The Family Tractor

[Vass 867]

Managed to stumble my way into another problem project.

With an addition to the family imminent, I started looking at options to upgrade the wife's mode of transportation. Her trusty Subaru Outback is getting rather tired and is not a car I particularly enjoy working on so was keen to lure her over into the wonderful world of German engineering. With her enthusiasm for eventually getting back into riding and owning horses, the criteria was a 4wd with enough ground clearance to at least not get stuck in a paddock, and something capable of towing a horse float. Easy enough.

I wanted to keep it in the familiar era of the early 2000's so quickly narrowed the search down to E83 X3's & E53 X5's. The V8 was never an option and despite my love for the M54, I felt that in a big lump of an SUV (SAV?) it might be a bit underpowered and too thirsty, so the legendary M57 became the preference. Not an awful lot of them around as it turns out, and all close to or above 300k on the clock. One 306k example had popped up, went to check it out and although I was impressed with the drive and feel, I decided against it due to the shoddy aesthetics - passenger door handle was missing, a bunch of interior trims were quite worn, the steering wheel was sticky and disgusting and some underbody plastics being held in place with self tappers and wood screws. The condition was reflected in the price but since the car is meant to be for the better half, I'd have wanted it to be a bit nicer.

I then went back to a FB Marketplace listing I had saved a while earlier. The ad had been up for a good number of months, the asking price was essentially double that of the car I test drove but was well presented and looked heaps tidier. Before I got around to texting the owner though, the exact same car popped up on a TM $1 reserve auction with a "FUEL INJECT. SYSTEM" error on the dash and a crank no start condition. Despite numerous messages and requests for a viewing, the seller never replied so I was left bidding blind. Not ideal but it is what it is. I figured I'd go low enough that I could recoup the investment through parting it out if need be, and after brief bidding war I emerged victorious at a price I was happy enough to gamble.

The next day, I recruited a mate to help out with towing duties, hooked up our rally car trailer that was barely big enough for the job, huffed and puffed pushing the 2 tonne beast onto it and carted the new family member home.

And there she is - 2004 E53 X5 3.0d with 288,600 km's on the clock. Overall looks really tidy, the body is straight with a few paint imperfections here and there but still presents really well. I do love the facelift design, doesn't look at all dated even at 20 years old, in my eyes anyway. Interior is in great condition too with the only blemish that stands out is the passenger door arm rest leather coming apart. Even comes with an Android headunit, which is pretty handy. The biggest drawback, for the wife in any case, is the lack of heated seats, although that's something I can try and rectify at a later date.

All of that counts for nothing though unless I can get her up and running again. The car had sat since July, the battery had gone completely flat to the point even the gear indicator light wouldn't come on. Took 2 days of charging to get the battery back to full charge but I suspect it might be too far gone anyway and a replacement will be the first item on the shopping list. Ran out of weekend before I could start properly digging into it but did get the battery charged up enough to pull some codes.

Definitely something to do with fuel delivery. Whether the code for fuel pressure regulating points to the regulator being faulty I'm not entirely sure. I've learned that these cars have a total of 3 fuel pumps - a low pressure in-tank pump; an inline pump and a high pressure pump - and it could be either one of the 3. Will need to do more research on whether any of the codes might help pinpoint the culprit more accurately. The glow plugs should be easy enough to replace and definitely on the list of preventative maintenance I'm aiming to take care of. Whether the glow control unit is also a common failure point I'll need to also look into.

Another suggestion I found was that the fuel sender unit may have gone bad, the gauge would still show there being fuel in the tank but it wouldn't be making its way over to the pump side from the opposite side of the "saddle", causing a fuelling issue. The fuel needle did indicate barely a fifth of a tank so could be plausible. I'll try pour some 20L of diesel in it and see what happens. Would be pretty funny if that's the cause of the issue but I don't dare hope to be so lucky.

On the running gear side, a few codes could be a cause for concern, namely the transfer case code for oil abrasion and gearbox shutdown code due to overtemperature. Will see how she feels once she's running and driving but servicing those two will definitely be on the list.

Will take some time on the weekend to dig into it proper, see how far I get with the diagnosis and start putting together a shopping list of parts. Pretty excited for my first diesel experience. Time will tell how much of a bargain it turns out to be. Long live the Family Tractor.

