Tyre help please (or LSD?)

[dhutch]

liner33 said:

There is a guy based in liverpool who advertises on ebay and does a supply and fit service for quaife on BMs. I've heard very good things about him and plan to get my 235i up there in the spring

Any more info on that?

Huskyman said:

Andy70 said:

Huskyman said:

Birds have the exclusive rights to supply the Quaife diff for the BMW range. It is quite a specialist job and I believe birds do a fitting service, have a look on www.birdsauto.com
They do understand about setting up a car, I had one of their B3 suspension kits and it was superb.

Oh right I see, thanks for that. I'll have a look. But you can buy a Quaife diff off ebay for just over a grand, where would you get that fitted if you live miles from Birds? (or is a grand expensive?)

It’s £919 from birds, just try and find a decent BMW specialist. A gearbox centre should be able to do the work for you, but I tend to work off recommendations before taking my car to anyone.

And as far as I can tell, used LSDs dont come up every!

[gizlaroc]

Andy70 said:

naturalaspiration said:

You are struggling with the grip in a straight line acceleration or only when exiting the corner (and applying throttle early)?

In a straight line and in the dry. I tend to go careful around corners or you crash and loose your no claims discount :-)

Have you got different tyres front and rear?

For a start I would make sure they are matched. RWD BMWs can become a twitchy mess and the traction can kick in all the time with different tyres front and rear.

This has been discussed ad infinitum over the years on the M3 forums, no one believes it, in the end after trying everything else they put on 4 matching tyres and BINGO!
The car is planted, the traction stays of unless really pushing it hard, and life is good once more.

[RobM77]

gizlaroc said:

Andy70 said:

naturalaspiration said:

You are struggling with the grip in a straight line acceleration or only when exiting the corner (and applying throttle early)?

In a straight line and in the dry. I tend to go careful around corners or you crash and loose your no claims discount :-)

Have you got different tyres front and rear?

For a start I would make sure they are matched. RWD BMWs can become a twitchy mess and the traction can kick in all the time with different tyres front and rear.

This has been discussed ad infinitum over the years on the M3 forums, no one believes it, in the end after trying everything else they put on 4 matching tyres and BINGO!
The car is planted, the traction stays of unless really pushing it hard, and life is good once more.

I've generally found BMWs very sensitive to things like this. Worn suspension is another example; some cars carry it well, but BMWs can turn nasty with worn out dampers, bushes, or both. It tends to be a characteristic of any car with a good inherent balance (in this case, FE/RWD with near 50:50 weight distribution). Caterhams also exhibit this behaviour.

[Andy70]

gizlaroc said:

Andy70 said:

naturalaspiration said:

You are struggling with the grip in a straight line acceleration or only when exiting the corner (and applying throttle early)?

In a straight line and in the dry. I tend to go careful around corners or you crash and loose your no claims discount :-)

Have you got different tyres front and rear?

For a start I would make sure they are matched. RWD BMWs can become a twitchy mess and the traction can kick in all the time with different tyres front and rear.

This has been discussed ad infinitum over the years on the M3 forums, no one believes it, in the end after trying everything else they put on 4 matching tyres and BINGO!
The car is planted, the traction stays of unless really pushing it hard, and life is good once more.

The suspension is just fine as far as I know, I do have 2 different pairs of tyres, Pirelli on the front and as I said in my original post I suppose they would be very bottom end branded tyres, Avons, so wondered if top end tyres would give me better traction, not sure how the same front tyres would give me better traction at the rear? As I said I choose not to go silly fast around corners, I didn't say the car couldn't, it handles very well (probably) lol the car was fine (just) before the increased power, it did struggle a bit in the wet now it struggles in the dry too

[Andy70]

Anyway, till 135 was good enough to recommend Michelin pilots, as I generally never follow the tyre threads I'm sorry to say I do miss out on the great tyre debates as in the past its never really affected me, but now it obviously does, so any advances on those for general traction? I'm off the runflats by the way, they are far too hard and crash over the bumps in my opinion

[gizlaroc]

Andy70 said:

The suspension is just fine as far as I know, I do have 2 different pairs of tyres, Pirelli on the front and as I said in my original post I suppose they would be very bottom end branded tyres, Avons, so wondered if top end tyres would give me better traction, not sure how the same front tyres would give me better traction at the rear? As I said I choose not to go silly fast around corners, I didn't say the car couldn't, it handles very well (probably) lol the car was fine (just) before the increased power, it did struggle a bit in the wet now it struggles in the dry too

Four matching Avons would be a start. Or pirellis.

Don't do anything else till you match them all the way round.

[Andy70]

Update. Got 2 new Michelin pilots today (255/30/19) for the back and noticed difference straight away loads for traction so all sorted, thanks for all your tips