02dag

I noticed that my car was lower on one side the winter before last. I googled a lot just to find that many had the same problem, but noone had a solution to the problem. Some mentioned that BMW did this because they compensate for the drivers weight.

DUH!!!!

If that driver weighs 200KG you might need to compensate for that but no way that this slant was due to this. The car was almost 15mm lower on the right side.

So every time I approached my car I could see this, and it annoyed me more and more. Things are really slow with me from time to time, but the problem is processed subconciously, and one day I was ready to deal with it. I had also noticed that the negative camber was much more noticable on one side, and thought it was worth a shot to try to adjust this.

the first thing I noticed was that the adjustment screws for the camber was opposite of the other in terms of adjustment. This could not have been something that came out from BMW. I believe the car is quite symmetrical although some margins are allowed.

This made me think and I remembered I had the car on a four-wheel toe-in control a couple of years ago. I am now sure that they must have probably adjusted the wrong screw to get the rear toe-in to be ok. The lower adjustment is basically for camber, but geometrically it is little bit more complicated, so adjusting the camber will throw off the toe-in a couple of tenth of millimeters. this was not a BMW garage.

Here are some pics from before adjustment:
Right side, where the eccentric bolt is on the left of the nut, should be on the right, pulling the control arm in towards the center of the car.
and the right tyre, is more used on the inside


Left side, the eccentric bolt is on the left of the nut


Left tyre still have the pattern on the inside


well, I adjusted the bolt on the right side to be similar to the one on the left side. That was easy if you have the right tools. 18 MM bolt and 21MM nut. Retorqe after at 165 NewtonMeter.

took a pic of the car from the rear, and it is much better now. They still have some negative camber on both sides. Didnt take a before picture unfortunately.




What I have noticed now is that my steering wheel, which was a little to the left when going straight forward, now is straight. I think I feel that something is not quite ok, so I think I will need to adjust toe-in properly. It could be a millimeter off now.

Not sure how to do this myself though. I know where to adjust it, but how can i measure it properly?

But anyway, when I approach the car now I can see that it is straight. I probably look very stupid if someone sees me, because I am going back and forth to check on both sides many times before I am satisfied and get in.