Edited October 30 by Vass
Forgot to add mileage

[Gaz 1062]

11 hours ago, Vass said:

The glow plugs should be easy enough to replace and definitely on the list of preventative maintenance I'm aiming to take care of. Whether the glow control unit is also a common failure point I'll need to also look into.

Yes control units do go faulty. Replace all 6 glow plugs and the control unit

[Palazzo 478]

See below from Xseries forum. Transfer case needs new oil. $150 done at a gearbox speciality with BMW oil.

[Vass 867]

To test out the faulty fuel sender unit theory, I did a couple of trips to the servo with a jerry can and poured some 20L of diesel into the tank. Having had the old battery on charge for a few days, I hooked it up and turned on the ignition, to which the car proceeded to have a full on seizure - cluster flashing on and off, relays clicking, alarm beeping etc. Not knowing how old the battery was and the little peep hole staying black even at full charge, I picked up a brand new Century DIN85LHX MF as a replacement.

Before I could hook it up, I discovered the clamp on the negative cable had somehow seized so you couldn't tighten it properly. Took some vice grips and an impact wrench set to full blast to break the stubborn stud in half. Luckily I still had a few spare ones on hand.

Battery hooked up, you could hear the fuel pump priming as you turned the ignition, although there seemed to be all sorts of modules coming back to life and there was all sorts of sounds coming from all directions all at the same time. Gave it a couple of 10-second cranks, on the third one she fired right up! Happy days. Fuel injection system error still lit up the cluster but seemed to idle fine. Took it for a quick lap around the block, didn't really give it beans but didn't feel like it was in any sort of limp mode. Hooked it up to the scanner, still had the old list as well as a few more errors this time around.

It now takes a second or two of cranking but then fires up fine. Cleared all the codes, took it for another quick lap and none of the codes are yet to come back. Great success.

Too soon to jump to conclusions but seeing it run and drive really made my day. Heaps of preventative maintenance to do before she goes into full on daily duties but the beginning looks well promising.

[Olaf 3341]

welcome to the Tractor Gang!   Jebus but they do like their codes.  And tyres.  And brakes.  And transfer case and diff issues.  #1 hint:  ensure tyre sizes are in-spec.

My brother had an e53 3.0 Sport diesel when new.  Stunned me, made a real impression. 

Followed.  Looking forward to learning of your exploits.  Guidance for cars that your spouse carries your offspring around in:  they shall always be over-maintained, and they shall never leave your spouse stranded with your offspring.   

[BMTHUG 1064]

On 11/1/2024 at 11:34 PM, Vass said:

To test out the faulty fuel sender unit theory, I did a couple of trips to the servo with a jerry can and poured some 20L of diesel into the tank. Having had the old battery on charge for a few days, I hooked it up and turned on the ignition, to which the car proceeded to have a full on seizure - cluster flashing on and off, relays clicking, alarm beeping etc. Not knowing how old the battery was and the little peep hole staying black even at full charge, I picked up a brand new Century DIN85LHX MF as a replacement.

Before I could hook it up, I discovered the clamp on the negative cable had somehow seized so you couldn't tighten it properly. Took some vice grips and an impact wrench set to full blast to break the stubborn stud in half. Luckily I still had a few spare ones on hand.

Battery hooked up, you could hear the fuel pump priming as you turned the ignition, although there seemed to be all sorts of modules coming back to life and there was all sorts of sounds coming from all directions all at the same time. Gave it a couple of 10-second cranks, on the third one she fired right up! Happy days. Fuel injection system error still lit up the cluster but seemed to idle fine. Took it for a quick lap around the block, didn't really give it beans but didn't feel like it was in any sort of limp mode. Hooked it up to the scanner, still had the old list as well as a few more errors this time around.

It now takes a second or two of cranking but then fires up fine. Cleared all the codes, took it for another quick lap and none of the codes are yet to come back. Great success.

Too soon to jump to conclusions but seeing it run and drive really made my day. Heaps of preventative maintenance to do before she goes into full on daily duties but the beginning looks well promising.

Got to love these e53 X5'S!!

