[Ant94]

After about a year of dealing with shimmy and vibrations in my car I finally got to replace my front upper control arms and ball joints. The car has 65k miles so I didn't exactly expect it, but I have to say it's made a significant improvement on the way the car drives, it feels much more solid and doesn't "thunk" when hitting small bumps. The car also feels much better at highway speeds and the steering lost it's vague feel.

Now that I have the front end nice and tight, the rear feels a little bumpy. On certain bumps where the front stays quiet, the rear kinda shakes the car. Does anyone know if any bushing wears abnormally in the rear just like the front ones?

[namadio]

How did you determine it was your upper control arms and ball joints? Why upper and not lower? I've got an 08 with high mileage (112k). I've been to numerous shops and have wheel shimmy in 55-65 range. One guy said 3 bent rims. One guy said 1 bent rim. Many shops have said no bent rims. Rotated and road forced balanced a few times. Had an alignment in feb. Been fighting this for about a year now. Extremely annoying as my buddy's 03 325 drives 10x better with 250k on it.

[Castle]

Last week I changed upper control arms (wishbones) and bushings. After I took everyting apart I realized I should've gotten the whole lower control arms instead of just the bushings, since besides having to take the arms to a shop with a press to fit the bushings, I noticed the other end of the control arms was shot too. So I recommend everyone to just go ahead and change the whole arm. Well, BMW recommends that too, but I didn't listen.

[Ant94]

I did what the video said in my driveway, and I saw that the wheels were moving forward and backward in the fender.