[Magallon0820]

So was doing a trans flush among other things and noticed...this is a 535 xdrive..should there be a drive shaft there ?? There is nothing going to the transfer case, looks as if there should be a drive sfhat the runs like parallel to the transmission no?

[ceka]

Maybe the only FWD f10

[Magallon0820]

Nah even carfax say it's xdrive

[ceka]

sarcasm
There's no fwd f10

There should be a drive shaft to the rear differential.

Originally Posted by Magallon0820

Nah even carfax say it's xdrive

[Magallon0820]

So the spot where a drive shaft supposed to go is for another application not for an xdrive?

[ChiNorm]

No, if no xdrive it is rwd. Your driveshaft is ....... missing.

Good luck.

[Magallon0820]

So the pic is the front of the diff rear diff has a drives haft, Dam I can't believe it.

[Magallon0820]

here you can see a little better, this is from drivers side looking up you can see transmission and where it looks like there should be a drivshaft, again this is 535xi 2011 what are your thoughts?

[Conserve]

Looks like that drive shaft has been missing for a while (flange threaded hole have rust in them). Can you tell us more about the car (e.g, when purchased, any fault of on the dash, how long you been driving it like this, etc.). Sorry I cannot help you but am curious.

Regards,

[Magallon0820]

Haha absolutely, just purchased the car, I went against my better judgment and bout it with 130k carfax looked good maintenance records show ot had been serviced at bmw its whole life so I figured hey why not. Live the car but little things are starting to happen and it's only been 3 months, I saw in another thread here on the site that some people take front drives driveshaft off during summer and then back on during the winter, I am wondering if that was the case here, Car runs the same no lights on the dash or anything, I wonder if they took it off for fun or something was wrong with front diff.

[ChiNorm]

F10s are designed to be primarily rwd and only transition to fwd when rear traction is inadequate. I suspect that running this car as fwd for God knows how long may have major consequences for the transfer case and other bits.

[Magallon0820]

No no lol.its missing front drive dhaft so car is currently RWD only.

[ChiNorm]

Suggests issue with transfer case by previous owner, so AWD was disabled.

[StradaRedlands]

I wonder if it has X Delete flashed, otherwise wouldn't it throw codes?
https://www.xdelete.app/

[Hoa]

Looks like AWD was disabled by previous owner. See if the front axles are still there. There is a chance previous owner disabled it with xDelete or code it to be RWD. That is why you won’t get any error messages on the dash. Hopefully they disabled it because they wanted to be RWD instead of disabling it due to a bad transfer case. Only one way to find out is to get a driveshaft and enable xDrive again.

[ezaircon4jc]

It's probably the angle, but that 1st picture makes it look like if there was an axel attached to that fitting, it would hit that hose and piece of metal next to it.

[Magallon0820]

Front axles ?? Like cv axles? Yes those are there still.

[ezaircon4jc]

Looking at the "witness marks," something was bolted there...

[StradaRedlands]

Previously owner egregiously mis-represented the car as AWD. I wonder if you have any legal recourse. Selling a car as AWD and it missing a drive shaft is pretty underhanded.

[Magallon0820]

Yea I was wondering the same thing 🤔 I love the car minus the few things that have gone wrong with it.

[Opie55]

Who did you buy it from? And was it advertised as AWD or XDrive? Presumably yes. If a private seller, how long had they had it? If they had it several years, they had to know they were misrepresenting the car. A used car dealer may not have known, but still mispresented what the car was. You buy an older used car "as is" but that does not necessarily apply if the car is misrepresented. I'd confront them and see if you can at least get them to spring for a drive shaft.

[Opie55]

Hold on a minute - in your very last pic where you show the side view and say "you can see a little better" - what am I seeing in the upper far right corner of that picture? Is it an optical illusion or is the aluminum case of your transfer case broken open and badly cracked?