FYI - Suspension Specs.

[X5girl]

I see lots of discussion on the forum centered around alignment and tyre wear issues, so to give you the specs the cars SHOULD be according to BMW, here is a little chart of the most common values of adjustable items:

Fuel tank should be full when adjusting with 68Kg in both front seats, 68Kg in center of rear seat and 21Kg in boot.

Front Toe setting in degrees:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i......................0.17 - 0.43.....toe in

Rear Toe in degrees:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i........................0.13 - 0.47 toe in

Front Camber:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i.........................0.22 pos - 0.63 neg

Rear Camber:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i...........................1.5 - 2.16 neg

Other assorted useful info:

Wheel bolt torque, all models, alloys and steel wheels..............130Nm - 150Nm
Trackrod nut/clamp............................................. .........................51Nm
Camber on the front IS adjustable on the standard vehicle.
Camber and toe are adjustable SEPERATELY on the rear
Lowering vehicle increases negative camber, so improvements felt may be due to increased camber, not lower C of G.
Wheel spacers greatly increase load on wheel bearings
Worn thrust arm bushes allow excessive lateral front suspension movement, poly bushes improve control and alignment.

For optimum road handling, camber should be 2.0 deg neg on rear with front camberplates bringing front camber to around 1.5 deg neg.

For max tyre life, rear needs setting around the 1.0 deg neg and front to 0.5 deg neg.

X5Girl, xxx

[omodos]

Originally Posted by X5girl

I see lots of discussion on the forum centered around alignment and tyre wear issues, so to give you the specs the cars SHOULD be according to BMW, here is a little chart of the most common values of adjustable items:

Fuel tank should be full when adjusting with 68Kg in both front seats, 68Kg in center of rear seat and 21Kg in boot.

Front Toe setting in degrees:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i......................0.17 - 0.43.....toe in

Rear Toe in degrees:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i........................0.13 - 0.47 toe in

Front Camber:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i.........................0.22 pos - 0.63 neg

Rear Camber:

3.0i/3.0d/4.4i/4.6i...........................1.5 - 2.16 neg

Other assorted useful info:

Wheel bolt torque, all models, alloys and steel wheels..............130Nm - 150Nm
Trackrod nut/clamp............................................. .........................51Nm
Camber on the front IS adjustable on the standard vehicle.
Camber and toe are adjustable SEPERATELY on the rear
Lowering vehicle increases negative camber, so improvements felt may be due to increased camber, not lower C of G.
Wheel spacers greatly increase load on wheel bearings
Worn thrust arm bushes allow excessive lateral front suspension movement, poly bushes improve control and alignment.

For optimum road handling, camber should be 2.0 deg neg on rear with front camberplates bringing front camber to around 1.5 deg neg.

For max tyre life, rear needs setting around the 1.0 deg neg and front to 0.5 deg neg.

X5Girl, xxx

Hi," 1.0 deg neg and front to 0.5 deg neg." what value neg is -1.0 to -0.5? is what I ask for? or zero

[X5girl]

Neg stands for negative so -1.0 is 1.0 negative and -0.5 is 0.5 negative.

[omodos]

Thanks for the reply, can I ask for 0 camber in the rear? regardless of the handling implications, will this be as good as the -1.0 for optimum tire life ?just cannot visualize what -1.0 would look like, 0 camber the tire is vertical? -1.0 will tire edge out more on the top as you look at the car from the rear, i.e the opposite of the situation currently where the top edges inwards and the car looks like something heavy has caused the tires to buckle out?thanks again

[X5girl]

No, negative camber means the wheel tips in at the top, the same as it does now. You will not have sufficient adjustment available to set the camber to zero, and if you could, then tyre wear would improve but at the cost of handling and roadholding.

[omodos]

Ok thanks for the advice, I am going to ask them to make it as closer to zero as possible, called a shop today and they are say it will be wrong if the computer says otherwise, but if i wanted to make the tires look vertical they could try to do it...

[sheepdip]

I took mine in for a couple of new tyres today and asked them to check the alignment.

They tell me the alignment is fine, rear camber is fine too.

Passenger side front is is fine

Problem is they say drivers side is -1.5 but they can't figure out how to adjust the camber.

Before I start looking around for another alignment place can anyone please show/tell me how the front camber is adjusted?

Cheers

[X5girl]

On the top of the front strut tower you will see the 3 normal strut retaining nuts, plus another bolt on its own. Remove the 4th fastener completely and discard. Now loosening the other 3 nuts will allow the top of the strut to slide sideways, allowing camber adjustment.

[sheepdip]

Fantastic - you're a star