Hi

Yesterday I completed my first long journey in the 530d I bought a few weeks back. Everything was fine especially the awesome cruising power of the car. The only thing I'm not sure about is the feedback I felt through the steering wheel. Now it may be that everything is as it should be but I would like it confirmed by one of you long term owners.

Not far into the journey I mentioned to my wife that there was quite a high frequency but low level vibration in the steering wheel. Not enough to make it visibly move when I took my hands off but there none the less. The day before the journey I had a local garage check all the brakes and tyres. Tyre pressures were set correctly, all brakes were thoroughly inspected by removing all the wheels. The alloys were recently refurbished and balanced but I guess a weight could've fallen off. While braking a few times I did take my hands off the wheel but no shake or movement to one side occurred. Also the car goes perfectly straight when the wheel is held straight.

Is this vibration normal and is this just the ride quality issue I've heard relating to the the run flat tyres. The car also has active steering fitted and I'm experiencing the slight clunk while cornering at low speed that others have mentioned. I'll be getting the garage to carry out the WD40 fix to the steering column when I get back. Could this be related? Also the car seems to have very low suspension with barely enough room to fit my hand between the tyres and wheel arches. I'm not that clued up on 5 series tweaks and options so is this suspension height normal to all models?

Please can one of you experts reply and tell me this is all normal and there is nothing to worry about.

Cheers
Peter

 

Absolutely not, perhaps the people who inspected the car did something to it..

 

Worth checking the suspension bushes, sounds like similar symptoms :

https://5series.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=80487

 

shouldnt be like that my steering is dead smooth on a 55 plate

 

Checklist (in this order):

1. Balancing
2. Alignment
3. Control Arms
4. Wheel bearings


If you hit any medium+ sized potholes on your trip, it could be what led to the vibration. Control arms tend to fail a lot on these cars, bc there's a rubber bushing that gets beat up by potholes and naturally, BMW designed the arms so that you cannot change just the rubber bushing - you have to replace the entire control arm.

GL fixing it, keep us posted

 

OR could it be just the road that you are feeling?