Tension arm bushings likely. I had a shimmy, vibration on braking, and the wheel jounced backward when jabbing the brake at low speed. All gone now. Inspection of the old bushings doesn't show anything odd either.

 

Well I'm still fighting this shake. It even does it while driving but is real bad under braking unless I really jam down on the brakes. Things I have done so far are replaced all brakes and rotors, changed out those front control arms that bolt from the spindle to the front of the car, had the tires balanced and two different shops and just now put a second set of rotors from another company and it's still the same. i don't know what brand of control arms the guy got me but they were pretty cheap in price. Could they just be new china made junk? i don't know where to go from here.

 

did you ever replace the caliper guide pins?

 

if you are talking about the pins that the calipers float on then now. I did take them out and they are not bent at all. I did just get off the phone with a tech guy from Bav Auto and told him everything I have done and he said it still sounds like those upper control arms that bolt from the spindle to up front of the wheels. I told him the local parts store got me a set of those and I put them on but seems no better. that said they only cost me 80 bucks for the pair so I'm guessing they are some cheap quality units. Makes me wonder if I should just buy some good name brand arms and hope it fixes the problem.

 

I think the front suspension on the E60 is all aluminum so if you only spent $80 on two control arms I would be surprised if they were high-quality units.

i had a shimmy when I bought mine, and it turned out to be the thrust arm bushings. my indy replaced just the bushings (not the whole CA) for $45/each + labor and the shimmy was gone.

 

As I mentioned some time ago. By the way, it is not the arms that are a problem, it's the bushing inserts that start to crack and become sloppy when they should be solid.

 

I didn't read the whole thread - but I had similar issues last summer in my 550i....


I looked and looked and looked......


Finally ended up being the sway bar links. It would *only* happen at like 60-70mph .... at 80mph and hard brake; nothing. Under 65, no feedback in the wheel whatsoever.....


Pretty common problem. Especially the passenger side. If OP hasn't looked there already, check it out.

 

Apparently almost any looseness in the front suspension can give this issue. I had been fighting the bad vibes in the steering wheel during braking since I bought my 545i two years ago. I had several people look at it, replaced all shocks with bilsteins and two recent alignments with no one finding anything wrong. I decided to replace all 4 rotors and pads on the weekend. While replacing the rotors, I took the time to grab the rotor and give each corner a good shake to look for looseness. My right front wheel surprised me with quite a bit of movement. I thought a bad ball joint, but on closer inspection it was at the bushing end of the lower control arm (not thrust arm). I pulled back the plastic to find the nut on the bolt through the bushing only holding on by a couple of threads!! I quickly had thoughts of all of the times when if the bolt had come out while I was "playing" with the car it could have been bad!! Very bad!! I tightened the bolt and finished the brake job. Everything is buttery smooth now. I can't believe that mechanics missed this during 2 inspections and 2 alignments. I guess it was too much trouble to remove the plastic to check the joint. This is why I like to do as many repairs as I can by myself.