[lowrydr310]

I made a separate post about a bouncy feeling from the front after I installed new struts, shocks, wishbones, and control arms, but I hadn't yet gotten tires and alignment. I finally got the chance to go for a long spirited canyon drive with the new tires and alignment and this bouncy/wobbly feel of the front end is absolutely awful. I thought I'd give it time to settle or maybe I was overthinking things, but it's so bad it's not even fun driving this car. My old Honda Accord felt better with 15" steel wheels and fat tires.

On smooth roads, dips, and even over a single harsh bump the car rides and feels great. Absolutely awesome to flick around the turns. However once I encounter any rough road surface (which there are a lot around me) I get this bouncy loose feeling from the front end, maybe best described as a wobble? It's most felt through the steering wheel but I can even see my rearview mirror shaking. It feels like the front is underdampened. I experimented with tire pressures and that made no difference whatsoever.

Prior to installing the struts, the car had the original struts with roughly 160K miles on them. They were blown, bump stops were gone, and it rode exactly like a car with bad shocks and struts, but I don't recall this wobbly feeling from the front end.

Here's what I have installed:
- New M3 Thrust Arms
- New M3 Wishbones
- New Tie Rods (inner and outer)
- Bilstein B4 front struts and rear shocks
- Michelin PS4 in OEM size (225/40-18 front, 255/35-18 rear)
- Fresh Alignment

The rear feels completely fine, it's just the front that's bugging me. I mentioned in my previous post that these are the exact same struts on my 330, identical part numbers. The only difference is that the 335i has stiffer D8 springs in the front. I have a direct comparison knowing what this near-identical setup should feel like; my 330i handles well and feels incredibly good over these same roads, even with junk tires.

What else should I be looking at? I'm nearly certain everything was torqued properly but I'm going to check a second time. Is it possible I have a defective set of struts? Bad mounts? I used Lemforder and they looked fine when I installed them.

I did notice when installing the new struts that the shaft was shorter and couldn't be extended by hand as far out as the old one however once assembled with the springs swapped over to the new struts, the overall length was the same as the orignal ones I removed. Looking at Koni Special Actives, they too list the same part as fitting the E93 335i and E90 330i so I'm pretty certain I have the correct parts.

I'd hate to throw money away and replace new struts as I know the B4 are fine for my needs - I have them on another car and really like them, but something doesn't feel the same on the 335 and I want to fix this.

[BRG_N54]

Quick thought; Did you torque the thrust arm to subframe bolts when the car was on the ground? If not it's only one bolt per side that will carry any preload and you can just loosen those, bounce the front end a few times and re-torque.

[lowrydr310]

Interesting, you might be into something.

No I didn't have the car on the ground, though I did jack the knuckle up to ride height with the sway bar end links disconnected and torqued it then.

Now you have me second guessing myself if I may have had to loosen and retorque the bolt not at ride height. The wheel to fender gap *is* larger on my 335 than my 330 with the same suspension, which is exactly a symptom of torquing the thrust arm to subframe bolt at the improper ride height. If that's it I owe you some beer or other beverage of your choice.

[ferrarifan97]

Did re-torqueing fix your issue? I'm also suffering from what seems like an unreasonably harsh ride after replacing struts and M3 control & thrust arms.

[lowrydr310]

Originally Posted by ferrarifan97

Did re-torqueing fix your issue? I'm also suffering from what seems like an unreasonably harsh ride after replacing struts and M3 control & thrust arms.

I haven't retorqued anything yet, but my issue isn't a harsh ride. Ride isn't harsh at all.