Steering wheel shaking.

[mrcarter20]

Recently put on style 87 20' wheels with 30mm spacers in the front and 20mm in the back. I'm running 9.5s with 275/35/20s all around.

The X started shaking so I took her to get an alignment and a rebalance. Below you can see the before and after result from the alignment they did with the Hawkeye system.



The X runs straight now but I'm still getting a little shaking on acceleration and braking. Would I have to get hub centric rings?


2002 BMW X5 E53 3.0i

"If you ain't first, you're last"

[ants_oz]

Depends on the spacers and the wheels.

Are the wheels genuine?

Do the spacers have the correct bore diameter to seat on the hub? Do they have the right sized lip for the wheel to mount to?

If the answer to any of those question is 'No' or 'I don't know', then I'd suggest that you get answers to those questions as a priority. Any advice in the meantime is shooting in the dark.

[crystalworks]

If the wheels are not 72.5mm, then yes get rings to make them hub-centric. Only way I was able to completely eliminate vibe from 74mm (e70 fitment) replica wheels. I could get very minimal vibe by centering the wheels carefully during installation, but not eliminated until siliconing hub rings onto the wheels.

^And what he said about the spacers. Do you experience vibe without the spacers (if possible to fit without spacers)?

[Ricky Bobby]

5 things:

-What spacers are you using? Are they bolt on H&R (DRA) or are they just slipped over the hub and using longer bolts?

-If your wheels are genuine, get them road forced balanced
-If they aren't genuine, be sure you have hub centric rings and get them road forced balanced

-If you are getting shaking on braking, check your front end suspension components. Thrust arms, tie rods etc

-You have a ton of toe going on in the rear of the X, I would dial that down to the bare minimum, under .04 (mine is .01) to save the rear tires from wearing down prematurely on the inside from the combo of too much toe with the already spec'd neg camber

[LVP]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

5 things:

-What spacers are you using? Are they bolt on H&R (DRA) or are they just slipped over the hub and using longer bolts?

-If your wheels are genuine, get them road forced balanced
-If they aren't genuine, be sure you have hub centric rings and get them road forced balanced

-If you are getting shaking on braking, check your front end suspension components. Thrust arms, tie rods etc

-You have a ton of toe going on in the rear of the X, I would dial that down to the bare minimum, under .04 (mine is .01) to save the rear tires from wearing down prematurely on the inside from the combo of too much toe with the already spec'd neg camber

What he said. Your toe is in spec, but that spec loves to chew tires. Set to 0.01 or 0.02 total and enjoy long life out of your tires

And contrary to popular belief, you can adjust the front camber. There is a small screw pin that can be removed to dial in/out the camber at the top of the strut tower

[mrcarter20]

-Wheels are genuine

-The 30mm spacers are from H&R and the 20 mm spacers are from ecs tuning

-I'll go back to get them road forced balanced and have them adjust the toe

-For the end results they said that's the best they can get it to and that shop is the only shop in town that has the Hawkeye system let alone does alignments for BMW period

-Also the tires wouldn't be a problem right? 275-35-20s My friend sold me two falken tires and one Mickey Thompson for $250. Too good of a deal to pass up. Bought the other MT tire once is was available and now running MTs in the back and Falkens in the front


2002 BMW X5 E53 3.0i

"If you ain't first, you're last"

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by mrcarter20

-Wheels are genuine

-The 30mm spacers are from H&R and the 20 mm spacers are from ecs tuning

-I'll go back to get them road forced balanced and have them adjust the toe

-For the end results they said that's the best they can get it to and that shop is the only shop in town that has the Hawkeye system let alone does alignments for BMW period

-Also the tires wouldn't be a problem right? 275-35-20s My friend sold me two falken tires and one Mickey Thompson for $250. Too good of a deal to pass up. Bought the other MT tire once is was available and now running MTs in the back and Falkens in the front


2002 BMW X5 E53 3.0i

"If you ain't first, you're last"

Ahhhh you are the guy who has the wrong size tires on the 20s. Well considering you have a mismatched set, that could definitely be contributing, since Falken and MT's are two totally different tires.

Secondly, I guarantee the ECS 20mm spacers are contributing to the problem as far as vibes go, since they are on the front. The 30mm H&R's are bolt ons right? If so they are fine. The ECS use longer bolts? If so thats a HUGE problem in regards to vibes. Well documented that non bolt on spacers on E53's cause issues.

3rd, if the shop can't align to a spec you gave them (and especially something easy like dialing out the toe) they are a bunch of fuckin idiots, its not hard to do. These alignment monkeys are trained to "get it in the green/middle", find a guy who knows what he is doing at the shop, and tell him you want the rear toe dialed out to save your treadwear. If he is ASE, he should know.

Good luck.

[LVP]

Originally Posted by mrcarter20

-Wheels are genuine

-The 30mm spacers are from H&R and the 20 mm spacers are from ecs tuning

-I'll go back to get them road forced balanced and have them adjust the toe

-For the end results they said that's the best they can get it to and that shop is the only shop in town that has the Hawkeye system let alone does alignments for BMW period

-Also the tires wouldn't be a problem right? 275-35-20s My friend sold me two falken tires and one Mickey Thompson for $250. Too good of a deal to pass up. Bought the other MT tire once is was available and now running MTs in the back and Falkens in the front


2002 BMW X5 E53 3.0i

"If you ain't first, you're last"

They can set toe to whatever you tell them. And that positive camber in the front can be dialled out. I'll take a picture of the strut tower that is from factory and the other where the pin is removed.

[crystalworks]

Those aren't the best tires in the world but shouldn't cause a vibe, they are loud though. That's something they would have noticed when they were balancing them originally (the tires having an issue that would cause vibe).

Since your wheels are factory e53 wheels no hub rings are needed...

Only thing left (other than mechanical problem in suspension somewhere) are the spacers. Have you tried running without spacers to see what happens? Just as a test.

[ants_oz]

Originally Posted by crystalworks

<snip> Have you tried running without spacers to see what happens? Just as a test.

^ What he said.