E46 broken front spring

[JPJ89]

I appear to have snapped the front offside spring on my e46 325i saloon with sport suspension, after hitting a massive pothole at speed on Sunday. Drivers side is sitting a touch lower and was hearing a rubbing noise on tighter corners with the window down. Haven’t jacked the car up yet but guessing that’s what’s wrong, assuming it is broken then what do people tend to do nowadays? Springs from BMW are extortionate, over £100 for just one. Was thinking of going for Eibach pro kit springs and a new set of dampers all round, as currently the front and rear springs are different sets, and dampers are a bit mismatched. Want to retain the OEM feel, don’t want to compromise the smooth ride quality in any way, are the Eibachs likely to achieve this? Was looking at Koni FSD dampers as well although they are quite pricey themselves. Any opinions appreciated, I understand this has probably been done to death as well, cheers!

[d_a_n1979]

Personally I'd go Bilstein B4 dampers with Eibach Pro kit springs; unless you want lower, then it'll be the B6s with the Eibach Sportline springs IIRC

However, don't discount coilovers to sort this too; the likes of AP coilovers would do a great job and not at a silly price either: http://www.venommotorsport.com/suspension/ap/coilo...

Give Richard at Venom a call; he knows what he's talking about and you'd need new top mounts all round IMO as well as drop-links

You can set the ride height to what you want then and the APs don't give a stupidly hard ride either!

However, OEM spec shocks with the Pro kit springs will work just fine, I'd still renew the top mounts and drop links all round though

[JPJ89]

d_a_n1979 said:

Personally I'd go Bilstein B4 dampers with Eibach Pro kit springs; unless you want lower, then it'll be the B6s with the Eibach Sportline springs IIRC

However, don't discount coilovers to sort this too; the likes of AP coilovers would do a great job and not at a silly price either: http://www.venommotorsport.com/suspension/ap/coilo...

Give Richard at Venom a call; he knows what he's talking about and you'd need new top mounts all round IMO as well as drop-links

You can set the ride height to what you want then and the APs don't give a stupidly hard ride either!

However, OEM spec shocks with the Pro kit springs will work just fine, I'd still renew the top mounts and drop links all round though

Cheers, Bilstein B4 are the black struts and shocks, not the yellow ones is that right? Tbh I haven’t considered coil overs as I thought they were more suited towards the track...All I’m really after is the cheapest solution while maintaining the original comfort/sport balance and ride quality, more of a comfortable cruiser than a 10/10ths car! Droplinks were done very recently and are almost brand new so that would leave just the top mounts to add to my list. Are Sachs any good compared with Bilstein? As the previous owner did change one strut up front with a Sachs item before I purchased the car, so alternatively could find 3 matching Sachs dampers if they stack up compared to the Bilsteins? New strut below

[d_a_n1979]

As far as I'm aware; Sachs are OEM anyways, so they're good

But so are Boge; so I'd go them and the Pro kit springs if you want to keep it to a low budget

Coilovers aren't always for track; heck I've had them on all sorts of previous Hondas and Mitsubishi's as well as all my BMWs bar my current E65 (so that's on x2 E38s and x2 E39s)!

They have their place, but I've always gone for BC or D2 coilovers, so fully adjustable for ride height and damper rebound; so the drive could be as soft or firm as I wanted, as well at my wanted ride height

Get the top mount part numbers you need via RealOEM website (follow the drop down boxes to select your exact car) and source them via eBay using BMWmotormec or C3BMW as the resellers; both very respectable. Meyle top mounts are more than adequate for your car

[iSore]

Boge Sachs (same - both are ZF brands) are better than B4's. The cheap Bilsteins are okayish but nothing special. B4's are for standard cars with a really long damper rod and the Eibach springs would be a pretty loose fit with the car off its wheels - that will lead to a bouncy ride. really, you want the Boge Supertouring ones but they're not cheap. They do last forever though.

I've had more luck with ECP's budget dampers, Anschler tbh.

E46 spring swapping isn't too bad a job but be really careful with that bd 18mm pinch bolt on the hub - lots of WD40 and wind it in and out carefully until it's okay to wind out. They just love to rust in and snap off in the hub, a complete PITA.

The original dampers might still be okay unless they're mega mileage and/or pissing oil out but fit new bump stops - Amazon seems the best place to get them. E46 top mounts rarely give a problem, just regrease them before fitting.

A set of 30mm lowering springs like Eibachs are a good idea and the rear ones will probably be rusty and shagged as well.

Edited by iSore on Wednesday 17th October 20:13

[helix402]

All standard E46 rear top mounts will fail rapidly. The only ones that last are uprated ones such as Powerflex or Bimmertune. Meyle “uprated” ones are far from. They fail even quicker than E46 M3 ones.

[SPORTSTER]

helix402 said:

All standard E46 rear top mounts will fail rapidly. The only ones that last are uprated ones such as Powerflex or Bimmertune. Meyle “uprated” ones are far from. They fail even quicker than E46 M3 ones.

the best ones seem to be rogue engineering mounts, if you can find a set, I’ve heard the Powerflex ones are too harsh
Meyle are complete junk yes

[d_a_n1979]

Is Meyle particularly stty for E46s as I've had x2 E38s, x2 E39s and now an E65, have used Meyle suspension components on them all and never had any issues, same with Moog and Lemforder etc

A lot of us over on the 5 forums use Meyle with zero problems; in fact more issues have been had with Lemforder!

[JPJ89]

Looking on Autodoc I found the damper that has been recently fitted to my front nearside, except it’s Sachs on the website and labelled Boge on my car, apart from that all the numbers on the stickers are exactly the same!

So I’m swaying towards another Sachs damper on the front offside and 2 new Sachs shocks on the rear, it says on Autodoc that these particular Sachs ones are for cars with M-tech2 pack, so looks like whoever fitted the damper not long ago actually fitted the right part which is a bonus. Will get new bumpstops and dustcovers all round, should I renew all top mounts and get these reinforcement plates or anything else while I’m in there? Looking to pair these dampers with Eibach Prokit springs, this seems like the most cost effective way for me to refresh the lot and keep it as close to the original ride quality as previously!

[JPJ89]

Just to confuse things further possibly, just had a look on c3bmw there, and they list different boge/sachs front dampers for cars with sport suspension, and then cars with m-sport suspension, what’s the difference there if anyone knows? The new damper I have already fitted is one they state is for Sport suspension, not M-sport. My car is registered as a Sport on the logbook, but has both options s226a - sports suspension, and s338a - m-sport package 2...would that mean I have m-sport suspension? Too confusing this e46 suspension!