Understeer in E46, is something wrong?

  • Thread starter Thread starter NVP
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£140 a tyre inc fitting for the fronts, but rears would work to around £200 I think. They'll need replacing soon anyway.

Will def keep a sharper eye on the inside of my tyres from now on!

What could have caused the tracking to go so badly as to cause such wear on the inside?

Also, the alignment was reset to 2 at the front and 3.5 at the back. Is there any way I can check if this is the correct allignment for an M-Sport?
 
there were some minor spec changes i believe, like leather steering wheels as standard or whatever.

But nothing major.
 
Oh I see, my bad. I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to cars as you may have already guessed.

I'm getting my front brake pads changed and my MOT done tomorrow at Sytner and I was thinking of getting them to double check the tracking as the car feels slightly gittery at high speeds now, does anyone know if they do this and how much it would be?
 
Unless Sytner are doing a special offer you would be mad to get your MOT done there.

BMW also wont do 'tracking' they'll do a KDS Alignment at a cost of at least £200.
 
They are the same though aren't they? It's just a name change difference, M-Sport was used for pre-facelift and Sport was used for facelift. Or that's my understanding anyway.

Not this.

I think it was known as sport until around 2005 when they changed the name to msport?

This. Basically BMW decided that filling every Sport model car with M badges on the wheels, the doors, the gearstick, etc etc just simply wasn't enough to compete with S-LINE. They needed more M. So, starting very very late 2004 (Something like December?) on the 3 and 5 Series, Sport became... M Sport. The 1 Series and 7 Series kept Sport, but the 1 gained a new M Sport trim level above Sport.

Hardly any E46's are M Sport as the change came literally months before the E46 got binned and the E90 appeared, though Coupe/Cab production went on for a while longer.

there were some minor spec changes i believe, like leather steering wheels as standard or whatever.

But nothing major.

This is unfortunately completely wrong - there were infact no changes at all. Just the model name and the text on the V5.
 
[TW]Fox;16672992 said:
Unless Sytner are doing a special offer you would be mad to get your MOT done there.

BMW also wont do 'tracking' they'll do a KDS Alignment at a cost of at least £200.

MOT is £54, but was only going Sytner because they will change the brake pads under the value service on cars my age, £99 for the fronts seems good to me.
 
£99 for front brake pads inc fitting sounds expensive to me!.

EBC original quality pads (front):
£56.80

Brake pad sensor cable:
£12.93

Fitting by any local indy/garage:
£10-20 max

EBC Greenstuffs aren't going to be much more expensive than the above either.
 
£99 for front brake pads inc fitting sounds expensive to me!.

EBC original quality pad:
£56.80

Brake pad sensor cable:
£12.93

Fitting by any local indy/garage:
£10-20 max

So you think £99 at a main dealer is expensive because for £89 a backstreet garage could do it? :confused:
 
Those prices were just pulled off Google, I'm sure you can find them even cheaper. My sensor leads were £5 for example and were genuine BMW ones.
 
Those prices were just pulled off Google, I'm sure you can find them even cheaper. My sensor leads were £5 for example and were genuine BMW ones.

You probably wont be getting brake pads done for £10-20 at many garages, either. For main dealer service, £99 is good value.
 
£15 is what the local wheel specialist garage charged me when I changed my front pads but I guess you're right, not everywhere will be that low.
 
Your pressures are high, 41psi is abit high for a BMW thats not fully loaded or driven on track, drop them a little and experiment.

Tyres pressure can heavily effect how a car handles and tyre wear.

In an M3 you always want higher pressure in the rear, try between 36psi-38psi. In the front try 32-34psi. I'd go with 34/36 personally, but as a bit more extreme maybe try 32/38 and just go with what feels best to you. The reason the pressure is higher in the rear due to it been RWD, you want the car to rotate from the rear, essentially reducing understeer.

As mentioned get the car hunter alligned but by a specialist who knows about car geo/allignments. You high speed unstability is no doubt due to excessive toe out settings.

Toe out gives much sharper/quicker turn in reducing understeer unless you go too extreme but it can make a car feel unstable at speed.

Cars from the factory will normally have slight toe in for stability, people tend to add toe out to sharpen up the car. Then you have castor and camber, but take the car to a specialist, tell them how you want it to feel and they will set the car up for you and well then give it a test drive and well adjust.
 
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