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Re: suspension question

Alex thanks for your quick response. I may not have explained myself well when trying to describe what the bmw mechanic said needed to be done. i am not sure what the exact part names are but please bare with me. From what i remember the bmw mechanic said that the springs should not have been as compressed as they were. the car was just parked on a level surface. when he looked up under the wheel well he pointed and showed me what he was looking at. The first few coils on the springs were touching each other. he said that it looked like they did not set the bump stop properly and it could cause the car to bottom out. he explained that i need to take it back to the shop that did it and have them cut the "spring perch?"(the plate/housing where the spring sits in on the strut) and drop it an inch and weld it back on. He was not saying to cut and weld the actual springs themselves.

I got the springs from a place called AutoMod(www.automod.net) and I got my konis(yellow) from tirerack. As far as I know, both the front and rear koni's are adjustable. the front ones came with a removeable adjustment knob and the rear ones have hex fitting in the top to where you can fit a hex tool.
I hope this was a better explanation.

please let me know if this is still a legitamate procedure.

thanks again






From: alex.fadeev@domain.elided
To: "Paul Frederick" <pfrederi@domain.elided>
CC: bmw@domain.elided
Subject: Re: suspension question
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:38:45 -0500

"Paul Frederick" <pfrederi@domain.elided>
> I had some racing dynamic springs installed by a shop

Paul,
Where did you get those 'Racing Dynamics' springs?
There are at least two of them in the US. One is affiliated with Racing
Dynamics SPA (the Italian company). The other one is a low quality
American imposter that had litigated the real Racing Dynamics out of its
brand name in the US.

> someone (guy at the place where I ordered my springs) recommended. They
> also installed my koni sport shocks all at the same time.

Koni 'sport' (European model name) would be Single or Dual Adjustable
yellow Konis?

> [...] Anyway when all was said and done I looked at tthe car and the
> front did not look like it was lowered at all, the rear looked lowered
> because the tires were almost up in the wheel well.

The only way to tell for sure how much the car was lowered is with before
and after <center of the wheel> to fender clearance.
The clearance is much larger up front, so visual front vs. back
comparisons are deceiving.

> [...] Anyway I took it to another shop that specializes in bmw and
> the guy took one look at it and said that it was not installed correctly

What was ('it'?) not installed correctly?

> He looked up under the front wheel well and said that the springs were
> compressed and that they need to cut off the spring perch and drop
> about an inch and weld it back on to the strut. Does anyone know of
> this? and is there anything else i should be aware of?

Yes.
It is complete BS.
Springs are normally compressed under the car's weight.
Springs do not need to be butchered or welded during installation.
I would seriously recommend that you ask local BMW CCA chapter members for
shop recommendation and never go back to either one of these clowns.

> One of my rear shock mounts was busted when they did the insatllation
> but i had them put it back in because I did not have a replacement at
> the time.

Get GC RSMs (www.ground-control.com).
BMW RSMs are all fail after 20-40K miles.

> Looking to get some ground control poly urethane mounts to replace
> them with. I dropped the car off today and they said they will take
> care of it no problem.

This is a really simple DIY job. Get E36 Bentley (www.rb.com) to find out
how.

good luck,
alex f
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