Hi All,

I was jacking my car up to inspect a squeak and this is what I found....

see anything wrong with this picture???



The spring is down way past the stop on the shock. Is that even possible without being installed improperly?

The car was bought on a trade in from a VW/Audi dealership but had previously been dealer maintained at BMW it's entire life....even a shift knob was replaced there.

Im parking the car and going to take it out to inspect it this weekend. I think new shocks will definitely be in order seeing as this one has been riding full compressed. The other side is seated correctly.

 

Think you have a broken spring. Shock is probably was not damaged. How many miles/km on the car?

 

broken spring mate

 

130,000 kms or ~80,000 miles.

My issue now is finding new springs for a 525xi. Does anybody know if they are the same as for lets say a 525i?

 

use Welcome to realoem.com |bmw parts | bmw parts catalog| bmw epc! to compare part numbers between models

 

Realoem says to contact dealer since different options have different springs.

 

well, maybe call the dealer and give them your vin. maybe just buy the spring from them? your shock is probably still ok.

 

Looks just like mine....., both sides , .same thing happened to me, was lucky to find some OEM springs on line did replace shocks while I was in there, have a good set of spares now as they are still pretty good. Did do a write up on it over year ago, will try to find it, easy DIY just a couple of tricks .

https://5series.net/forums/e60-discu...-again-138580/

 

Holy cow I'm glad nobody got hurt and the car is parked! Can't say I've seen a failure like that before... seems like BMW didn't do their fishbone diagram well enough, a failure like that puts them in court if it causes a bad accident!


Well, you can also take this as an opportunity to 'upgrade' your suspension with something a little more capable. Have the wife look at the car and she'll get all worried, then you'll have the sympathy vote haha

 

I just swapped out my springs for lowering springs.. and mine look brand new. Yours looks so corroded and ugly... Edmonton should only be using sand and gravel.. not salt! Maybe you should move to Calgary

I think the springs are all the same.. EXCEPT for the awd version. At least they are when you are looking up lowering springs. Not super hard to do.. but a second set of hands putting it back together is a godsend. I spent a good 10-15 minutes trying to get it seated up there all by myself.. you can't see the bolt holes when you lift it back up! Ugh!