Gave my car some TLC in the suspension department during the last week and wanted to share some pics and list of parts that I replaced. On top of that I want to post what I have concluded during all this time of BMW ownership.
From my understanding and experience in owning BMWs over the past 40 years or so, it seemed to be pretty much a déjà-vu as soon as a BMW hits 80k KMs on the odometer. Ignore the brakes and fluids and the big mechanical bits of the car for a second and let's tend to look solely on the rubbers that pull the car together.
My car has 129,000 Kms after owning it for the last 1.5Years (bought her at 107,500 KMs) I knew from day one of driving her that she needed a bunch of rubbers to be replaced since it wasn't that precise in corners and in the handling department. So decided to squeeze as much kilometers out of them as my conscience allows me to and started replacing the necessary ones first as soon as they become annoying.
Started with my Joint flex as soon as the car was bought, it rattled. Replaced it along with central bearing that holds in it's place. Neglecting that would've caused a bent driveshaft and potentially leading it to snap and destroy your car's undercarriage.
As soon as once piece is fixed it will expose other bad ones, and this is when I started to hear the clunk in my rear diff. there are 3 bushings holding the diff of a BMW when they are on their way out you will hear a clunk when changing gears even when the car is stationary. I didn’t replace those instantly as I decided to further drive the car to pinpoint other imperfections.
Sitting at 118,000 KMs I upgraded my 4 front control arm bushings to some powerflex ones since it was soft and on the way out. There are 2 for the upper arms and 2 for the lower arms. This gave some rigidity to my suspension putting the rear of the car's condition to question.
After 125,000 KMs the car tends to give further signs of handling imperfections… when downshifting in a straight line from 4th to 3rd for example the car's tail feels happy and you can feel the tail moving sideways and correcting itself immediately. This will prove fatal while you are turning in at a corner while downshifting. You don’t want it to be happening at a track either. These are caused by bushing at the end of the 4 arms at the back which connect the wheels to the subframe. A 5 series has 4, a 3 series has only 2 arms. You can detect if these bushings of the arms have failed by simply noticing the tail snap which I previously mentioned. A 5 series would snap while downshifting, a 3 series would snap when upshifting "accelerating and shifting at peak RPM" (this is very common on e46 M3s ;) )
In conjunction to the above mentioned rear snap theory comes a long the famous subframe bushings problem. This part attaches the rear suspension, diff and wheels to your BMW. Whatever force is applied there is something you don’t want to measure.
In the past week I dropped the subframe, changed 4 corner bushings holding it to the body. Replaced the 4 rear arms that connect the wheels to the subframe and replaced the 3 diff bushings. Doing so will stiffen my car's rear end and prevent it from snapping. Another benefit to this is it decreases tire wear. Many people complain about their rear tires not living long. Well to that, I must say your car's alignment is very dependent on the condition of the rubbers, the more they move (play due to aging rubbers) the more your wheels wear out unevenly no matter how perfect your alignment is. Convertible 3 series and X5s bend their
Moving to the front end of the car, 3-series (z4s) only have one front control arm bushing that must be looked at. 5/6X series have 4. 2 upper and 2 lower ones. If this is neglected it will also cause a play that will most likely see your tires wear out quicker, clunking noises and when braking as soon as you depress your foot on the brake pedal you can not only hear the clunk you can also feel it. This is your front shocks moving from their place due to the gforce.
There is also the top mounts of all the shocks on the car that can make bad noises whenever you drive over a speed bump.
Summary:
The above parts will fail whether you like it or not and regardless of how the car is driven and where it is driven. These parts are not very expensive on a regular non-Mpower BMW. On a Mpower car they vary anywhere between 3500-6000 dirhams on average depending if you drive a 3 series or something bigger. The catch is you really have to ask yourself one simple question, "Can I justify owning a BMW and spending on maintenance for these suspension consumables to last me another 100k Kms or not?" if you can't justify spending this amount to enjoy driving a solid BMW then IMHO you shouldn't own one in the first place. There are other owners who don’t complain about these things because simply they don’t know the difference. This is not to put anyone down, instead one can be proud that you can instantly get back the original feel of your BMW's handling simply by replacing these parts.
Scroll down to go over some pictures with some comments for those who don’t have too knowledge.
These are pics with the new parts installed
So basically the first one here shows the subframe with all the hardware connected to it.
The second picture here shows how the diff is detached from the subframe
This is another pic of the differential alone…
This is a typical rear subframe on a BMW notice the 4 black mounting points at the corners.
the subframe has 2 rear mounting points for the diff to sit on towards the center of the pic.
This is sucker is the 3rd diff mount that holds the diff from the front side.
This picture here shows the 2 old arms connecting to the hub. I don’t know which side of the car this was
If you compare it to the one above you can tell the 2 new arms instantly.
