Wobble under braking
 

I just replaced the Front control arms with Meyle HD's and it is still doing it. I could replace the uppers and all the ball joints, the tie rods and the brake discs which would most likely fix the issue but that would be almost $1000.

Is there any tests that I can do to narrow the problem?

I've searched on this forum and others and it is either

* Loose suspension components
* Warped Discs
* Unbalanced Tyres

The tyres were new (and I presume properly balanced) when I bought it and the shimmy was there so I can semi rule that out so I'm down to warped discs or loose front suspension (except the front control arms)

I should also say that I am very adverse to taking it to a dealer or a mechanic as to replace parts bought from the USA is most times cheaper than a basic diagnosis in Australia....... And no I'm not exaggerating (My mate owns an Audi Q5 and the dealer wanted $5000 for parts and labour to replace - wait for it - all four brake rotors and pads....)

It should be easy for the shop to confirm warped discs. That would be my next move.

EDIT: Oops, just went right over how a simple diagnosis is expensive there. That's crazy. My shop won't charge me just to inspect the rotors.

When I had my control arms replaced I had the ball joints done too. However mine were confirmed needing replacement.

18 months into ownership I had this done to the X.

(Actual prices charged)
2 Front lower control arms ($292)
Replace both control arms ($179)
2 Ball joints ($55 each)
2 Control Arm Bushings ($104)
2 CV boot kits ($73)
Replace Outer Boots ($269)
Wheel Alignment ($79)
Cabin Filter ($33)
Oil Filter Kit ($13)
Mobil 1 Oil ($56)
Oil Change ($20)
Total parts = $683
Total labor = $547 (I think they mentioned at least 6 hours to do all the work)
Shop Supplies, Tax, Etc = $83
Grand Total = $1,310

Interesting that it is only during breaking. Is the wobble side to side OR up and down OR front and back movement - I presume you are feeling this from the steering wheel or is it the entire front end of the car shakes?

I would guiess from past experiend on otehr vehicles:

sided to side generally means the wheels need to be balance (you stated the tires are new and this was happening before.

up or down/back and forth movement - generally disc are warped. Those are my guess.

Good luck

Might be time to get in there with a big lever/bar and start pulling on parts to see what rubber joints might be on the way out.

If its only under braking then its unlikely to be balance. Warped rotors get talked about a lot across all kinds of car platforms but are actually pretty damn rare. Can you feel the vibration though the brake pedal?
If you ride the brakes at say 5-10MPH can you feel the brake pedal pulsate at all?

My money is on suspension components, but it can be hard to isolate which ones exactly, so you can end up. How was your tire/tyre wear on the last set? That might point you in the direction you want to go. If you have a lot of camber burn on the inside, you could be looking at worn balljoints.

Have you had the alignment checked? Its kind of a chicken and egg scenario, incorrect alignment can cause pulsating, but on the other hand the components need to be in good shape for the alignment to be worthwhile.

Do u get any clunks when going over bumps? Is the wobble only during high speed braking?

Thanks guys - I think it's a suspension issue but I also thought that replacing the front control arms would fix it, i don't feel it through the brake pedal it is purely steering wheel wobble (and if you let go of the wheel the people in the back seat can see it). I do get clunks going over bumps. I've owned the car for a year and a half and the tyres were installed as part of the purchase. They may have scrimped on the balancing or not done a proper alignment however it is quite pronounced the wobble so I suspect that I should repair the suspension components prior to getting an alignment done. And if so which ones should I start with?

Twins that is so cheap compared to what we would pay - Just the cost of the oil alone from our cheapest car parts store cost me $170 total for 10L

Hiya,

for some reason I can't see your first post.

If there's wobble without braking, it could be loads of things already mentioned above, but also include rim-runout (ie: rims are balanced, but aren't a flat disc), so the tyre tread moves left and right. You can easily see this when the wheel shop has the wheel being balanced. You'd see the tread to appear to move left and right as the balancer spins the wheel up then slows down. Can you try swapping front-rear rims (if they're same size); or maybe try another set of rims?
My wobble was due to front tension bushes being slightly worn out. I'm running 20" rims, which makes some things noticable that you wouldn't notice on 18" rims

If it's under braking; could be loads of things already mentioned above, and can also include
- uneven pad material buildup on rotor surface (particularly problem with cheap pads). Can get rotors VERY LIGHTLY skimmed to solve this.
- suspension bushes etc. etc.. as above..

I'm in Melbourne (inner Northeast) and could you could bring it by sometime for a look/drive if you like.

I have a mate who does my servicing as I'm too lazy to DIY; who *might* be able to help you. Not sure if he has time..
I'm also going into Northern BMW tomorrow for a new CV joint boot, so I can let you know how that goes (first time I'm using them).

Good luck,
Scott.

I dont know how severe his is, but my X5 does something like this too but just a little, and depends on how you apply the brake, as we know our brakes are really touchy at first, well if i tap mine to that beginning grabbing point, the steering wheel you can feel and see it does a slight jolt usually to the right, now if you progessivly apply it, it doesnt.

Basically i think at least for me its just the grabby brakes or road imperfections, slight waves and such usually by stoplights.

Pppreciate the offer Oztime - I moved to Sydney last week so am yet to update my profile.

