Inner tire wear on rears / Control arms??
 

Hi Guys,

Mechanic recently told me i need new rear arms due to heavy inner wear on my rear tires. 19 Stocks. About $2300, this is on top of the $3200 i just paid for the service, so you can see my reluctance.

On closer inspection myself i noticed the wear only to be on the driver side rear not the passenger. My question / questions are do both rear arms need to be replaced together (left and right), should i get a second opinion or should i just try my luck and get a wheel alignment done? The tires are in reasonable shape other than the inner wear on the driver side

I have researched this but opinions seem divided, camber etc...... thanks in advance and thanks for all the other times you guys have bailed me out of trouble with the search of a few key words.

By the way, my car is a late 05' 3.0 sport with 42000 on the clock if that helps

take it to a good alignment guy. have to adjust the camber washers on the rear swing arm. if that doesnt solve the problem go to bavauto and pickup the camber bushing kit. just use the camber bushing and not the toe bushings.

WOW I'm not the only one! Whew!
I replaced all tires $1400 then one year later noticed same wear as you. Replaced rear tires and had 4 wheel alignment and some other stuff $3000. Now six months later I notice inside wear again. I called yesterday and they say X5 has a negative camber and that's the way they are. Going to call BMW shop today and see what they say.

I'm also going to check into what jst2878 suggested.

OzE53, Keep us updated

I'm not seeing the camber bushing kit. Do you have a part # ?

OZ, assumingthe tire-pressure are all within limit and only one side wear prematurely, I 'll say check the control arm.
Yes the negative camber is super agressive on X5 but the wear should be on both tires, I can only get about 30-32kmile out of 19" set on mine.

Thanks guys, i think i might take advice from jst2878 and go to a good alignment shop first and have the camber washers looked at, with a bit of luck that will sort me out, cheers mate.

Tapia, you're definitely not alone, i feel your pain but for the money you've spent and the number of alignments you've gone through with no luck then mabye you might want to have your control arms looked at. Im hoping mine is just an alignment issue as my wear is only on one side and i have no other symptoms like squeaking or shaking. Negative camber yes but your situation sounds a little excessive. Let me know how you go though

HPIA4v2, i run 32-34psi all round and i check them pretty reguarly but because the wear is only on one side i'm kind of hoping its an alignment issue and not an entire control arm. Hoping!

Ill keep you guys posted, thanks for the input

I just bought an '04 4.8is from Carmax with MaxCare extended warranty and I love the X5! It's the wifey's car (so she thinks), I have an '03 540i/6spd. However, after having so much fun with the X I finally noticed that the rear inner wall corners are f'n worn the f out. Any more tips on how to resolve it? Camber kit should do the trick? If so, does anyone have a write up on diy?

I had inside wear on my 05 3.0i.. 4 new tire and a 4 wheel alignment.. waiting to see how long the last.. be carfull they dont mess up the adaptive head light sensor when the do the alignment... Yep mine went ape on me still trying to fix

mine too....i replaced all 4 tires sept and rear tires are back to being shitty again...both inside wear.....took it to pep boys last time....this time just today had my old tires and replaced right side due to more wear and buying time to get another set of tires ..this time will take your advice and take it to a good mechanic preferably bimmer clinic or someone specialized on our brand.....

has anybody replaced their tires with 315/50/20?....or anything sort of thicker than 35 on the back tires?..figure i may get more mileage from them...the tires ( bridgestone sport RFT i got about 20k on them..)

Camber is commonly blamed for tire wear on the rear but if control arms aren't loose I would pay much more attention to toe in. Make sure it is set to the minimum, not just "within spec"

JCL gives good advice there. I have the same problem with tire wear before, and did lots of researching. My conclusion: have the camber set to minimum within spec (closest to 0) then have toe set as closed to zero (NOT within spec) as possible to compensate for negative camber. (Thanks member "ard" for the advice)
I have to request the tech at Firestone to set toe to -0.01 and -0.02. Don't let them talk you to accept "within BMW's spec"

I am having some crazy negative camber in the rear and I just had an alignment back in Sept. 2011. Went to Sears on Monday to get a check up and look at the nightmare:

http://i299.photobucket.com/albums/m...2042509260.jpg

I will be proceeding to getting new rear bushings and control arms.

Ask for +0.01 toe, not negative.

In NY Competition BMW of Smithtown replaced arms left and right rear for $1500 they could not even get it aligned before. I get even wear on my rear tires ever since. (1.5 years now no signs of inner rear wear) Note: I have 315 in the back.

I'm running 315's also.

i also have 315's on the rear of my X and they are wearing evenly across the tyre, i did get a well respected indy to do an alignment not long after i got the car tho.

but tell me what did you need to spend $3200 for to service a car with 40 something k's

that seems way to much.

The solution to the problem is to change the rear wheel carrier bushing and upper rear control arm. Then have the car aligned.

Inner Tyre Wear on Rear Tyres
 

I had this problem - down to 2mm on inner edge of tyres after 6000 miles. Told by one service centre - all X5s do it as they have large negative camber. I did not believe this. Spent some time investigating on the Internet and have seen most of the comments posted on here somewhere or another - many are misleading or incorrect. I did discover a youtube video showing replacement of the balljoint at the end of the lower suspension swingbar. This is not a true 'ball joint' but is a cylindrical bearing with some rubber inserts forming part of it. The only way that wear in this can be detected is by taking the tension out of the rear suspension (joint) by compressing appropriately (possibly depressurising a rear air suspension) - just jacking up the car will NOT allow the wear to be spotted.

