Worn shock absorbers?

taximike

taximike

taximike

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Joined
25 Dec 2009
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Car is 2001 E46 318i SE, no problems driving it but it seems that the right rear of the car consistently sits too low. Doing an 'iphone test' (i.e. trying to fit a sideways iphone between the tyre and the wheel arch) it fits in all 3 wheels pretty snugly but not into the right rear.

Worn shocks? Any idea of cost to replace all 4?

Cheers
 
damper shouldnt dictate the ride height of a corner. its the spring that would do that

possibly a broken spring

as for dampers, they will make the car feel floaty. detecting one being more dead than another isnt easy unless you konw what youre feeling for... most of the time theyre replaced in pairs but not all people do it that way
 
Is it lateral weight distribution or different suspension components?

Also strange that BMW are designing cars to be driven only with one person in!
 
Jonnycoupe said:
As oppose to none?
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Well - maybe BMWs tend to be driven by only one person. They're more of a commuter car than a family car I suppose. But think about it - if it's one person, fine. Two people then it would usually be Driver and front seat passenger. Three people it would almost certainly be two in the front and one in the rear on the passenger side - especially with a tall driver like me! So imagine that situation in germany, a skinny driver and two overweight people on the passenger side. Could be getting almost dangerously lopsided!
 
Buy if you assume your nominal car has a driver in and hence sits correctly then you are in a better place than no driver. That condition could never be met.

Tbh I don't even know if that's true but adding my conjecture to it regardless :p
 
all cars have this problem to certain extents, bmw's don't get away from it either. in fact, aren't rhd's rather crap in relation to the petrol tank here for them?
 
Biohazard said:
all cars have this problem to certain extents, bmw's don't get away from it either. in fact, aren't rhd's rather crap in relation to the petrol tank here for them?
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oooh you could be on to something because the car is pretty much totally drained of fuel - hence why I noticed it. Where is the fuel tank? 60kgs would easily balance it out!
 
It is common for E46 springs to snap though. My mate works at BMW and every time I drop in to get a tyre changed or whatever there is a 3 series in having a rear spring changed.
 
taximike said:
oooh you could be on to something because the car is pretty much totally drained of fuel - hence why I noticed it. Where is the fuel tank? 60kgs would easily balance it out!
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well, they're no different to any other car.

it won't be engine transmission, as on the beamer its pretty much square on, but if the tanks the wrong way round in comparison and adding to your side, you will eventially wear those units down. its the same with certain fwd vehicles too, as the lump invariably sits to one side (normally o/s) and if you are lhd you balance that out somewhat. If you're rhd, your just adding onto that weight. Best to have the tank to offset it, or in the centre. Few do it.

all the shock components are identical to each side, so any difference in right height is through wear due to poor design and or transferal of the driving position.

what you can do, is every x amount of miles swap everything across to counter this offweight wear.

bit arsey on a bmw though at the rear so i wouldn't bother
 
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GT3 said:
It is common for E46 springs to snap though. My mate works at BMW and every time I drop in to get a tyre changed or whatever there is a 3 series in having a rear spring changed.
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The car was serviced this morning so I'd be fairly miffed if they missed that :)
 
taximike said:
The car was serviced this morning so I'd be fairly miffed if they missed that :)
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Most dealer service depts have young monkeys working in them. 4 of my friends are main dealer mechanics and they aren't very experienced :p
 
okay but in summary - a combination of the weird german driver syndrome and the fueltank being empty it's perfectly normal for the right rear to be a little low. Which is good because I'm driving to Scotland tomorrow and wasn't thrilled at the prosepect of doing 430 miles in a knackered car
 
taximike said:
okay but in summary - a combination of the weird german driver syndrome and the fueltank being empty it's perfectly normal for the right rear to be a little low. Which is good because I'm driving to Scotland tomorrow and wasn't thrilled at the prosepect of doing 430 miles in a knackered car
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It could be, but don't take the internets word for it.

have it up, wheel off and at least inspect the components.

It could be down to wear, but wear on one side alone (other than cracked springs) is pretty rare on its own. Even with the poorish distribution of weight sometimes, its more the body wieght and impacts that have force over laiden distribution wear wise. Just have a look, inspections can be notoriously bad.
 
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