[Vass 867]

Have been slowly chipping away at this thing over the past month or so. First order of business was a good deep clean inside and out. Discovered quite a few dings and scratches as you would expect but still presents quite well. The headlights are starting to get quite faded and unfortunately these are similar to E46 facelift coupes in that the lenses are molded into the headlight and aren't easily interchangeable for new ones. A mate of mine has the knack and gear for headlight restoration so get him to have a go as that cleans up the look quite drastically.

The inside got a good deep clean and vacuum. The bigger mission was sorting out the various messes that someone had made of the wiring. There were some weird unconnected cables added on at the headunit end that I ended up removing and tidying up.

In the trunk area, instead of a towing module I found whatever this contraption is. Haven't tested whether the trailer lights actually work yet but that also needed a few dodgy wiring joints tidied up. Hopefully it works as I'm having a hard enough time chasing down one towing module, let alone two.

The car came fitted with a reverse camera that was refusing to work. I had a spare one sitting on a shelf so decided to investigate. Hooked up the new camera to the existing wiring - nothing. Hooked up the new wiring to the existing camera - nothing. Hooked up the new wiring to the new camera - works like a charm, so somehow, someone along the way had managed to mess up both the wiring and the camera itself. Upon closer inspection I was again greeted with a whole bunch of dodgy wiring - a combination of wires soldered, crimped, taped together, added plugs and even a terminal connection all covered in copious amounts of electrical tape, sticking out from behind trim pieces in the cabin along the length of it.

Ended up ripping the whole thing out and running a whole new length from the headunit to the tailgate, using proper solder-heatshrink butt connectors and taking off door sills and trim pieces to tuck the cables tidily out of sight.

The car came fitted with both front and rear parking sensors but neither were working so tried digging into that issue as well. I was fearing the sensors being faulty but the scan tool only gave a code for the gong so dug into that. Taking off the kick panel I discovered the gong wasn't plugged in at all and the plugs were nowhere to be seen. Took a bit of digging around to find the ends deliberately tucked away in behind the carpet. Someone really didn't want these to be found. Figured it would have been done because the whole system was faulty but to my surprise both front and rears work perfectly fine after plugging in the gong.

So now the car has fully functional parking sensors and reverse camera. Steady progress.

[Vass 867]

The first parts order arrived so I dug into a major service. This batch was aimed at servicing the engine and was as follows:

• Glow plugs & module
• Crankcase breather valve
• Water pump, thermostat & coolant flush
• Oil & filters

First thing to come off was the intake manifold. Really quite easy on these engines not having to disconnect any fuel lines unlike on the M54, just a bunch of nuts & bolts to undo. I was in for quite a shock once it was off though. I knew diesels were "dirty" engines but this I wasn't quite ready for. The intake runners were gunked up so badly that they must have been reduced to roughly half the original diameters. Cleaning these out became the biggest and most time consuming task of this whole endeavour.

I went through 5 rolls of disposable rags cleaning out the intake. No matter how much gunk I scraped out, how many times I rinsed the intake through, more and more gunk just kept coming out. Insane stuff. 

Must have taken a good 4-5 hours just scrubbing away at the intake with rags, brushes and screwdrivers and rinsing it out with a garden hose to get it to a point where it was relatively sludge-free.

I then stuck some rags down the openings on the engine side and picked away at the sludge with a screwdriver to get that cleaned up as best I could. To top it off I then made a simultaneously genius and moronic move in taping a piece of rubber pipe onto the end of a shop vac and sticking it down the openings - genius in that you could hear the sludge getting pulled out of the engine so got that end of things cleaned up really well; moronic in that the vacuum tubing now needed an almighty cleanup job itself. Win some, lose some.

I then tackled the glow plugs. Have read that these are known so seize inside the engine and needed a really careful approach as to not strip any threads. I'm guessing it's more of an issue in colder climates as mine came out without any issues despite almost certainly still being originals. Glow plugs aren't really critical in our warm-ish climate but good to have the system functioning properly and get rid of some fault codes.

The glow plug module is a bit of a mission to get to, sitting underneath a variety of coolant lines, wiring and vacuum hoses. To make access easier, you can remove a coolant flange bolting onto the block, which is what I did since I was draining the coolant anyway. The flange is known to break when working in that area so I ordered a spare Febi one just in case and bolted it on once the new module was in place, which ended up being a mistake as I later discovered. I felt the coolant hoses were a bit loose when reassembling but didn't think much of it at the time. Then with everything reassembled and the coolant topped up both hoses started pissing out fluid with the engine running, all over the brand new glow plug module. On the bright side, it took me just 15 minutes to remove the intake this time around so it didn't set me back too much. Luckily, the original flange didn't get damaged in the process so I just transferred over the gasket from the Febi one and bolted everything back up. No leaks this time around. I know Febi are hit and miss nowadays and have now ticked off my first bad experience with them.

