Front Camber Alignment Mystery -1.0 Right side only
 

Have been to three alignment shops. None BMW experts but all decent overall.

2005 4.8is @ 96K miles
My front right camber is uneven from left. The shops say "sorry no adjustment room left". The mystery to me is why left and right are uneven.

Left
-0.2 degree (has room for adjustment)

Right
-1.8 degree

That was prior to full suspension rebuild of front end; all new bushings and ball joints in front end, new bmw air struts/springs. All rear bushings still old/factory, new shocks in rear.

Now
Left
0.0 degree

Right
-1.0 degree


Noted I do still have the factory "pins" in the top of the shock towers. I see with the non air ride shocks Bentley says "remove pin" to further adjust. Have others had to remove this pin on air struts too?

Long term I may end up choosing to run negative camber in the front end but right now my mystery is: why is the right side still different from the left?

Wondering what parts could be bent ?

thx for any ideas
J

My alignment shop who was recommended to me by my mechanic removed the pin from one tower to get it correct

Can someone point me to where these pins are? I have non-air front and if I recall last alignment showed left -1.3 and right -0.4. Was going to do tie rods and ball joints (the right have a hint of play) and then get the power flex camber bolts to dial everything in.

Cheers.

Aha! Did some digging and came across this. Seems to cover all the suspension details for many different BMWs. Shows the pin that allows for up to 0.5 degrees of adjustment.

http://www.bmwclub.lv/files/BMW_X5_S...on_Systems.pdf

Was the previous owner a women? I know Mrs. Upallnight like to hit the curbs whenever she parks the truck.

No clue. But the tower should be adjustable to some extent for camber adjustability on the air struts. Or the strut might be bent from wife hitting curbs lol

Thanks all for the replies and info.

As I did not start chasing this issue down until after my suspension refresh it had not occurred to me on the curb idea. Joking aside maybe?

Two things I can say there; the X came to me with this 'miss balance' on the right side AND I suppose I should rule out all of the replaced front end suspension parts. That really does just leave the shock tower mounting point (shock seat) and bottom knuckle. Knuckle looks rather solid while its near impossible to tell on the shock tower seat.



LVP,
Awesome link to PDF, thx. To your Q about what PIN, it is in the top of the shock tower. Page here from Bentley notes removing it. (centering pin A)


One part of confusion for me on "remove the pin" with front Air Shocks the pin appears to be made of plastic and so it would be more like "break off pin". I've seen several posts where people note this pin is only for assembly line install and it can be tossed for alignment if needed.


Camber issue aside: I will note that after replacing both inner and outer tie rod ends this week the road feel is back in the steering wheel. Before the swap the steering wheel had zero play in it before and only the left outer tie rod end ball joint had slight movement. Boots had 2004 date on them so I am sure they were original (97K miles).

Also the last alignment I did have them dial rear toe to zero. Only noticeable change with rear toe at zero is slightly less road noise from rear tires. I expected to feel some difference in cornering but I cannot, perhaps that is due to all original bushings in rear still ?