Re: E36 M3 alignment spec

[Mike Klein <mike@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Alan, you should definitely follow up on this if you suspect alignment is 
off.  My wife's brand new '98 E36 323i had a significant center dead zone 
in the steering and also pulled to one side very slightly.  I suspected 
alignment issues and asked the shop to check.  They did, and said it was 
fine (they checked *visually*).  I insisted on bringing it in again, 
described the problem in more detail and that I was disappointed the 
handling was worse than the 10-year-old VW Jetta it replaced :-). 
Eventually I got the service manager to take it for a drive so I could show 
him.  Afterwards he agreed to have a service person look at the alignment 
and we made the appointment.  This was all still within the "adjustment 
warranty" period (6 months???) where they will do adjustments free of 
charge.

I wore my SCCA shirt in and made sure I talked to the guy doing the 
alignment check.  Luckily he was a driving buff too.  The end result was 
that 3 of the 4 wheels were outside factory spec.  The pulling and most of 
the dead zone was gone after corrected alignment.  The last step was to 
replace the original Michelin MXV4-Energy tires with Bridgestone RE71s and 
we finally had a nicely handling car!!!

Probably 95% of owners would not be able to tell the difference between 
either the alignment changes (or maybe even the tires, although to me 
that's night and day).  You need to convince the shop that you are one of 
the 5%.

		-Mike



> Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 14:12:02 -0600
> From: "Alan Leung" <alanleung100@domain.elided>
> Subject: E36 M3 alignment spec
>
> I've read from the Digest recently that the factory alignment spec is
> very wide to ensure that all cars coming off production will be within
> spec. One digester mentioned his brand new vehicle was pulling to one
> side due to overly-generous alignment specification. Do dealers use the
> same spec if I take my car in for a realignment? Would anyone be able to
> give me the factory alignment spec for 95 M3 and maybe a recommended
> (tighter) spec if I want my car to be realigned properly? Thanks a lot in
> advance.  Alan L.

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