E60: Replacing all Brake Discs and Pads.

1. Jack car, remove wheel. REAR ONLY - ensure handbrake is off.
2. Remove plastic caps and 7mm Allen-head bolts.
3. Remove caliper and hang it from the spring.
4. *On front-N/S and rear-O/S ONLY* - Remove pad wear-sensor by gently working it up out of the slot with a small flat-screwdriver. Part of the green plastic may brake off but it's very unlikely the sensor will stop working, so provided you are careful to retain the metal clip it will fit back on tight enough.
5. Remove 18mm bolts from caliper bracket and lift out of the way.
6. Remove the stud holding the disc to the hub using a 5mm Allen-key socket.
7. Wobble the brake disc off. REAR ONLY - It may need whacking from behind with a hammer as it will bind to the handbrake shoes.
8. ** If you are replacing the inboard handbrake shoes, then do this now.
9. Fit the new brake-disc to the hub. The hand-brake may need adjusting for the drum to slide over the shoes as it self-adjusts to stay against the worn drum on the old brake-disc. It will likely need adjusting to the new drum anyway. 
10. Reverse steps 5 to 1.

Pad wear-sensors are a pain to remove.

I wangled all 4 discs and pads for £140 from LVW who supply where I work. 

Belaco are a budget make, but we fit them to vans at work and they seem OK.

Mintex pads do the job.

Plenty of meat left on the old discs, but the MOT fail showed brake imbalance.

The old pads looked alright too, but no imbalance reported on the retest.

E60 530d MOT Fail - Brakes, Trailing Arm

After the horror of the swirl-flap failure and engine swap, the E60 went off the road again at the start of December after an annoying MOT fail on imbalanced brakes, likely discs and pads, and split trailing arm bushes on the N/S. The tester also failed it on a bend in the rim of the N/S/R alloy wheel, which is reasonably bad, but enough to be an MOT fail I am not too sure.

This is the bush on the offending arm with the most play, but I still can't see a major split as I have with other bushes.

Closer inspection reveals what could be a split on the right side of the pic, but it's still not a shut case. Maybe the rubber has separated from the metal outer and is moving around?

Ok, so it's no small dent. The inner rim is bent, where the tyre sits, but I've had similar sized ones before that have been no problem. 

Is it repairable? Perhaps, but I have no spare wheel to use and a replacement is £200. Maybe the MOT tester was having a bad day?