[knightarmor]

Figured I'd start a new thread with KW in the title to give my feedback on the KW V1's I installed a couple of weeks ago.

Right off the ride has improved greatly compared to the OEM standard suspension that came with the M-Sport package. All of the roughness and jarring that was present with the OEM suspension has now been smoothed out. Even my wife agrees that the X1 rides much nicer with the KW's, even withthe 225/50-18 Pirelli runflats.

Handling is awesome. I got to drive it at speed (approx. 60mph.) on some long windy roads yesterday and the X1 was planted all through the turns. The valving, as always on KW's, is superb. The compression setup they have on the V1's just inspires confidence and gives no evidence of any type of dive into a corner and there is no nose diving on hard stops.

My only gripe currently is that shimmy we get accelerating from a standing stop or after making a turn into a street and accelerating. I've been able to narrow the shimmy down to it happening between 10-20mph, it is not felt through the steering and literally feels like drive shaft wobble as we can feel it through the floor and into the seats at times. It doesn't happen always which is very odd. There are no other vibrations up to 80mph and there is no vibration during hard acceleration under speed.

Will keep everyone posted on what I find. We have a long trip coming up in May so we'll see how it does.

[Proper]

Looks great! Looking forward to mine going in.

As to the shimmy, sounds like it could be a imbalanced wheel somewhere.

[knightarmor]

Not wheels and tires, i swapped to winters and it does the same thing. There was no issue at stock height either.

[vince1288]

how's the ride on V1? I am with V3 on my F48 X1, i think V3 is too waste on F48 X1...

[Douggie]

Originally Posted by vince1288

how's the ride on V1? I am with V3 on my F48 X1, i think V3 is too waste on F48 X1...

It is only a waste if you don't play around and tune the rebound/compression. So since you already have it, spend some time tuning it to your own preference.

[knightarmor]

Originally Posted by vince1288

how's the ride on V1? I am with V3 on my F48 X1, i think V3 is too waste on F48 X1...

It rides awesome, except for the shimmy we have at low speed acceleration. Is yours xdrive or fwd?

I only have V3s on one of our cars. I agree its not worth the extra $$$ unless you have time to go to the track and set it up properly. I have V1s on my club car and am super happy with it. I spend time tuning the rest of the chassis instead of messing around with dampers.

[WeryPert1]

Thanks for the initial impressions! Yes, please report back after your road trip. I absolutely LOVED the KW V2's I had on my 2005 Subaru LGT and am very interested in these V1's for the wifey's X1.

[knightarmor]

So have been looking for the root cause of our vibration during standing stop acceleration. Early on when we first got our X1 I noticed what looked like a ballast or counterweight on the rear of the rear differential. Today while doing some more inspecting I noticed the label has a frequency on it. This leads me to believe that this vibration has always been present and BMW tuned it out using the weight. Somehow by changing the ride height, and I assume the angle of the rear axles, we have negated what this weight was doing.

Proper- wondering if you can snap a photo of the weight on your X1 when it's up in the air to see if it has the same frequency listed on it?

Luckily I have some CD's from my old car audio days that will have 38Hz that I can play and see if the vibration matches what we are feeling in the drivetrain of the X1.

[Proper]

Good observation. Once my car is on the lift I will try and locate to snap a picture.

[Proper]

I did a quick search of the part number, looks like its a standard frequency throughout the F48 line.

https://www.automuha.ro/magazin/pies...-13675709.html

[knightarmor]

Yea I saw that but I was wondering if there is a different part number with a different frequency on it.

[vince1288]

Originally Posted by Douggie

It is only a waste if you don't play around and tune the rebound/compression. So since you already have it, spend some time tuning it to your own preference.

The V3 runs great, but X1 is just a SUV not a sport car... That's why I mentioned it is waste... I think V1 is good enough for X1.

[vince1288]

Originally Posted by knightarmor

It rides awesome, except for the shimmy we have at low speed acceleration. Is yours xdrive or fwd?

I only have V3s on one of our cars. I agree its not worth the extra $$$ unless you have time to go to the track and set it up properly. I have V1s on my club car and am super happy with it. I spend time tuning the rest of the chassis instead of messing around with dampers.

The shimmy should caused by you lower down the car too much, as I do...And mine is fwd.
I did try to adjust the height higher and the shimmy gone. but i like lower much, so i lower it down again

[Proper]

Originally Posted by knightarmor

Yea I saw that but I was wondering if there is a different part number with a different frequency on it.

Gotcha. Ill touch base again once I get my car on the lift. I am hoping to have my wheels in Thursday and install everything for the weekend or early next week.

[knightarmor]

Originally Posted by vince1288

The shimmy should caused by you lower down the car too much, as I do...And mine is fwd.
I did try to adjust the height higher and the shimmy gone. but i like lower much, so i lower it down again

Do you recall how high you had to go for the shimmy to go away? This is interesting because according to the paperwork i am very well within kws recommended ride height settings. I went up quite a bit , not as high as stock and it never went away.

[knightarmor]

Hey Vince also how many miles have you put on the KWs so far?

[GenXer]

Can I get a more supple ride with this upgrade even if I don't want to reduce my ride height? Would this be another modification that voids warranty?

[Douggie]

Originally Posted by GenXer

Can I get a more supple ride with this upgrade even if I don't want to reduce my ride height? Would this be another modification that voids warranty?

If you do not want to modify the ride height, you can always just get dampeners from guys like Bilstein. Will be a cheaper option.

As for warranties, any type of modification will give them a chance to void it. But then, they should only void things related to the modification. For example, it doesn't make sense that they void the audio system warranty because you changed the dampeners

[Proper]

Originally Posted by GenXer

Can I get a more supple ride with this upgrade even if I don't want to reduce my ride height? Would this be another modification that voids warranty?

Start with dumping the RFT if you have them. Also with coil overs you can set the car to factory height. You do not have to go low.

[allwheelsdriven]

Can you also give it a bit more lift for offroad?

[knightarmor]

Originally Posted by allwheelsdriven

Can you also give it a bit more lift for offroad?

This kit will not raise the vehicle.

[knightarmor]

Happy to report that after raising the X1 a full 1/2" all around the vibration is gone. I need to do testing with a fully loaded vehicle so I'll be loading it up this weekend to see how it does.

I'm a little disappointed in the allowable travel BMW put in the halfshafts. Based on what Vince said it appears it's the front halfshafts which I find odd since I couldn't feel the vibration through the steering wheel when it happens.

Overall I am still happy with the ride height and based on dimensions I got from Proper I'm dropped about an inch from stock since he's on lowering springs. That's about what I initially wanted to lower the vehicle to anyway since it's the family car and our only AWD vehicle.

Here's a shot of how much travel is left on the front spring perch. You can make out the clean threads, that's how much I had to go up to get rid of the standing start "shimmy" the vehicle had when that low. Will get more pics of the X1 this weekend so you can see the final ride height.. again.