Disappointed in improvement after Shocks/Struts

[Mike1261]

I just did the shocks, struts, mounts, end links, and inner/outer tie rods on my e53.

One of the rear shocks was basically a solid rod. One of my front struts had no hydraulic fluid left in it and was basically doing nothing. The other two were both junk in expected ways.

The tierods were seized so haven't had an alignment in 70k miles.

The end links were as you'd expect.

I wasn't expecting to feel like I had a brand new car, but I was expecting the suspension to feel less jarring on my back and have less road feel and manhole cover impact translate through the vehicle, and a little better steering feel.

Granted, it's getting aligned on Saturday so I'm hoping that makes it feel a little better, but there's still a sort of floaty feeling in the handling, a lot of road texture is translated in the steering wheel, there's a creak in the front left of the suspension at low speed...

Front and rear lower control arms were done not long ago too.

There's no slop or clunking in the steering wheel itself. There's no clunking noises in general, just one brief/short front end groaning creak over bumps at low speed.

What are the usual culprits to start focusing my attention on to give me more of the plush luxury feel back that I'm sure this thing had 19 years ago?

Thanks!

[andrewwynn]

Do you have sport suspension? It's a lot more firm.

My e53 had sport, wife's did not, also she had 235s. Was a much softer ride.


–awr–

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[Masospaghetti]

What shock/strut brand did you use? I've found that, generally, the OE struts ride the best, followed by good aftermarket brands like KYB.


I haven't tried the cheap off-brands but I've heard they can ride very poorly.

[andrewwynn]

Floaty comes from front toe angle too close to straight or worse: toe out!

I think BMW calls for 0.15° toe in for the best stability (at the expense of outer tire wear).

Make sure the tire pressure matches the b pillar numbers and get the alignment.

Rear wheels toe out will also cause oversteer = wishy washy feeling. (and terrible inside tire wear; when my rear ball joints failed i wore the tires to the red neck wear bars* in under two weeks)

*Steel belts.

Road feel comes standard on e53 that should be expected. Groan is usually a ball joint. Hopefully they check ball joints before adjusting toe.

–awr–

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[X5chemist]

Swap your left and right lower seats! Or the entire seat back and lower assemblies. Mine feels rough due to a flattened driver lower seat. I plan to swap mine sometime.

[andrewwynn]

That's very interesting! When I bought mine at 128k, it had a m replaced driver seat and was like new. Are the seat bottoms swappable? I don't think the driver seat has a butt sensor. (they can assume the driver seat will always be occupied). (unless it has one to detect how fat the driver to change airbag power)


–awr–

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