E46 Touring - Wheel Wobble

[Theoldfm]

I have just come back from a 1,000 mile round trip on a family holiday to Cornwall in the 320i touring. The car looked and sounded great but suffered from steering wheel wobble at 60-70mph and then rear wheel wobble at 80mph + which made the journey hell!! I have just had the front wheels re-balanced but this has made no difference and have recently had the front control arm bushes replaced so I don't think that it is due to either of these. I have also recently fitted some Eibach lowering springs so don't know if this is somehow related... any ideas?

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[ASR1]

Sounds like you need to have the wheel alignment done, or perhaps you have a bent alloy or two?

[Theoldfm]

The weird thing is that it didn't seem to suffer from the wobble on really good road surfaces - such as the concrete paved sections of the motorway - presumably if it was a buckled wheel then it would do it all of the time?

[trs998]

Lost one of your new weights? They have been known to fly off... particularly when recently fitted. Are they the stick on type or the clip-on-the-rim type?

My E39's got a bit of rear wheel shimmer between 70-75 mph - you can just feel it through the seat. Going to get rear wheels rebalanced, preferably on the car if I can find a place in Norwich that I can trust not to bks up the lift (E39 doesn't have any trolleyjack points, which most garages don't both to check)

Weird thing is that mine, on a motorway, will shimmer for 10 miles then the road surface changes and it's steady as a rock. I thought it must be something in the road surface rather than tyre for a while!

[Theoldfm]

Yes, that sounds pretty similar to the symptoms that I have been having. I tried swapping the front wheels for the originals at the weekend and whilst they seemed a bit better, the wobble was still there, particularly when a little steering lock was applied.

I have now booked the car in for a 4 wheel alignment on Saturday as lowering it may have buggered up the camber angles or something. I will let you know how I get on

[Theoldfm]

They are the stick on type

[Concerned cat]

Any news?

[stevesuk]

Could this also be the front suspension bushes in need of replacement? Mine need doing (according to my local garage) and they said it can cause a slight vibration/wobble feeling through the steering, especially under braking.

Keep meaning to book it in, they want £150 for it, so I might have to wait until next pay-day

Edit: ah, I see you've had this done recently, so its obviously not that. I know its annoying through, because mine is doing it, like you only on certain road surfaces and at certain speeds.

Edited by stevesuk on Monday 7th September 19:33

[Theoldfm]

I took the car in for a 4 wheel alignment on Saturday. The tracking was out slightly at the front and the same at the rear - the guy doing the alignment was extremely helpfull but advised me that as only very slight adjustments were required, it was unlikely that this would have been the reason for the symptoms.

He also re-checked the balance of the front wheels and found that these were slightly out, this was despite them being balanced by National Tyres just two weeks ago. As there was about 80g of weights on one of the front wheels (which is a lot apparently) he took the tyre off, rotated it 180 degress and then re-checked - this time only about 35g of weights were required... it just shows what a difference taking a bit of time and care can make!!

The car is now much better but still not as smooth as my E90 Alpina - this is probably just down to the 'budget' tyres on the E46 320i... at least these weren't £730 a pair though!!

[RLK500]

Have you checked to see if you have a dragging brake. My E46 tourer has suffered from this a couple of times recently, both due to sticking calipers. Wheel off, and a thorough clean up of the caliper and round the piston did the trick. Problem gone. Felt exactly like wheel balance and was intermittent, no pulling to either side, so worth checking.

[DSM2]

Have you had your rears balanced yet? The symptoms you describe, vibration felt at the front first and then the rear, are classic for rear wheel imbalance and front wheel imbalance will normally be first felt at much lower speeds.

As for apparently questioning the quality of NTs balancing, it would be rare to move a wheel from one balancer to another nad get the same reading so it is not surprising that they 'were slightly out' when your second supplier checked them.

Finally, having 80g of weight on a rim is not a problem initself. It is good practice to try to reduce the weight by optimising the wheel tyre position but in itself it would not be an issue. OE tolerance is typically up to 120g per wheel, i.e. 2 x 60g weights.

[Theoldfm]

RLK500 said:

Have you checked to see if you have a dragging brake. My E46 tourer has suffered from this a couple of times recently, both due to sticking calipers. Wheel off, and a thorough clean up of the caliper and round the piston did the trick. Problem gone. Felt exactly like wheel balance and was intermittent, no pulling to either side, so worth checking.

It's funny that you should mention this - when we were on holiday I noticed that one of the spring clips had come off the rear nearside wheel and the brake disk was rusting on about 50% of the braking surface. I replaced the clip when we got back and the disk is now wearing properly - presumably this could have been part of the problem if the caliper was not pulling squarely?