E46 lower on one side than the other

[Joost 0]

Hi Guys,

Have had my 2000 E46 328i for almost two months now. Car has had , l/f suspension arms, all 4 rotors and brake pads replaced- originals were pretty worn. The car has done 135kms is ex Japan and the first NZ owner had it for 8 years and has kept all the service history. He was an elderly guy who upgraded to a newer 328.

While washing the car today I noticed that the front LHS wheel is closer to the wheel arch than the front RHS (drivers side). There is a gap of about 8cm between the wheel and wheel arch in the RHS but only a gap of about 4cm between the two on the LHS. It looks like the LHS wheel is slightly more forward than the other side

The car has just has an alignment and a balance done and neither the mechanic who did the rotors or the tyre guys picked up anything strange when the car was on a hoist.

On some Bimmer forums some posters reckon this is normal to take into account the drivers weight to balance the car- what do people here think? Is it worth taking it in to get a second opinion.

Car drives fine and I've already spent $1500 on it including suspension and cooling system preventative maintenance. Also looking at getting transmission serviced but don't want to spend more if there is some serious body issues

Cheers

J

[rowans17 19]

My e36 used to do this. I was told that it was normal for it to be a little bit off balance but also a symptom of warn shock absorbers. Wasn't quite as bad as that though, you could tell if you were looking for it but else it looked normal. At a guess it was probably 3 centimeters MAX out at each side. Its lean seemed to change dependent on how much fuel was in the tanks too.

E46 never did this that i noticed... but it was lowered and on bilsteins etc

[M3_Power 636]

Factory ride height tolerance is usually 10mm to 15mm

I am assuming you've made sure you were on completely flat surface when measuring (usual method of measure is from bottom of rim to top of wheel arch) but the e46 body is notoriously inaccurate.

The height measure is also done with 68kg weight on both front seats and one 14kg bag in the boot with full tank.

40mm does sound a bit much. I would check both shocks are of the correct part number and the springshave the same colour markings left to right. Perhaps a spring or shock was replaced at some point in time and instead of a motorsport item a standard SE spec suspension was used (or vice versa)

Sometimes the swaybar isn't centred to the chassis and can hold one side of the car up (I've seen this on a few cars where the swaybar link was replaced and not aligned).

Hope that helps.

Edited November 18, 2013 by M3_Power

[jom 96]

I heard that the E36 body jig was out by 6mm, which drops the RHS. This is certainly borne out by the 3 or 4 I've measured. The floorpans are the same between E36 and E46 so this error could have carried through to the new jig. All irrelevant though, yours drops the other side....

The spring platform rubbers are available in different thicknesses - up to about 10mm difference - but this still doesnt account for the height variation.

Have you tried measuring vertically from the sill to the top of the wheelarch, to check if the body is the same both sides?

[Joost 0]

Thanks Guys, I want to take it into BM Workshop for them to check it out but its a busy time for me at work so waiting until December when I can take half a day off. Have checked it on a flat surface and I also notice that once someone gets out of the LHS it creaks as well