what type of suspension is on the e60 525i

US owner?

It is just fine as it is - go buy a Cadillac if you want a slush-puppy!

With the previous E39, the best riding one had standard suspension and 15" wheels. As the wheels got bigger - and therefore the tyres lower profile - the ride got worse. Are your wheels the smallest option?

Just guessing but I doubt you'd find softer springs easily as most aftermarket types are handling orientated. And altering from standard to softer would effect the load carrying capacity - as well as being detrimental to the handling. It's a relatively easy job to beef up suspension to make a car handle 'better' but not so easy to improve the ride.

There are companies that will make springs to your specification.

The ride on my 3 went up with eibach springs and sachs sport dampers, although that was compared to 100k mile old original stuff.

Interesting but only useful if you run an F1 team - or a master at suspension dynamics and a lengthy time available for testing and type approval - Oh! this is only for driving around a private test track then....!

I hate to be a naysayer, but me thinks you paid extra for that.

One of the hall marks of a BMW is precision handling, a result of all that precision is that you feel the road. If you are feeling stuff on the road, you can be sure it's there and not coming from the car. If you feel some roads differently than others, that's the car doing its job.

If you "still feel a lot of bounce", perhaps you should have the condition of your existing suspension components checked. Have you owned the car since 2004 and has there been a gradual deterioration of the ride and/or handling?

Tom K.

I have an E39 528 with standard suspension and 15" wheels and a neighbour a new E36 535 diesel which I've driven. A most impressive performer, but somewhat spoiled (to me) by the poor ride. It has sports suspension and

18"? wheels with the original runflats. It *may* handle very much better at speed - I never had the chance to find out - but I've not found my car lacking in that respect either. On my test drive I took it round local roads I know very well and it certainly found potholes my car ignores. You could both feel and hear them. I don't think there are dramatic differences to the suspension so I concluded it's down to the bigger wheels and run flat tyres.

Dave

Can you remember what I said a couple of months ago? I was on the lookout for a nearly new (ex-demo) E65 730d and drove several but one in particular caught my eye. A FULLY LOADED 730d Sport.

It had 20" wheels with very low profile tyres - don't think they were run-flat - TV, IR camera, TV, Sat Nav, Bluetooth, Comfort access, fully powered boot lid (trunk), comfort seats, rear AC, cool box etc. etc.

Took it for a run down the A3 from Streatham to just past Esher and back.

TOTAL CRAP......... Ride far to hard, Every bump, pot-hole, road join, repair, white line, cats-eye.......

It wandered all over the road and made me feel queasy (hard to do to a driver) and my wife sick.

Nice looking car but a definite NO NO.

Another I looked at was a very nice 730d SE pretty bare in goodies but it had the 20" wheels and adjustable suspension.

Again on "sport" the dampers went hard but as it still had the stock springs it was, again, bumpy, thumpy, and difficult to keep in a straight line and it too found every pimple on the road surface. On Comfort (soft) ride it was like a boat on a slightly choppy sea. Yawing and Pitching all over the place and the tyres didn't help either. Thump --- whoa! up-down-around and around sway to the left then right. My wife turned green and we had to stop the car.

I must say that this test drive took place in Hungerford and comprised of a fairly fast A/B road and a local country hill/lane back road in need of a complete resurface (not that it will ever happen).

No my friend - stay well clear of 20" wheels and sport suspension unless you are only going to use the car once a month on a deserted airfield by yourself.

I have M-sport suspension and 17" wheels on my E39 540 and the ride is noticeably worse than my E34 with standard suspension and 15" wheels. The standard BMW suspension used to be an ideal compromise between handling and comfort. Frankly I don't think firm suspension adds anything. If you corner on a rough surface it feels like the car will skitter off the road. The low ride height looks good but makes it more likely you'll ground it out on something.

It appears to be the case that the motoring press in general think the BMW ride is pretty poor these days. Aftermarket alternatives may well give a better ride.

The press hear say it's mainly down to the run flat tyres. Who actually needs these damn things if they spoil day to day driving?

But I say again I'd be surprised if anyone offered softer springs than are available from the factory - I've never seen such a thing advertised. And there could be a very real problem with load carrying without some form of self levelling.

Is it definitely down to those? I haven't got run flats, just stiff springs, and it's bumpy enough. This was the optional sport suspension. I think this sort of thing is bought by middle aged men who fancy themselves a bit sporty. If the new BMWs are all 'firm and sporty' it's probably just pandering to fashion. Audis have been bumpy for ages and people claim to like it. Personally I believe more compliant suspension actually lets you make better progress on a typical road, but I can't back that up with figures.

He could let down the tyres a bit. On the E34, inflating them to the max recommended pressure made the ride too skittish, so I ran them at the minimum. I'm told if you put bigger than 15" wheels on the E34 it was crap too.

Actually I am VERY surprised to read this thread. I mean, suspension setup depends on personal taste... and personal taste depends also on where you live (different roads, better road maintenance, stricter policemen etc). Italy is certainly not famous for its fantastic road maintenance (but fortunately policemen here are not very strict so at least you can drive fast :-D). Personally, I think that comfort differences on modern cars are just a mental thing... people spending their driving time listening to bumps as if they were choosing a new hi-fi :-). If you were deaf, 95% of your perceived harshness would go away, because the asphalt hits the tires, but between the tires and your ass you have TWO suspension systems (the suspensions of the car and the seat, whose damping is very considerable), so basically if you didn't think you are breaking the car whenever you hear a bump you would see that suspension setup is just fine... even too soft, to tell the truth (there's plenty of roll). The actual vertical acceleration of the driver while going over bumps IMHO is really really low, unless bumps are really huge.

However, I don't see the point of wanting softer bmws, I mean, you can buy a mercedes or a jaguar or even a citroen if you're not so sport- oriented and you want more of a compromise... there's no such thing as a perfectly comfortable car with decent handling.... not as long as you are so demanding as far as comfort is concerned!

BTW, an anecdote: when I took my 330xd touring to the race track, I increased tire pressure about 15%, to lower tire temperatures (I was certain they were going to overheat). Actually that meant, IIRC,

2.8bar and 3.1bar, front and rear (!). Well, the pressure in those tires has NEVER been put back to its previous value, initially because of my laziness, but also because I decided it was good for road use, as well: my driving is quite sporty (when traffic allows me to do so), and higher tire pressure helped to make tire wear more even (but it's still quite uneven :-D). My parents and grandparents NEVER complained because I told them nothing, they never noticed the difference. Had I told them about that, they would have complained...

The Jag XJ series gets damn close. But having owned one I still prefer my

5 Series. On standard suspension and the small wheels it was originally designed for. ;-)

The actual vertical acceleration

There's a stretch of road near me where I bang my head on the roof of the car several times when I drive down it.

There's more to the comfort than just the overall spring rate. The damping has a lot to do with it too. Someone else mentioned tyre sizes and that it is a big part of the ride comfort.

What year are we talking about Dave? Last XJ I drove 2006 4.2 sovereign was really rubbish compared to the BMW 7 series in standard trim (not sport) in fact I found it weird on the steering - Jags have always had light steering but this one seemed to want to drive it's self or rather it was more point and aim. Very soft ride but held the road Ok but didn't feel as stable as the BMW

"tyres"? "whilst"? Not bloody likely in the US. If you're gonna try to be a Smartass=A9, at least be a good one - dumbass.

-- C=2ER. Krieger a=2Ea.bmw Chief Smartass=A9

I used to always do that: inflate the tyres to the 'fully loaded' pressure in the book. Sharpened up the steering no end. It worked for all my cars until the E34!