My car has a very slight side to side shimmy when I’m accelerating normally at low speed. It disappears, and it’s really slight to the point that you’d need a very smooth road and keen sense to notice.

I asked my dealer to check it out and they said it was the lowering springs that is effectively bending the axle. They are Schnitzer springs, so the drop is mild at 1”. Is this a reasonable assessment, and normal issue? Wheels are aligned, balances weighted and camber within oem spec. Any way to fix this?

I know lots of people have their car lowered and aren’t on coilovers.

 

Well I have never heard of that before and plenty of us are lowered, some pretty aggressively. How many miles on the car and springs?
Higher speed vibrations could be a bent rim and tire deformation and can be hard to see...I had a small bulge on the inside of one tire that did this. Also could be a wheel bearing...could jack it up and try and wobble the tire to see if there is any play. You could get vibrations due to worn engine mounts under acceleration as well.

 

I went in to install my steering wheel, asked about the vibration and my car has been at the dealer for 2 days, can’t wait to get the bill.

They reversed the wheels front to back, checked the balancing/alignment, tried new oem wheels, test drive it twice…they said it’s the lowering springs. They didn’t install the springs but said it was done right. They distribute Schnitzer…and I got my wheels/spacers/springs from them. I asked them to check with Schnitzer…as far as I’m concerned if the springs that are properly installed and camber is within oem specs, I’d love to hear what the Germans have to say. They wouldn’t even sell me $600 tips to go on the pro exhaust because it was in the BMW not mini parts catalog.

My car has 27,000 km, I changed rims, tires (non run flat), brakes, rotors and springs in the last 5,000 km. Motor mounts and cv joints should still be all good…I read a whole thread on it here on the last gen. I’m very always that 10%.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...installed.html

 

Inner CV Joints.
I wrote about this a couple years ago.

When you lowered your car, the inner joints moved away from the wear spots in the inner CV bucket.
The joints are tramlining

This guy can explain ti better:

 

thanks! That’s excellent info. Any way to get this fixed? Or is this just a byproduct of lowering your car? Is there something like a control arm that would pull it back in line? In my case it seems to be coming from the rear. Maybe some drivers are just more sensitive to the vibration.

I heard it happens sometimes, other times not.

 

They dont make spacers like the Honda boys.

Either replace the inner CV bucket, or wait until a new wear spot occurs.

Its the spider moving in and out of the wear spot causing the axle to vibrate.

Mine went away eventually.

 

I have the same vibration on my F56 JCW, I noticed it the instant the NM lowering springs went in and everything checked out cause the dealer did the install. I only had 3K on the odometer when they went in, I'm at 15K now and it's still there. Figure it will wear out over time.

 

​​​​​​​This is an interesting thread...I have never heard of this issue before. Thanks TvPostSound for the input on this as there are so many of us that lower our cars.