[MrSweet1991]

Hi All,

Kept the car off the road because of the Snow and my partner (being the good samaritan she is) decided to offer her brother a lift to the gym.. Big mistake that was!

So all was fine until I turned right and all of a sudden the rear end just continued to slide out until it bumped off the kurb.

As I was driving back home the steering was unreal, like to drive straight I had the steering wheel almost half a turn to the left :O

The alloy has a chunk missing out of it and the rear wheel is seriously out of line. Looking at it from behind the wheel is pushed in at the bottom but the wheel is also pointing outwards (if I'm not mistaken it's the toe angle pointing out)

I had the wheel off and to be honest I could really spot anything seriously bent the hub itself was pretty solid but something is really off.. What's the chances that the subframe has bent? As I say I wasn't really doing any speed at all, the car literally slid at 2mph or so and hit off the kurb.. I was under the impression the suspension is designed to bend things like control arms and what not before the subframe? I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow when it's lighter.. And if it is the subframe how is to change? I've replaced the springs and discs but that's about as far as I've done on the rear before.

Cheers.

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[Digitalize]

Very unlikely the subframe is bent. Suspension arms are designed to bend in the event of an impact, trailing arm especially.

[Adam1990]

Been down this road when I had a 1 series’s. My best advice is to take it to a good accident repair centre, reason being the eye can’t always tell what is and what isn’t bent.

At minimum I would think it will be an alignment and a new alloy, but you could have bent suspension arms as they bend easily to absorb an impact.

Good luck with the repair and hopefully it isn’t too bad.

[MrSweet1991]

Originally Posted by Digitalize

Very unlikely the subframe is bent. Suspension arms are designed to bend in the event of an impact, trailing arm especially.

That's also what I've heard, I'm really hoping it is anything other than the sub frame..ive uploaded a video and some pictures I took about half hour ago.really not sure they're any good but it's does intrigue me that despite looking at each arm there's nothing obvious (that I can see) wrong.

[MrSweet1991]

Originally Posted by Adam1990

Been down this road when I had a 1 series’s. My best advice is to take it to a good accident repair centre, reason being the eye can’t always tell what is and what isn’t bent.

At minimum I would think it will be an alignment and a new alloy, but you could have bent suspension arms as they bend easily to absorb an impact.

Good luck with the repair and hopefully it isn’t too bad.

I had the AA out today and was going to take it to Chemix who have the hawk eye machine. But when I rolled it into the road to be put on the back of the van he said it looks like something a lot more than just tracking. Because the car was too low on the front he never tool it anyway and I'm quite glad because by the sounds of it something has definitely bemtnand as long as it's not the sub frame of rather do it myself..im going to take it to a BMW place just down the road from me..though I am sceptical if they can properly detect any bends and damage.. I'll pop it down on Monday and see what they say.

[Andy198712]

i friend did this but a lot greater speed and it bent one of the arms, (on an audi) but when we jacked up the rear it was pretty hard to tell which part was bent from paring the two sides.... if you can get under the rear and spend some time comparing sides that might help, but easiest is get it on a ramp and have it looked at, hopefully its only one component bent!
how bad is the alloy?

[MrSweet1991]

Originally Posted by Andy198712

i friend did this but a lot greater speed and it bent one of the arms, (on an audi) but when we jacked up the rear it was pretty hard to tell which part was bent from paring the two sides.... if you can get under the rear and spend some time comparing sides that might help, but easiest is get it on a ramp and have it looked at, hopefully its only one component bent!
how bad is the alloy?

Hi mate,

alloy has quite a big chunk missing out of it and is no good, thankfully I still have my other alloy that has a crack in it so I'll get that welded. Another person on bimmerforums noticed that the swing arm and bushing looks bent and cracked as can be seen in this image.



I believe at the moment the swing arm and rear subframe bushing will set me back around £35. My issue for now is removing the bushing as the proper kit can cost in excess of £50 but there are ways to make one up using over sized sockets which is what I'm looking into.