Water pump & thermostat went on without issues. The water pump was still original, the thermostat was date stamped 2021 and the coolant that came out was still blue and fairly clean so the car was at least somewhat taken care of. The radiator got a good rinse and clean and went back on as well. Still original but seemingly in decent nick, will have to keep an eye on it.

Was surprised by how much of a mission it is changing out the air filter on these. The thing itself is massive and you have to take off the whole cabin filter panel, all beauty covers and several more covers just to get to it, and even then access is really tight with the cover panel hitting brake lines at the side of the engine bay that houses the brake booster. No wonder the filter that came out was filthy as all hell. Had claimed quite a few innocent lives throughout its tenure that thing.

On the flipside, oil changes are a breeze as I didn't even need to drive it up onto ramps or jack the car up to have access to the sump.

The PCV was a simple in & out affair. Also threw on new expansion tank and oil filler caps for good measure. The engine bay now looking clean & tidy.

That's pretty much it on the engine side of things. Will do another oil change in a few thousand km's just to be safe as I don't have much in terms of service history. Have also put an order in for a proper EGR delete kit as I don't want to deal with the absolute horror show of cleaning a diesel intake manifold ever again. Have just unplugged and capped off the vacuum hose going to the EGR valve for now. Luckily it's the older, vacuum operated system on this thing and not the newer electronic valve so didn't trigger any engine lights and no coding required.

The engine now breathes noticeably more freely and generally feels happier. Previously it would momentarily stutter at idle when first starting it up so am glad to have gotten rid of that. Have also poured a bottle of Techron fuel system cleaner into the tank to hopefully help her run a bit smoother still.

I did discover a new issue that will need addressing sooner rather than later in the form of a split axle boot on the driver's side. Won't be a fun job by any means. Really hope the axle comes out of the hub without much hassle and isn't seized in.

Another item I received in this batch was a new driver's side mirror glass. The old one had gone all brown and yucky, assumedly the auto-dim feature going bad. Seems like a rather gimmicky feature that I'm unlikely to miss so just ordered a "dumb" heated mirror as a replacement since it was 1/5 of the price - TYC brand at just 8 EUR a piece. The old one was a mission to get off and I ended up cracking it in my attempts to remove it, spilling that nasty fluid all over the place in the process.

The new mirror is nice and clear and has a stronger convex so gives a better field of view than the old one, which is nice to have on a bigger car. I've since discovered the passenger side one to be held together with double sided tape and wobble at cruising speeds so have ordered a replacement for the other side as well.

The next batch of parts is now on the way, including the CV boots, fuel and cabin filters that I forgot to include with the original order as well as transmission filter, mechatronic seals and other plugs & gaskets to start changing out the trans, diff & transfer case fluids.

Won't be straying too far for the time being with the split boot but wifey's pretty chuffed with her new chariot.

Edited December 13 by Vass

[balancerider 777]

8 hours ago, Vass said:

 

In the trunk area, instead of a towing module I found whatever this contraption is. Haven't tested whether the trailer lights actually work yet but that also needed a few dodgy wiring joints tidied up. Hopefully it works as I'm having a hard enough time chasing down one towing module, let alone two.

So now the car has fully functional parking sensors and reverse camera. Steady progress.

Nice work @Vass -  that previously janky wiring strongly incentivises working on my car myself. Some people just have no interest in doing things properly (but are quite happy to be paid as though they do)

Edited December 13 by balancerider

[Olaf 3341]

Yeah plus one on the Nice Work - great work on the wiring remediation and patient servicing!  You'll be setting this one up for reliable extended life, so many of them get neglected.

I think the auto-dimming door mirrors are a pretty good feature when you're on the open road at night and there's a knob behind you on high-beam 🙂  Still, low cost is a good option!

Looking forward to your next installment.  Keeping chariot trouble-free and reliable for family use is a major priority.