[tadaska]

I had a pair of control arms replaced and all alignment bolts/nuts/washers replaced with new too. I took the car to one of those Hunter adjustment places and this is what I got. The front camber I know is out of whack but the rear used to be ok. Now it's not and the printout says it was adjusted to max.

Can this be the cause of the bolt replacement done incorrectly? I don't understand how it works but I know there are eccentric washers/bolt caps. What if lets say the wide side was facing up but the new one was fitted facing down? Could that be the reason?

[therealdb1]

How is the ride height side to side? Has a spring drooped?

Why is there always a problem with the left front?

[tadaska]

Originally Posted by therealdb1

How is the ride height side to side? Has a spring drooped?

Why is there always a problem with the left front?

No idea about the front. It was like that since I bought the car. When I change the shocks I might elongate the holes at the top of the strut to even it out to satisfy my OCD.

The rear passenger side used to have a bigger gap between the tyre and the arch. But recently the car was on a lift a few times for things like hand-brake cable replacement and rear control arm replacement and I don't know why but that gap became smaller at some point and now they are pretty even as fat as I can tell. You think that had an effect? But even if it did shouldn't it be possible to get the camber in range?

[therealdb1]

Uneven ride height can affect the camber.
From memory I believe the E9x's generally leave the factory a little high on the left hand side to compensate for the weight of the driver in a LHD car but BMW decided that they couldn't be arsed to change that for the mere 100's of 1000's of vehicles produced with RHD.
Having said that, if you have noticed a ride height change on one side and the camber is mysteriously now out I suspect the two are connected. It could simply be that there is not enough adjustment left to compensate for whatever has caused the height change.

[tadaska]

What about people who lower their SEs to M Sport level or even lower? Do they have trouble with camber in the rear?

[therealdb1]

Originally Posted by tadaska

What about people who lower their SEs to M Sport level or even lower? Do they have trouble with camber in the rear?

Hopefully they'll join the discussion and tell us!

Maybe there is enough adjustment to balance the two sides or perhaps they don't bother and just run additional camber.

In your case you have noticed a change to one side only so that's what needs investigating.

[Tambohamilton]

Once you're lowering the car, it makes no difference whether it started life as SE or sport. All parts are identical except springs and shocks/struts.

Regarding the original question... You have some damaged or worn parts on your car. I suggest you set about finding and replacing them!

It makes no difference if the eccentric faces up or down, so long as it faces in or out by the correct amount.

Pics of stuff might help us identify issues. Maybe.

[tadaska]

Originally Posted by Tambohamilton

Once you're lowering the car, it makes no difference whether it started life as SE or sport. All parts are identical except springs and shocks/struts.

Regarding the original question... You have some damaged or worn parts on your car. I suggest you set about finding and replacing them!

It makes no difference if the eccentric faces up or down, so long as it faces in or out by the correct amount.

Pics of stuff might help us identify issues. Maybe.

If I understand it correctly I have only slightly less negative camber on that rear drivers side wheel? I'll probably just leave it as it is for now. Two arms that had worn bushes have been replaced (top front arms) and the rest seemed ok. And if anything else start showing signs of wear I'll replace it when time comes. Hopefully it will fix things. I was mainly worried that the adjustment bolts could have been fitted incorrectly. But after doing a bit of thinking and looking at some pictures of the arms and bolts it looks like they can rotated 360 degrees and can't be fitted incorrectly?

[Silver Streek]

Originally Posted by tadaska

What about people who lower their SEs to M Sport level or even lower? Do they have trouble with camber in the rear?

I did this with my E91 SE, after a month of so of driving around to settle it in I had a full geo done and the camber was still within tolerance.

50k miles later no issue with camber of odd wear in rear or front tyres.

I fitted Eibach pro springs with Bilstein shocks.

[MrSweet1991]

I remember all this drama when I knocked the rear passenger wheel into a curb in the ice, after all arms replaced it ended up being the subframe :'(

The hunter alignment system is unreal with how sensitive it is to adjustments there's actually an older tolerance system they could follow some years back before things got tightened for what ever reason and if it was that old system it may have actually showed in green.

Nonetheless when you bring the car in they enter your cars details into the system and that then dictates where things "should" be. That means, factory springs and shocks, correct tyre pressures and then weighted. If youve changed anything to aftermarket like me for example installing Eibach Pro Sport springs then you'll never be able to fully follow the systems specs, for me I was lucky and had a very knowledgeable man called Simon at Chemix autocentre in Stourbridge, he's seriously good and has been mentioned on a few forums. We compared some ride height measurement of stock to Eibach and removed some weight to compensate for the already lower ride height and went from there.

With how sensitive the adjustments are though, you may need to inspect the rose bushes (these are the bushes pressed into the wheel hub) those become slack over time. The bottom arm that holds the spring and shock adjusts for camber using an eccentric bolt on the subframe side. On that arm you've got rubber bushings for both the spring and the shocks which can deteriorate and compress over time so it's hard to say really what could be throwing your alignment off as it's so sensitive.

Maybe take a measurement of the ride height on both rear sides, I think I removed the BMW wheel caps and measure from the bottom of the cap to the arch. Failing that at least your toe is in spec otherwise you'd be prematurely wearing your tyres.

[tadaska]

Since yesterday I've been looking at those rear wheels from all angles every time I approach the car. It looks like the left side is still a bit higher than the right but not as bad as it was. But now I think the whole left side rear wheel is pushed in sideways into the arch a bit more than the right. I'll try to do some measuring tomorrow. Maybe place a spirit level against the arch and see what are the gaps between the level ant the wheel.

MrSweet1991 what kind of damage did your subframe have?

[MrSweet1991]

Originally Posted by tadaska

Since yesterday I've been looking at those rear wheels from all angles every time I approach the car. It looks like the left side is still a bit higher than the right but not as bad as it was. But now I think the whole left side rear wheel is pushed in sideways into the arch a bit more than the right. I'll try to do some measuring tomorrow. Maybe place a spirit level against the arch and see what are the gaps between the level ant the wheel.

MrSweet1991 what kind of damage did your subframe have?

Yeah that's a good idea, I mean don't get me wrong the measurements on the tracking machine are that sensitive I wouldn't be surprised if its also something we can't actually see as the movement to get your camber back into spec is probably half a turn of the eccentric bolt but if you do measure a difference in height then I'd say that's a very good indication that somethings wrong.

When I removed the subframe it took me absolutely ages to spot the difference even with having both subframes on top and side by side of each other but one or two mount points where very slightly twisted. I was unbelievably lucky to source another subframe for £30, took it to Chemix and thank the lord it was finally the end to all this mess haha.

[tadaska]

I'm watching a video about the rose bushings. It looks like there 2 on the hub side. And I'm assuming there are 2 bushes on the subframe side where those arms attach? So I'm thinking if they are worn out and have some give the hub would shift in the outboard direction? Or would it get pushed in the inboard direction? If I can't get enough negative camber then maybe it's pushed in inboard and the adjustment is maxing out trying to push it out? But then maybe some bushings at the top have some give and are pulled out outboard and hence I need more negative camber adjustment to compensate?

[Tambohamilton]

How long is a piece of string?