Suspension Refresh - which parts to change?

[RobM77]

My BMW E90 320d has just crossed 90,000 miles and is starting to feel pretty baggy and sloppy down bumpy roads. I love driving, regularly drive on B roads and bought the car for the handling, so I want to improve things with a view to keeping the car a few more years. Which parts do you think need changing to restore how it used to feel? (which is what I want to re-capture; I'm not interesting in 'uprating' the suspension). I was thinking dampers and bushes all round?

thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[DocArbathnot]

I'm doing a similar thing to my Merc R129. I've opted to start with the cheap and easy 1st, so anti-roll bar bushes and top mounts and wheel balance this weekend. I'll see what improvement if any and then move on to more expensive harder to swap parts. Once the front is tackled I'll look @ the back subframe bushes etc. Mine is a little harsh at low speed over broken roads otherwise okay.

[Huff]

Dampers and bushes most certainly.

Since most of the hassle/time(cost) is just in getting all such things apart after a few years of use, you might as well do anything esle that takes your fancy at the time - the on-cost is probably quite small. I'm thinking of things like any anti-roll bar links* and the anti-roll bar bushes, that sort of thing.

• on the venerable E34 such as I still have - these cost very little, under a tenner each, but get rid of two points of slop in series per side, per axle.

[RobM77]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions - much appreciated. I presume springs won't fatigue noticeably? It seems I'm currently looking at dampers, bushes and ARB links/bushes. I'll then take it straight down to a tyre place for four new tyres and a full 4 wheel geo.

[Huff]

I don't believe springs change short of outright failure; even a large fraction of an inch of settlement (unlikely) is going to do *-all for altering the sprung wheel-rate and hence altering damping (...which would actually fractionally stiffen if such settlement did affect wheel rate - so hardly in the wrong direction).



Incidentally - I had the old E34's rear beam bushes changed at my local main dealer last year (the 540's 18th birthday present !) Well worth doing, it tightened handling nicely although the originals were still in an acceptable state. This isn't not directly applicable to yours Rob but my point was - it wasn't even worth attempting myself. It would have taken a whole day, been a complete DIY bh to do - try raising an E34 800mm in the air for a start - and cost me at least five knuckles. Whereas the dealer did it on book time, for £150 inc parts (about £70 alone for two beer-can size lumps of rubber) - and a years guarantee. Yes, I was v. pleasantly surprised!

Edited by Huff on Friday 23 August 22:47

[RobM77]

Thanks. Yes, I'll be getting my local indy to do the work. My Beemer won't fit in my garage for starters!