Re: E36 - Adjustable Steering Wheels?

[Mike Klein <klein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1999 16:58:32 EST
> From: DTAHT@domain.elided
> Subject: E36 - Adjustable Steering Wheels?
> 
> I pose a question on behalf of a friend looking at a '94 or '95 E36 325iC:
> Were these cars ever available with either a telescoping or tilting
> steering column?  I told her I thought not.  Any comments? 
> 
> Don Treiman
> '97 540iA Sport
> CCA #52676

Don, I have been doing a bunch of research on a similar question to see if
there is any possibility of adjusting the seating position better for a short
driver (my wife, 5'0").  In doing this research one question I pursued was
whether it is possible to find any model with an adjustable steering wheel and
then consider some kind of retrofit into ours.  I spoke with an experienced BMW
salesman (who had no ulterior motive I could tell) who clearly said that no E36
has ever had an adjustable steering wheel, then proceeded to tell me his sales
strategy for dealing with the inevitable question, "Why not?  All the competing
cars do!".  (His strategy was to tell the potential buyer that BMW in their
infinite engineering wisdom had found the ideal seating position and not to
mess with it.  After all, race cars don't have adjustable steering wheels!  He
said he'd leave out the minor fact that a race car is adjusted for the driver,
then left that way.)

If any E36 years *had* adjustable steering wheels, I would be very interested
in that info.

Also, if you're considering other adjustments, the newer E36's (we have a '98)
have *plastic* pedal assemblies and so can't be cut and rewelded to adjust
their positions.  The older ones, according to Dinan Engineering, are metal and
can potentially be adjusted this way.  Since this didn't apply to our case I
didn't follow up on which years did.

		-Mike

'98 323iC, 3k miles

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