Fron Control Arm replacement advice please
 

I'm planning on having the front lower control arms replaced on my E60. Anyway, for those of you that have done it, is there a difference between the BMW OEM version vs. the $50 after market ones on eBay?


Granted, I know it seems like a no brainer to get OEM, but if the cheaper ones can equally perform and as reliable, then I'd get the cheaper ones. :p

How long do you plant to keep the car?

I'm basically in a fix-it-when it breaks mode on this car. It needs to last me another 2-years or thereabouts, so I'm going to use Moog parts when I absolutely have to replace the parts. If I were keeping it for another 75k miles then I'd use the OEM, Lemforder.

I pretty much keep my cars until it dies and cost more to fix than it's worth. LOL! Are Moog parts pretty good? Where do you get them?

Lemforder. There is no substitute. Get them from an online vendor, I got mine from Pelican.

I bought moogs but you can't go wrong with lemforder.

My opinion it doesn't make a differens as long as you'll not a heavy driver that's running loose on the street you should be fine with installing aftermarket which I did on passenger side of my car and I had it for over a year with no problem .

Should I just change the control arms or do both the control arm and tension rod? I have a slight drift to the left even after an alignment and a mild vibration on the steering wheel around 47mph.

Totally opposite direction $wise but wouldn't the M5 arms work?

I went through this whole annoying exercise you are talking about.
Priced all the brands.
Checked all the vendors.

You have two real options besides going to the dealer which is foolish for the price they charge on the part alone.

Some of lesser made control arms have some sort of life time/extended warranty. Many indy (not BMW specific) shops don't have a lemforder supplier in their city so they will use what their normal part supplier will provide them. So O'Reileys, Autozone, etc have these brand,s which charge something like 80 to 100 bucks and they carry a 3 year, 5 year, or lifetime warranty. The shop I go to said if they suggest, purchase and install a part and it fails under warranty they will replace it for free labor included. That sounds great.If you can find a shop that will do that then the price savings may be worth it since you know if they crap out you are covered.

Reading all the crappy reviews on the other brands I opted just to buy lemforder like people suggested. My car is at the shop getting them put on now. The idea of the handling not being BMW like was enough to make me not want to try the other brands out.

I searched every lenforder distributor I could find online including ebay. For my 530 OEMbimmerparts was the lowest price. Max is who answered all my emails and he was great. They have the lowest prices online but I live in Texas and they operate out of San Antonio so I had to pay sales tax. That price was the same or a bit cheaper after tax as Pelican, Turner, etc. All of whom are good vendors. I wanted to keep that money in Texas.

Good luck. I made it to 89K with the same arms. Maybe I can get another 89K out of them.

Oh BTW, I had to replace my front lower arms as well as the tension struts. Some shops will refer to the lower control arms as a two piece arm. That is the actual lower control arm and the tension strut. One for each side.