[MarkChamorro]

Hey guys, so I recently did my front struts on an E90 335i. Rather straight forward job, I thought it went well, or so I thought.

I used this video as a reference:

Brought the car in for an alignment and new rear tires, and they tried aligning the car several times and the car tends to veer right or left. Like the steering wheel will not center itself after turning slightly, it’ll just continue veering.

They’ve switched all the tires every which way, every combo possible and the car still does it.
Did I mess up my steering rack by letting the knuckle hang a little low when working on the struts or something?
Maybe I tightened the top strut mounts too tightly and they resist coming center?

I don’t have the car back yet, but I’m just trying to brainstorm.

When I get the car back I plan on checking all the bolts going through the bushings (seen in the video above) to make sure it’s all tight.


Now that I’m thinking about those strut mounts, I was nervous they were a little tight because it took some force with my hand to get them to spin. They don’t spin freely. I did tighten the nylock nut by hand. No gun. Although I admit I didn’t use a torque wrench because of how finicky it is to tighten it (holding the Allen key and wrenching the spark plug socket on the nylock nut.

[cruizinmax]

The strut mounts should spin freely. If they don't there's a chance you have the washers that go under the strut mount stacked incorrectly.

[bmw_solid]

Originally Posted by cruizinmax

The strut mounts should spin freely. If they don't there's a chance you have the washers that go under the strut mount stacked incorrectly.

+1 - check the washers on realoem.com for the order they go in and one washer has a tapered side so that washer needs to be facing either up or down (can't remember which)...

Plus, when tightening the top strut mount nut (I think its 64Nm??) , ensure you either have a pass-through torque socket set or a 21mm spark plug 'spanner head socket' and a corresponding size crows foot to allow insertion of a allen key through the drive hole in the socket when tightening that nut...