55mph shimmy

yeh and?

In message , Ben Organ writes

...and any problems with the rear driveshafts are unlikely to cause vibration through the steering wheel.

If you'd visited any specialist BMW group, you'd soon realise this is

*the* common reason for steering shimmy - assuming your tyres aren't knackered. All the others are well down the list.

And if you've slid the rear end into something hard enough to bend the drive shafts then a bit of shimmy at the steering wheels probably the least of your worries

hmm.. ive visited many, and hes been to many specialist dealers and garages and all have suggested different things...

It wasnt as much through the steering wheel - that was the brake servo and discs causing that, but there was still a wobble there - not really through the steering wheel though, and changing the driveshafts fixed that for some reason....

I'm the OP. It's unrelated to braking. Shimmy starts around 55mph, goes away by the time I'm over 65.

Of course they would. Makes them money, dunnit?

Bit of advice - read a group that specialises in your car, and correlate the majority view. Not 'this happened to a friend of a friend of my sister's boyfriend' - but honest direct reporting.

I've read several sources that complained about early failure of the front wheel bearings ... rarely below 70-80,000 miles, but failure none the less. Given current bearing/seal technology, a bearing should be able to serve for the life of the car: in excess of 250,000 miles.

The E39 has several weaknesses, most of which are noise level issues. The major ones are few and perhaps the only one of serious impact is that the radiator (usually the neck at the top) is prone to cracking. Lose your coolant miles from home and you've got a problem.

R / John

Theoretically, back in the real world the abuse always seems to stuff them up earlier.

Anything can and will fail, but it's not common on an E39 - at least with standard wheels and tyres.

Think that only really refers to the 8 cylinder cars, which are generally less reliable than the sixes.

Appears to be true, but its the same plastic-type part. Like the idea of the V-8's considerable grunt, but how I love the song of the six ... and the reliability is legendary. Perhaps an M-64 in the 5er?

R / John

independent

I see you've had quite a bit of advice on this already, and my money would definitely be on wheel balance first, and as people have said, it's best done with the wheels on the car. However, about a year ago I went through a similar process of elimination by replacement on my '87 E28 at ~150k: new tyres & balancing (twice), discs, track control arms, strut inserts... none of which affected the shimmy at all. I finally realised it was the brakes binding, and the cause is peculiar to RHD cars. What happens is that the linkage across from the brake pedal to the master cylinder on the left side has a couple of pivots which eventually seize up, preventing the brakes from releasing fully. I wouldn't expect that to happen on a relatively new, low-mileage car like yours, but you never know. The test is to hook your foot under the brake pedal and pull it upwards. If the shimmy disappears, that's the problem found.

Trevor Morris