The rear suspension on my 2005 E61 (130,000 miles) failed without warning, leaving me stranded by the roadside (luckily less than 0.5 miles from home).

It left the wheel canted over inwards by 5 or 10 degrees, the wishbone end rammed into the disc, and the car imobilised. Its been uplifted and taken off to my local garage for repairs, so will take a look at the bits when I get them back. Will post pics if its interesting ...

Concerned that this is not normal, and may be a symptom of something else seriously wrong with the suspension set-up (although no reason to think this).

Car has been creaking for a few months, and the joint appears dry and corroded (sorry its not in focus) ... Could this have caused it ??

Surely this ball joint should NEVER fail like this (could have been very serious if at speed). Car not overloaded, and only used for light highish speed travel. 20,000 miles / yr.

Recent MOT without problems, no signs of wear in the suspension.

Thought I would just post this to find out if its a rare event, or if others have experienced such a failure...

 

Never heard of this before but definitely something to keep an eye on.

Where did the creaking noise come from / when did it manifest itself, bumps etc.?

Hope you'll get it sorted quickly and with as little costs as possible.

Let us know if they find an underlying cause?

Good luck!

 

Creaking was from both sides rear. Typically at slow speeds over bumps, and easily demonstrated by grabbing the roof rails and rocking the car. From the forums (and local garage) I thought it was the lower ball joints, and had these replaced. Noises stopped for a few weeks, then came back same as before.

I guess it was probably the upper wishbone joints that were creaking ...

Should get the car back today / tomorrow, and will post closeup pics of the damaged balljoint.

 

There was one similar case on a German forum.
Although in that case I think it was indeed the lower ball joint.
But I'll try to find it tomorrow, and post a link as this is quite important.

 

Ok this is the pic from the German forum:


In that particular case, it turned out that the guiding link (Nr. 15 in the graph below) was bent, due to "insufficient tightening" when replaced a few weeks before that - that's what the local BMW dealer said, FWIW!
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...19&hg=33&fg=30
Now where can I get a pair of those fancy slippers

 

Heres the picture ... I guess its just long term wear of the joint. Poor engineering with cheap nylon (should have used decent engineering grade plastics, like in artificial knee joints !)

Am having the other side done today as a precaution. Then will have to get it re-tracked.

Am tempted to open the rubber boots and squirt grease into whichever balljoints I can in case others are similar.

Replaced wishbones with Lemforder rather than BMW Garage parts ... not sure how much they will cost yet ...

 

Thanks for documenting your misfortune so thoroughly.

I bet that you'll save some people a huge headache now that we know this is a potential weak spot.

Was there a lot of collateral damage, discs etc?