I searched around for a repair shop with a reputation for BMW servicing/repair - pretty much a backstreet operation but busy. The mechanic confirmed (without prompting) precisely what I discovered. The swing arm bushes were replaced together with the control arms which possess two joints themselves. To date the excessive wear seems to have stopped.

Common sense tells you that if the 'ball joint' on the swivel arm is worn, then from the mechanical arrangement it will not just affect the camber of the wheel but will also affect the tracking dramatically. The problem is that the wear in this joint will not be spotted unless the maechnic is specifically looking for it and knows what he is doing. Provided that the control arm ball joints are OK, wear in the swing arm joint (unless extremely excessive) will not show up when checking tracking as there is no twisting torque from load on the wheel to throw the tracking out - unlike when driving.

Apparently the X5 wears out these joints in about 60K miles. My cost for the job - about £500

How this helps !!!

This winter my winter tires had a sudden bout of inside shoulder wear whereas this was never a (major) problem on my 4.4. So out came the jack to check.

Checking for wear on the knuckle of the upper CA is not hard with an SLS. Jack up the rear of the car, take out the spare tire (remove ign key to be sure the pump doesn't kick in) and release the airlines going into the accumulators slightly so they bleed off pressure. Grab the rim on either side once the pressure has gone and see if it moves. My 4.8 which I checked last weekend had no movement but the 4.4 was a disaster area. Both upper CAs were completely shot.

I have the whole rear shooting match on order, including new bearings, to fix this.

Hey all, I just went thru this on my 03 4.6 w/93K miles. I run 315/35/20 on the rear. Right rear had wear on inner side, the remaining 3 tires had no unusual wear. I took it for an alignment and the camber on the right rear could not be adjusted to spec, close but just out of the accepted margins.

I went on the forums and was advised it was probably ball joints or upper control arm (refered to as the wishbone in parts diagram). I was in denial about this but after lots of prying on the suspension my alignment guy and I determned it could be these two parts so I ordered the wishbone and ball joint for both left and right sides from Rocky Mtn European. I thought since I was messing with one side I might as well do the other. Total parts were $281, alignment $150, labor $377, and two new Vredesteins $500.

For the new allignment we followed recommended specs ie, a full tank of gas, 150 lbs on left and right front seats, 150 lbs in middle back seat and 46 lbs in the cargo area. Everything was able to be adjsuted perfectly. The alignment guy was very pleased with the results and was pretty sure changing the wishbone and ball joint was needed. Hope this helps.

Can you please post the part numbers?

I am experiencing technical difficulty with my lap top and cannot find the rear suspension diagram. If any one can link it, the parts I replaced were left and right ball joint (same part #), left wishbone and right wishbone (different part #s). I have the invoice with part #s at my office and will post those part #s tomorrow.

I researched lots of places and lots of manufactureres and decided to go with Rocky Mtn Euorpean, they had the best prices on the manufacturer I chose. I went with Lemfoerder (sp?) on both.

What I replaced on mine are #02 ball joint part #33326767748 (one per side) I paid $40.12 each from Rocky Mtn European (BMW Parts, Porsche Parts, Audi VW Mini Volvo Saab Mercedes Auto Parts - RM European Auto Parts)
and #11 left wishbone part #33326770859
and #11 right wishbone part #33326771860
I paid $100.57 each also from RM Euro. There are many choices but I chose the Lemfoerder for both. There are cheaper and of course more expensive replacements.

Here is a link of the parts diagram. Penske Parts - Technical Diagrams - E53 X5 3.0i (M54) SAV

Hope this helps.

Yes, that's very helpful. Thanks a bunch for taking the time to post that.

You are weclome, this forum has helped me many times, it is awlays a pleasure to try to return the favor.

After all the new parts were installed, the allignment guy said he had a lot more adjustment to play with so he feels this should solve the inner tire wear problem. I went with the Lemfoerder parts because my Indy shop swears by them and I could buy them for what he pays for parts. Good luck.

Did you get these done at indy or DIY?
If indy how much was the labor, thanks.

When I discovered the inner tire wear I had an Indy allignment guy check the allignment, around $140, +/-. The same guy installed both left and right rear wishbones, and both rear ball joints and then added specified weight to car and re-alligned. He checked allignmet without weight and after specified weight. He had over 8 hours labor and charged me $375 which I thought was very fair.. Hope this helps.

How many was on the car when that happened?
I believe BMW tech told me that the rear ball-joint goes bad first, the upper control arm (or wishbone).
Thanks.

I had abot 93K miles on it.

18" snow tires were installed on my X5 in October with 9/32 to 10/32 tread remaining (1/2 a winter of usage on a different vehicle). After 5,000 miles of use this winter I noticed uneven wear on the inside shoulders for both front and rear tires. The rears are much worse. First and 3rd photos are the inside edges.

Alignment was done at 66k miles (see PDF), 78k when snow tires were removed.
Comments?


I don't see a "camber bushing kit". Did BavAuto stop selling it?

====================
BMW does offer a Value Line kit (which includes bolts and nuts) for the rear arms: 33-32-2-180-423 SET OF CONTROL ARMS, REAR. List price = $484, wholesale $387.

This is still quite a bit higher than Lemforder:
X5 Suspension & Brake Parts