Today I…

[Themoog2]

Gosh. Removed the wheel spacers this morning before 6:30 am.. anyway- the difference.. car runs smooth and straight. At 70 mph (which this morning on the M11 was as fast as I could get) there was much less vibration and dare I say, instability. Difficult to explain, It’s almost like the BMW designers knew what they were doing. I have yet to go 70+ but as we know that’s, ahem, not allowed. Steering shake when braking is not evident whereas before if I had to slow rapidly from say, 60 to 30 there would be a certain phase around 40 where it would shake. So far, so good. Time will tell.

[StuBeeDoo]

Are the spacers "hubcentric"? I've had problems with cheap non-hubcentric ones, replaced them with hubcentric ones and problem solved.
But that was on an E46.

[Themoog2]

The rears are hub adapters ie bolt to the car then the wheels bolt to the spacers. The front just had longer bolts. Yes they are hubcentric and a good fit too.
Maybe in my eagerness to get the wheels on there was some debris or something that made them sit slightly wrong.

[sapphireblack]

Surely the wider wheels now and 20&30mm spacers push the rims outside the arches, or are extreme?

We're all different of course, but I'd not be fitting them in conjunction with the 'new' wheels.

[Leslie]

The no drive could be a circlip has broken on the driveshaft and left the drive come out of engagement , see if there is a bigger gap between diff and cv on that side would be a giveaway the grinding could just be the splines touching the driving flanges , would be an easyish fix The large amount of oil on the diff could be a sign its not fully engaged too. I just put a diff in mine (e70 ) but it was driving ok just whining badly and pinion bearings have gone. Correct Diffs are in short supply for these and people are asking crazy monies

[Themoog2]

With the spacers on the wheel edges were level with the edge of the arch flares. It certainly looks purposeful but I would rather it be factory and drive well rather than shaking like crazy at 70mph.
I get what you say about the diff and yes the driveshaft has a bigger gap. I sold the car on anyway and it's being collected soon so that will be up to them.

[Themoog2]

Update on this 'project'. Still going strong. Unfortunately my father passed a month before Xmas but before he did I was travelling from Cambridge to Coventry 2 /3 times a week to visit, which A: cost a lot in fuel and B: showed that the front brake discs were warped so I put a new set on with new pads. Car is smooth now at all speeds.
I still have the AC compressor to swap as its vibrating more than it should. I have a spare compressor and tensioner in the garage waiting.
Also, since putting on the 20" wheels my average mpg has gone up to 21mpg. The only thing I can think of is that the tyre tread has less rolling resistance that the ones I had before. Speedometer reads correctly as I checked it against a GPS so the wheel diameter must be the same.
I'm still hunting for the rear tailpipes (see classifieds) but so far so good.
Mine has the comfort option pack on it but I may try a set of the standard sport seats as the side bolsters are a bit more pronounced so hug you better. I missed out on a red leather interior that was on ebay but the seller wanted £1400 for it which I thought was a bit lumpy..
Next may also be a 4.6 instrument cluster - would one just plug in and work the same?
At the moment though it just looks like an old school V8 fat SUV like they used to back in the day so I'm happy for now.
I did spot a Cayenne Turbo on ebay yesterday though...

[sapphireblack]

Sorry fot your loss, some years apart but both my parents died very close to Christmas, never really celebrated it since.

I can offer a comment on the instrument binnacle. When I enquired, a long time ago, i was told no, but can't remember why.

I can't imagine you'd find a Sport seat interior that didn't suffer a knackered side bolster, requiring repairing new padding and maybe even new leather? Would the electrics be compatible Comfort to Sport, unless fully manual sport fronts then you'd need to code out the originals?

I probably said before, I preferred the four round pipes to the single oblongs. Makes people wonder what it is, if de-badged.

[X5Sport]

Sorry about your challenges over the last few weeks.

The instrument binnacle will need coding to the car as it contains its own computer and will need a correction done to add correct mileage and your VIN. It might also need a calibration check and adjustment in case it over/under reads. I think that there’s a correction factor number that is input to get the mph correct.

[Themoog2]

Im after the 4.8 tail pipes as the mufflers are different to the 4.6 and possibly have a different tone (I can't confirm that). See classified section.