I should have posted this ages ago as this problem started last year, but I've had a lot going on and dealing with headaches like this hasn't been at the top of my list. This is gonna be a long one, grab a beer...
My car: 2005 coupé, 93k miles at the time. Steering is SPOT ON - car tracking straight as an arrow (as it always had), steering feel tight and crisp. Then I curbed the LF wheel pulling into a parking space one day - pretty decent rash, and banged the curb pretty hard. Enough that the car was now pulling to one side. So I take it to my trusted alignment shop (not my BMW mechanic). They pull me outside to show me that the FCABs were shot (they had been replaced at 55k, so not surprising as we all know that stock FCABs don't last particularly long). I thank them and take it to my indy mechanic to have them replaced. He's a dealership veteran, a BMW master mechanic, and very familiar with the older cars such as the E46. He installs poly bushings, which I wouldn't have otherwise wanted, tells me that he always does due to the better longevity, and assures me that I won't sense any undue NVH. So I let him proceed. Here's where things start to get weird.
He installs them and aligns the car. I get it back, and it still pulls and wanders a bit. And sometimes doesn't pull at all. Just generally flaky behavior up front. I decide to return to my alignment shop, which I trust implicitly, and have them check the alignment and realign if necessary. Their printout confirms it's out of spec and they perform another alignment, printout confirming now within spec. But same problems persist.
I return to my mechanic and express my frustration. His #1 guy (there's only one other guy besides him lol) drives it and decides that he's pretty certain that it's a tire problem that's causing the behavior. Suggests that I take it to Discount Tire for road force balancing, which will confirm if there's a bad bead or other issue up there someplace. I follow his advice, and Discount does the road force balancing, no charge - I love those fuckers, have been a customer for decades. They assure me that the tires check out fine.
So... I blow it off and basically drive my Golf R exclusively for the next several months, not wanting to hassle with the damn thing. Then my buddy moves out from Florida and needs a car while he's in town half the month while he's on call. He's a former mechanic and M4 owner and immediately laments how crappy the driving experience is due to the issue, recalling how perfect it had been initially (I originally found the car in Miami and he test drove and handled the sales transaction for me back in 2012. But I digress.)
Fast forward to this week. He now has the car in Vegas (where he has just bought a house), but his M4 has just arrived from Florida, so I've actually put it up for sale (posted here in the appropriate section here). I decided I wanted to sort out the front end before selling. I had him take it to a local Vegas shop today with solid reviews. Their analysis after driving it: they think it's the steering rack, because the guy flipped a Youee™ in it, and it didn't re-center as it should have. Then he went on to explain they could replace it with a rebuilt rack, or do a new one. Then he explained that they had one customer they had to get 3 rebuilds in for, because the first 2 had issues with worn parts! What the hell. In other words, they were sourcing "used" racks that were merely "cleaned up", not truly rebuilt units. Said he could do a new OEM rack and have it out the door including labor for "under a grand". So we discussed that (me and my pal) and mutually decided that throwing that kind of money at a problem, when it's a freaking guess, was not a prudent plan. And I lost a lot of confidence over the whole "rebuilt rack" scenario they described. Was this just some ploy to try to get me to spring for a new one? I dunno. So... on to another shop for another opinion. These guys drove it, and they seem to think the FCABs are the culprit, which given the timeline, would make a lot of sense. They say that they used to install poly all the time, but found that they do NOT fare well in the desert heat of Vegas, which is the same or worse in Phoenix. Only fly in that ointment is that they were brand new when this started, so not really time for them to "break down" in the heat. They want to put it on the lift and have a look (duh - why did the first shop not even suggest doing that?). All their bays were occupado today so they asked him to come back in a few days and they will have a "free" look for further diagnosis.
What do y'all make of all this? Any and all suggestions and stories of firsthand experience most appreciated. I want to get this sorted so that I can either sell the car in good working order, or if I'm gonna keep it, be happy to drive it again.
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Originally Posted by KevinC
