advises that once changed the ignition is cycled a few times to get the fuel pump to bleed the system before starting.

[Leslie]

Thanks lads saves taking off 2 sides as I would be the wrong side I went too lol , raining on/off all day so abandoned for now , started light rain the very minute I went out to change the oil but got that done anyway. I did wonder about priming the fuel pump on these newer ones x5sport and I've read the ones after like F15 you need software to do this and it must be done no way round it anymore and we don't want the high pressure pump running dry .
The next job is to wirebrush and waxoyl the rear subframe before it gets any worse as it has very heavy looking rust and I noticed the floor above the coating has started to peel and rust as well , the centre of the car last time I checked when I replaced the compressor was as good as the day it left Bmw so plastic covers do work

[Leslie]

Well that was no fun lol I can confirm it is on the left side and you do need to remove the front panel to get the middle panel off and really the rear is a bit in the way but I left it in place and worked around it but it makes accessing the 2 filter bolts a bit more tricky. There are many 8 and 10mm screws and plastic 10 mm nuts and push in plugs in the sill cover , the plastic nuts are perfect but the screws and what they screw in is rusting away as they go into the foil heat shield and some are missing already as there is nothing left to screw them into.
I thought I had all the diesel drained but I must have knocked the front connection and a load poured out onto the drive as I had moved the container out the way
Despite priming for 30 secs 3 times by pushing the start button without touching the brake pedal to start it still took a good 5 + seconds of cranking which seems like a long time when you are waiting for it to fire
With limited room ( I had the rear wheel up on a 4 inch block and the scissor jack lifting the front a little for clearance it's not a job id want to do again in a hurry, there still is too little room It did however say dry the whole time and the sun has even appeared now