Quote:
Originally Posted by B-Buster
Why replace before the actual issue is found?
The Toe difference can be there because the steering wheel was just a bit off from center. Not a reason to throw new tie rod ends to it unless you can feel them having play in it.
Somewhat interesting is that on the 1st allignment the camber F-R was positive and at the 2nd one is the same. You cannot adjust the camber, the upper arms and the lower arms dicate this position. A difference so small can also be the way the allignment sensor is mounted to the wheel.
It does show that they send you on your way with the right wheel having out-of-spec camber, so the settings were not completely optimal. BMW sells correction arms with either a bit more or less camber to be able to correct that. You can get these ones also from Lemförder. Meyle has one with adjustable camber but that's a brand I don't want on my car.
I also ordered one for the front right wheel a few years ago as that one had a bit less camber in comparisation to the left wheel. On LHD you don't want the right wheel to have a tad more compared to left as most roads are sloped to the right.
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So I can’t see any play but when I grab either front wheel at 3 and 9 and try to twist abruptly, I hear a metallic pop sound. I can’t tell if it’s a tie rod end or in the rack itself. I figure at 93k miles most of the suspension would benefit from a refresh anyways. I’m planning to do the tie rod and ends as soon as they get here. If I let it down and it still pops I will try to adjust the tension on the rack.
The camber on that front corner was only there after the new front control arms were put on so I just assumed one was a tiny bit out of spec. I may get a set of adjustable uppers in the future to remedy that.
I sort of thought about the steering wheel being off center but even if you straightened the wheel it seems the numbers would still be off from the previous alignment by a bit. I could be wrong about that though.