I suffer from this too....
I bought some shitty china/USA suspension arms from eBay. I've replaced them already with warranty ones and the replacements are starting to fail. I have my good ones from ecs tuning reeady to go in! ;)

I have a similar problem when braking from a relatively high speed, especially with a low loading on the steering. I also had new control arms fitted last year, and the wobble has started since then. I have been told by my indy that I need to replace the front wishbone, part number 31-12-6-760-275/6. I haven't got the cash to do this at the moment so can't tell you if this works, but if anyone else has been down this road I would appreciate some confirmation before I bite the bullet? Item 10/11 in the OEM diagram below...

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/diagrams/f/b/193.png

OP,

Did you do the replacement of the thrust arms or did an indy? Just wanted to be sure if an indy or you did it that you torqued the thrust arms with the wheels on the ground, if they were torqued in the air they will fail prematurely.

I replaced my thrust arms with Meyle HD, ball joints with Febi, and wishbone control arms with Febi 6 months ago and the truck rides like new in the front.

Clunking or wobbling during braking is usually warped rotors (pad deposits) but in our cars its very likely its thrust arms, if you confirm yours were replaced and torqued properly I would look into the rotors.


With rotor warping (or pad deposits as some would say), sometimes you can remedy it without replacing the part. All you need to do is heat up the brakes enough to get the pad deposits burnt off, then let them cool.

Do this:

1) Do about 4-5 stops from 30 mph down to 10 mph at moderate braking, do not stop the car completely. This is a warmup.

2) Do 10 stops from 60 mph - 10 mph and do this on hard braking, but DO NOT LET ABS KICK IN, and DO NOT STOP THE CAR COMPLETELY, you may notice some brake fade after a few stops but keep going.

3) After 10 stops make sure you are on the open road and drive at 50-60 mph for about 10 mins or so without stopping, this is to allow brakes to cool. If you stop the car while the brakes are still hot you will get more pad deposits on your rotors.



If it gets better after that, you may need to cool the brakes completely and start the process from the beginning. Hopefully I helped save you some money!

Thanks Ricky - I replaced them and torqued them with the weight on the wheels. I didn't replace the control arms though just the front thrust arms (+ bearings) so I'm thinking maybe I need to replace the upper control arms as well......

well if thats the case I would say not to worry about the Meyle HD's being bad, I can't see how that is the case.

Try bedding the brake pads in again and see if that does the trick for you, and you're correct you may also have other worn parts of the suspension, I couldn't tell you because I replaced all my parts at once so it went from riding very poorly to riding very well in one day lol.

Hi Guys,

Rotor warping and pad deposits may feel the same but they are different things (root causes). I spent a lot of time working on rally/racecars where the symptoms of these things are far more noticable.

Rotor warping, is where the rotor is no longer a flat pancake shape, and/or no longer uniform thickness. This can happen for a bunch of reasons. Common with cheap aftermarket rotors..

At the same time, or independantly, you can get uneven pad material buildup. If you look at the rotor surface, there is usually some resin that is deposited there from bedding in brakes. This needs to be a nice smooth layer, laid down by bedding in the brakes. If the layer is not smooth, each time you brake, the pads may grab at the little mountains in the layer, leaving a LITTLE more material in that spot each time, eventually building up a series of lumps. This will be felt as slowly progressively worsening brake shudder.

You can have pad material issues regardless of wether your rotors are perfect or not.
ie: can have warped rotors, warped rotors + pad material problems, or perfect rotors + pad material problems.

Pad material problems I had were usually because I'd changed brand of pads / usuing new low quality pads on fine but used rotors.

This method of bedding in has served me well over the years (and over 50 sets of pads). The method *might* be a bit aggressive for an X5? I can't advise on that. I'm on my 2nd pair of pads on my X5, and did a gentler version of this bedding in..

I personally tend to use genuine BMW parts where I can, because the cost of the labour to replace these things in AUstralia is usually more substantial than the part cost. REgarding the Meyle parts and stuff, I believe they're not bad from the start; but what's been seen in here in OZ, is that they tend to wear out quickly ( sometimes in < 12 months), and so may not be an overall saving...

HTH

Cheers,
Scott.

Are these the original wheels or are they aftermarket or wheels from a different series BMW? Helped another X owner on another forum who had a vibration problem, turn out she was running wheels from an E39 which has a bigger hub diameter so she needed hub rings to center the wheels on the hub.

They're off the 4.6iS of the same model - I've tried putting hubcentric rings on but no benefit, plus the conical shape of the wheel nuts causes lugcentric centring stability anyway.

All the posts relating to the rotors being warped or buildup, I don't have any pulsating through the pedal (none, nada). Do you still think it could be that? They're not aftermarket rotors or pads

Are they genuine BMW wheels or Replicas? Another BMW owner on another forum brought a set of M parallel wheels at a good price. Turns out the front were replicas and the rear were real. Hub centric ring solved his problems.

I'm surprise that you were able to get a hub ring on it since if they were real BMW wheels the wheel would never fit into the hub ring. Yes it's that tight of a fit. Also did someone install studs on your hubs? Last time I looked my X wheels were secure to the hub with lug BOLTS not NUTS.

The hubcentric rings didn't work because they were plastic and they just got smooshed because the wheels were a correct fit (I'm 99.9% sure they're original however if someone can remind me how to check that would be great).

I got it up on jack stands and got a mate to wobble the wheel horizontally and the control arm ball joint (not the wishbone) was moving up and down (in and out of the joint) by about 3mm. I'll replace those bits and let you know how that goes......

wheel bearing?

A year has gone by and no reply. That ship has sail.