It's been a few years owning this car, and I still have yet to find a concrete answer. The need hasn't come up often, so I've never really fretted about it. When it did in the past, I used the "2x4 across the length of the side" technique to get jack stands under both front side jack points, but the last time I did this, some resulting sounds made me not want to anymore.

I've recently come across this apparent BMW-group (R60 All4s specific) document that shows:



And of course, trying to web search info on jack point no.1 doesn't show much. All I could find that remotely fits the text description is:



And.. well, I'm not quite 100% confident on trying to lift the front end from that point. But what do I know.

Can anyone testify to successfully using this point to lift the front end?

I'm basically just wanting to get the front end up on jack stands. Thanks.

 

Following. Same situation and concerns.

 

Is it just me, or does the idea of using that cross-support not instill very much confidence in raising the front?

Part of me is trying to rationalize it:
- maybe that part is reinforced and/or just engineered well
- it's not needing to support the full weight of the vehicle

So, I dunno. I need to get under there to check cables, and every day I don't, it just gets that much closer to full-on winter and being stuck with just a FWD hybrid between two people. So I might just try it soon and find out.

 

No, it is not just you.
The part you circled in red is one of the frame stiffening cross-bars.
I don't know how it has been engineered, but if you jack it in there, there will be something like 1/2 a ton of force applied.
Also, I was recently seeing an upgrade in that area from Ultra Racing, probably designed for more torsional rigidity, which is different from jacking, but still tells me that the OEM part is not the stiffest.

 

I'm not seeing a picture but I just recently jacked mine up at the front end in the middle. I'm using a bottle jack, but I put it on the first brace after the firewall and used a piece of wood first. Mine didn't make any worrying noises at all. I too was a bit worried about it but it took the pressure long enough to get it quite raised so I could get jack stands under it at the normal jack points. I woulnd't necessarily trust it like that for long, but it was good enough to get it in the air for me.