Some more random ****
And this a is a bonus pic of my medusa headers!!
From my understanding and experience in owning BMWs over the past 40 years or so, it seemed to be pretty much a déjà-vu as soon as a BMW hits 80k KMs on the odometer. Ignore the brakes and fluids and the big mechanical bits of the car for a second and let's tend to look solely on the rubbers that pull the car together.
My car has 129,000 Kms after owning it for the last 1.5Years (bought her at 107,500 KMs) I knew from day one of driving her that she needed a bunch of rubbers to be replaced since it wasn't that precise in corners and in the handling department. So decided to squeeze as much kilometers out of them as my conscience allows me to and started replacing the necessary ones first as soon as they become annoying.
Started with my Joint flex as soon as the car was bought, it rattled. Replaced it along with central bearing that holds in it's place. Neglecting that would've caused a bent driveshaft and potentially leading it to snap and destroy your car's undercarriage.
As soon as once piece is fixed it will expose other bad ones, and this is when I started to hear the clunk in my rear diff. there are 3 bushings holding the diff of a BMW when they are on their way out you will hear a clunk when changing gears even when the car is stationary. I didn’t replace those instantly as I decided to further drive the car to pinpoint other imperfections.
Sitting at 118,000 KMs I upgraded my 4 front control arm bushings to some powerflex ones since it was soft and on the way out. There are 2 for the upper arms and 2 for the lower arms. This gave some rigidity to my suspension putting the rear of the car's condition to question.
After 125,000 KMs the car tends to give further signs of handling imperfections… when downshifting in a straight line from 4th to 3rd for example the car's tail feels happy and you can feel the tail moving sideways and correcting itself immediately. This will prove fatal while you are turning in at a corner while downshifting. You don’t want it to be happening at a track either. These are caused by bushing at the end of the 4 arms at the back which connect the wheels to the subframe. A 5 series has 4, a 3 series has only 2 arms. You can detect if these bushings of the arms have failed by simply noticing the tail snap which I previously mentioned. A 5 series would snap while downshifting, a 3 series would snap when upshifting "accelerating and shifting at peak RPM" (this is very common on e46 M3s ;) )
In conjunction to the above mentioned rear snap theory comes a long the famous subframe bushings problem. This part attaches the rear suspension, diff and wheels to your BMW. Whatever force is applied there is something you don’t want to measure.
In the past week I dropped the subframe, changed 4 corner bushings holding it to the body. Replaced the 4 rear arms that connect the wheels to the subframe and replaced the 3 diff bushings. Doing so will stiffen my car's rear end and prevent it from snapping. Another benefit to this is it decreases tire wear. Many people complain about their rear tires not living long. Well to that, I must say your car's alignment is very dependent on the condition of the rubbers, the more they move (play due to aging rubbers) the more your wheels wear out unevenly no matter how perfect your alignment is. Convertible 3 series and X5s bend their
Moving to the front end of the car, 3-series (z4s) only have one front control arm bushing that must be looked at. 5/6X series have 4. 2 upper and 2 lower ones. If this is neglected it will also cause a play that will most likely see your tires wear out quicker, clunking noises and when braking as soon as you depress your foot on the brake pedal you can not only hear the clunk you can also feel it. This is your front shocks moving from their place due to the gforce.
There is also the top mounts of all the shocks on the car that can make bad noises whenever you drive over a speed bump.
Summary:
The above parts will fail whether you like it or not and regardless of how the car is driven and where it is driven. These parts are not very expensive on a regular non-Mpower BMW. On a Mpower car they vary anywhere between 3500-6000 dirhams on average depending if you drive a 3 series or something bigger. The catch is you really have to ask yourself one simple question, "Can I justify owning a BMW and spending on maintenance for these suspension consumables to last me another 100k Kms or not?" if you can't justify spending this amount to enjoy driving a solid BMW then IMHO you shouldn't own one in the first place. There are other owners who don’t complain about these things because simply they don’t know the difference. This is not to put anyone down, instead one can be proud that you can instantly get back the original feel of your BMW's handling simply by replacing these parts.
Scroll down to go over some pictures with some comments for those who don’t have too knowledge.
These are pics with the new parts installed
So basically the first one here shows the subframe with all the hardware connected to it.
The second picture here shows how the diff is detached from the subframe
This is another pic of the differential alone…
This is a typical rear subframe on a BMW notice the 4 black mounting points at the corners.
the subframe has 2 rear mounting points for the diff to sit on towards the center of the pic.
This is sucker is the 3rd diff mount that holds the diff from the front side.
This picture here shows the 2 old arms connecting to the hub. I don’t know which side of the car this was
If you compare it to the one above you can tell the 2 new arms instantly.
Some more random ****
And this a is a bonus pic of my medusa headers!!
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