28 August 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.

I had a bit of bad luck recently with the wheels on my ride. First I ran into a huge pot-hole. I was driving at a fairly high speed at night and didn't manage to avoid the pot-hole. After the incident, I felt vibrations on the steering wheel at high speeds. It was very irritating so I took the car for balancing and alignment. When the left front wheel was put on the balancing machine, it was wobbling like crazy. The wheel was bent so badly that it had to be knocked back to shape. I had to leave the car at the workshop for an entire day whilst they fixed the problem.

A couple of weeks after the pot-hole incident, I hit the curb when parking my car. It was just at parking speed but I probably reversed hard into the kerb (looking at the damage it caused to the wheels). There was massive rubbing marks on the tire and the wheel protector on the tire couldn't prevent damage to the wheel. Luckily the tire wasn't damaged but the lip on the AC Type 1 wheel was badly kerbed. It looks like I have to make another trip to the workshop soon.

 

10 August 2009. Blog entry by Bimmerman.

I suspect I might have been supplied the wrong set of Eibach Pro-Kit springs although the part number on the box indicates they are for the BMW E34 525i 6-cylinder 24v. It is either that or I got a poor set of springs as they have sagged noticeably and the ride quality at the same rebound settings for the Koni absorbers is different from my friend's E34. Also, the top of the rear wheels have gone under the wheel arch and there's almost no space between the top of the front wheels and wheel arch. I looked at pictures of the E34 lowered on Eibach springs on the web and compared it to my friend's car. The ride height on mine is definitely lower.

I will definitely swap the Eibach springs out for something else when the time comes to change the Koni absorbers. I will look into either getting Bilstein B8 sport shocks (yellow colour) and match them with H&R springs or get the Bilstein B12 suspension kit. I may also consider coilovers if I can find one that provides a decent amount of comfort. There's so much written about how some coilovers for E46 provide comfortable street drive (e.g. Bilstein PSS9 and KW Variant 3). Unfortunately, it is more difficult to find coilovers for E34 compared to the more popular 3-series.