Well, been reading some threads about the front vibration/shimmy. In Nov of 2010 i bought the shitty fake german branded kit of ebay and though ill take the bite and be a ginnea pig and see how it all works out. Well one advice stay the hell away from them. the seller sent me a set of lower control arms that had no stamps or anything and after installation i had what the jeep crowd calls the death wobble and it turned out that the bushings in the lower control arms were made of jelly literally. I bought oem bushings from ECS tuning and pressed them in myself into the oem arms i still had. Big change so much better. Now my concern is the ball joints on that oem arm. BC i have an annoying shimming at 65-80 and the higher you go etc I am thinking that the shitty parts like the thrust arm bushings could be the cause fo that? Now i feel some warped disk brakes also but when at 80 and if you lightly tap the brakes there is no shaking just slight vibration that is synced with the shimming thats taking place.

oh also i put new tires and had them balanced.

So 3 questions/thoughts?

1) how can i tell if the ball joints are bad? can they cause this shimming its like as if: if you have every came to a stop sign that has the warning strips or pavement thats been cut up so that you get that shudder to warn you of a upcoming stop sign...i have that shaking at 65-80...but has nothing to do with braking which is why i dont think i have warped rotors even tho there are wear marks on the rotors.

2) i know warped rotors can cause a vibration but they should be noticable when applying the brakes is that the right assumption?

3) I only spent 200 on these parts i dont feel cheated as i knew they wouldnt be of quality but i was unemployed thus i needed my car and though it was worth if it just lasted 4 months even...so question is what should i look for in possible cause for the shaking... other than the thrust arms...( remember the LCA have new oem bushings that cut out all death wobble) so ...ill check rotors on thursday and have the tires rotated to rule out a bent rim or just a bad tire.


worst case i was thinking of doing this:

BMW E53 X5 M54 3.0L > Suspension > OEM > ES#261078 ECS X5 Level 2 Suspension Rebuild Kit - E530521