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Thread: Alignment anxiety....Expert opinions wanted

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    Alignment anxiety....Expert opinions wanted

    I'm about to take my 89 535 in for an alignment (toe adjustment) cause she's got new boots and am trying to figure out the correct settings for my lowered, staggered setup.

    Car is lowered 45mm front, 30mm back on 255/ 235 17's.
    Full suspension refresh

    The last time I did this I followed the full factory procedure with trunk and seat weights using M5 toe settings on half worn tires. The result was very jumpy steering. Any rutted roads would cause me to "fight" the wheel from veering left or right as the car traversed slight undulations in the road. I assumed I had too much positive toe but never bothered to play with it until new tires were installed. New tires seem to make the steering much more predictable, reduced jumpyness etc but tht may simply be more rubber isolating me from the road.

    Seeking experiences of those with staggered, lowered setups. I'm not going to bother with weights this time. Just a recommendation of toe setting for an unweighted lowered staggered car that will minimize tire wear on my non rotatable tires.

    (God knows why the factory insisted on weights!)

  2. #2
    moroza's Avatar
    moroza is offline MORΩN ΛABIA BMW CCA Member
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    You're going to have jumpy steering because of how far it's lowered, regardless of toe setting. MTech is 25mm lower than stock, and you're going almost double that. Staggered doesn't matter. Front wheel offset does matter; what is it?

    Someone's direct experience should be useful, but failing that, experiment yourself with different settings, rather than forking over at least $60 (a cheap alignment in the US) for someone to turn six bolts while following specifications that no longer apply anyway.

    Also, prepare for "minimized tire wear" to be inconsistent with acceptable steering stability.

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    Agree. I plan on adjusting toe myself but accept that I have to spend the $60 to confirm it's straight first. ET is 13 on the front (15 rear ).

    My plan was to set toe to Mtech on the rack and then self adjust later to try to reduce the jumpyness. I am aware I have to accept tire wear, just wondered what other experiences were out there.
    Last edited by zubbie; 06-21-2018 at 06:36 AM.

  4. #4
    moroza's Avatar
    moroza is offline MORΩN ΛABIA BMW CCA Member
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    My only direct experience is that too much toe-in will cause jumpiness in a manner that feels a lot like too much toe-out. I once spent an afternoon trial-n-erroring with my 544iT (lowered by ~30mm, ET22) and was surprised to learn that. FWIW by the time it got that bad, eyeballs had little trouble seeing that it was definitely not straight.

    ET13 *and* 45mm drop? I think straight steering is a lost cause, regardless of tire wear. These should help, though maybe or maybe not enough.

  5. #5
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    I corrected camber after lowering and that fixed most of the jumpiness. I always use the string method for toe and have had no issues with tire wear. But then again I only use 225x55x16 tires.
    demet

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