CHANGING REAR AIR SUSPENSION

If your X5 has a thrid row of seating and or certian sport packages then you have this rear air suspension. The ride it provides is truely great but it is two rubber bags in the back and rubber will wear out as shown here and start to leak. With no air the ride becomes really rough (bumpy) and since the bags change shape as you drive or change modes they may hold air sometimes but not all the time. Good news is they are pretty easy to replace.

EQUIPMENT, SKILL, TIME, PARTS

I use the following tools:

Metric Socket Set, -- Specifically an 8mm, 10mm and a Torx 20 bit. 17mm Socket with no rim damage cover, --

Medium skill is needed for this maintenance.

This task should take about 60 min or less.

Make sure your parts work for your vehicle. The parts are: Rear Air Suspension, You will need two of these. You could buy the BMW branded ones but they are about $450 each and to be honest I couldn't tell the difference based on preformance with these.

This is what the car should look like with the air ride working properly.

This is what it looks like when the air suspension is deflated.

STEP #1:

Lift the car and take the rear wheels off. I have a lift system so this made it pretty easy.

With the wheel off you can see the air suspension right in the middle. It is still under pressure and the next thing we will have to do is relieve the pressure.

STEP #2:

The car's air compressor is under the passenger side seat just behind the front passenger wheel. You can get at it by removing all the paneling screws and then pulling down the panel to see the compressor.

STEP #3:

Just to be double sure you can remove the fuse that powers the compressor. You can find it by pulling back the fuse cover in the trunk on the passenger side of the car.

Here is the fuse box. There is a fuse map tucked into the side of the box. you want to remove fuse 110 which is all the way to the right, second up from the bottom.

You can sort fuses by picture shown here.

This shows the location of fuse 110

STEP #4:

Back under the car unplug both connectors going to the air compressor.

STEP #5:

In order to remove pressure I just unscrewed the check valve from the air compressor. I did not completely remove it I just loosened all 4 screws until air hissed out of both sides. Once the air pressure is out of the system the rubber back in the rear will be able to be squeezed without much effort.

STEP #6:

Push in the tabs on the bottom of the air bag and push it up. (This is actually much easier than I thought it would be).

As you can see here the bottom is no longer attached.

A quarter turn of the rubber bag will un-hook it from the top and then you can pull it out. You then use an open end wrench to unscrew the air line and I used a flat bladed screw driver to pry open the retaining ring a little so I could slide the air line tube out.

I opened the new air line ring a little bit with some needle nose pliers then connected the new air line to the new air suspension.

The worst part of this whole thing for me was getting the quarter turn top hook when I put the new one in. Took me like 10 mins to get it lined up right.

BAVARIAN TINKER

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