Alignment after lowering
 

Hey guys, for all of you who have lowered your X, has it been difficult to align afterwards? I am debating lowering mine however after getting a flat this weekend and seeing the inside of my rears scrubbed to the point I have to replace both, I don't know if its a good idea.

My brother works for a large local tire chain and he said after talking to his alignment tech that the truck cannot be aligned after lowering. The guy seems to be pretty good as he has worked on both my e39 and e36.

I plan on going with the H&R kit with the springs in front and the little bar that goes in the back for the air bags. Also, I would like to get a set of sway bars, however eibach no longer makes a front bar and turner has a set but its a brand I am not familiar with. Anyone have any experience's?

TIA
Dave

You can still get the front and rear sway bars, I have come across a few. Thats the first time I heard it can't be aligned after lowering.

maybe something like this might b useful for you:

Welcome to bavauto.com | Eibach Pro-Plus Kit - set of 4 Pro-Kit Springs + Front & Rear Swaybar Kit

I have seen that set that you posted a link too, and after you put it in your cart, it changes the price and says that its a rear bar only.

I have read of good success with the eibach front one, it seems to be difficult to fine now. Anyone with any experience with the alignment issue? The guy states after lowering over an inch, there is no more adjustment to bring it correctly into alignment.

With the OE/OEM parts you can't align, with front camber plates and adjustable rear links it's no problem. I'm going this route when I install these.........

Well, I'm not sure what your brother means by difficult to align. I can tell you I've lowered mine with the H&R kit and my shop didn't have any problems doing a four wheel alignment afterward.

However, mine still has the same old spec amount of camber that it did before it was lowered - which has always resulted in inner wear on the rears of all my BMWs. I suppose it's possible you won't be able to dial in the camber differently and reduce the inner wear if you lower, and maybe you could if you left it at stock height. I've never tried, I just make sure they gave the toe good and live with the wear pattern.

WOOT WOOT KW V3's ?!:thumbup:

It was said by his alignment tech, who apparently has an X5, and tried to lower it and get it back to factory spec's with it lowered and was unable to do. He also said that at factory height, he tried to get it aligned to the point that he was not buying new rear tires every year. He said after everything was dialed in to not wear tires, the truck handled so poorly that he put it back and decided to just live with it. My brother has stated, at factory specs under normal driving conditions (10-15k a year) that the tires will need to be replaced once a year. Several people at his dealership have confirmed this, and it has been the case on my E39 since I have owned it.

As far as camber plates and adjustable rear links, where does one find these? Is there one manufacture that is better then another?

What about the sway bar, can someone point me into the direction of an eibach front?

Yeah, found a motivated seller on e-bay with a killer deal.

I've been looking at the Rogue Engineering stuff. BavAuto and Turner Mo'sport have the goods too. I'm looking at doing a 2" drop with tow/camber settings to BMW minimums.

i lowered mine with eibach coils and the rear camber was excessive and could not be reduced, i ended up fitting a camber kit made by KMAC and now have perfectly even wearing tyres, however that said i do feel that the cornering ability has been slightly compromised and that a little more rear camber would be good.

my intention is to monitor tyre wear and if the fronts start wearing faster than the rear, i,ll get some negative camber dialled in to hopefully even it out

I don't care if I have to get a kit to put the car back into alignment, I just want to know from someone who has done it if it is possible or this guy is stating the truth. A set of tires a year is bad enough with stock specs, if its worse after lowering, I would really like to know before I go and do it.

The kits work!

Call Rouge, ECS, BavAuto........they will give you the max drops their kits can correct for better then ANYONE on the forum.

Curious if anybody has seen these before. I doubt I would trust theses....

YUGO Front Camber Bolt Kit GV Series New | eBay

I did some research on them, a lot of others use a kit similar to this.

Anyone know the difference in a kit like above and this one?

KMAC BMW Rear Camber/Toe Kit 5/6/7 Series E53 E60 E63 E64 E65 E66 - Import Auto Performance

mate ive already told you I HAVE DONE THIS using the KMAC kit YES it works

Where exactly does the kmac kit get installed?

rear suspension lower control arms inner bushes, the factory ones are pressed out and the new offset bushes ( Poly) are pressed in, the instructions say you can do it on the car.

but thats not the case you need to remove them

the the factory bushes have an eccentric/offset bolt whereas the KMAC kit has an offset hole and the whole bush is able to rotate in the shell to allow for camber adjustment. allowing for vastly more range of adjustment. in my case the wear on the rear tyres was acceptable and the stock height, however once lowered there was insufficient scope for adjustment to correct the now excessive rear camber, hence the reason i went with the kit.

in my case i now have 0 camber so perfect wear across the tyres ( 315,s) however as i said earlier if i find the front wearing faster than the rear i will get some negative camber dialled in to the back. to even the wear and to improve handling.

the negative camber in BMW,s is there for a reason , and in my case now i feel the car has lost a marginal amount of cornering ability with the 0 camber.

its a balancing act for a road car between camber and tyre wear,

Get upper arms in the rear to get better camber adjustment. I didn't like kMac rear camber kit, I would stay away. The x5 with rear air suspension can handle a one inch drop but the ride will get sacrificed a little bit. Bilstein HD struts and shocks are good with lowering springs. Good luck

+1.

That's why I posted the adjustable arms info in my inital post, Not a fan of the cam adjusters because fine tuning the rear camber is less touchy with the arms.

Would not go with ANY no-name/made in China suspension components. You may end up with fasteners that strip or plates that are so thin they bend/crack/break under normal stresses.

I'm talking about genuine BMW upper arms. Over time they sag and the suspensions camber goes negative

I lowered my X with H&R springs and rear links that drop it about 1.75 inches. I also have front and rear Eibach sway bars. I have Dinan camber plates and 17mm spacers on 187 staggered wheels. BMW always complains but ultimately gets both front and rear aligned within specs. The only time they could not was just before I rebuilt front and rear suspension. I have them set negative camber aggressively. I have tried many brands of appropriate tires. Until this last set, the best I could get, using my lead foot as much as I can, was around 15,000mi on the rear and 30,000mi on the front. The Michelin tires from the factory were the worst. I have a modded 4.6.

in my case i could not use adjustable upper arms, i have 20 inch staggered wheels and the 315 tyres sit flush with the wheel opening, by using adjustable lowers i found that i did not increase the track and so was able to still keep my wheels within the body work, NOTE i dont have wheel arch flares,

im lead to believe if you use adjustable uppers you risk pushing the top of the tyre out further.

Technically, u should put on the wheel arches if your rocking the 315's or 325's that were offered on bmw. Those wheels look funny without them. I would rather have a great alignment and have the wheels poke out, then I would immediately purchase wheel arches and do it right. Who makes adjustable rear upper arms anyway? I've never heard of such a thing but it's way better than installing adjustable bushings with poor hardware quality in place of the original lower arm equipment

mate i hate the look of the tack on flares im more than happy with how my car looks but thanks anyway.

why do you think the replacement lower bushes are inferior to the original rubber bushes??

as for alignment mine IS perfect perfect even wear across 315, will keep me happy

See post #9