BMW E34 Front Control Arm Suspension Package M5 Upgrade

[Ted K]

Has anyone used these on your cars?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-E34-Front-Control-Arm-Suspension-Package-M5-Upgrade_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33583QQitemZ800 0651962QQrdZ1
4 Control Arms 2 Tie Rods 2 Sway Bar Links 1 Idler Arm

[brodee]

No, but I just bought a set of thrust arms with 750 bushings and a bunch of suspension stuff for my e30 from that guy today.

[Kalevera]

Do a seach on FCP Groton.

Some like them; I, personally, think they sell junk.

The topic of Groton gets brought up every few months....thud thud thud, as Bill would say ;)

best, whit

[uscharalph]

Has anyone used these on your cars?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BMW-E34-Front-Control-Arm-Suspension-Package-M5-Upgrade_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ33583QQitemZ800 0651962QQrdZ1
4 Control Arms 2 Tie Rods 2 Sway Bar Links 1 Idler Arm
I know we've talked about Hamburg-Technic parts before and I think the majority would pay more for Lemforder parts. Search Hamburg-Techinic to read aboutit.

[Jon K]

Lemforder arms, Grunt bushings...


enough said.

[uscharalph]

I know we've talked about Hamburg-Technic parts before and I think the majority would pay more for Lemforder parts. Search Hamburg-Techinic to read aboutit.
Actually that eBay seller also sells som Meyle parts. Ican't remember what the consensis was on them.

[pmlmotorsports]

I am so tired of the name bashing in this place.......whether it's tires, suspension, exhausts, or air and oil filters, EVERYBODY has an opinion, and they are certainly entitled to it. However, these opinions can sway a member into a purchase that they may have never made otherwise. As for the guys @ Groton, I have personally used their stuff, and BELIEVE IT OR NOT, some of the Hamburg products have actually had the Lemforder "Owl" casted into the part. Since Hamburg Technic is a company that manufactures NOTHING, but instead buys overstocked inventory from the larger part manufacturers globally, you will often get Lemforder, Meyle, and even Sachs parts in the box. Here is the importer's website, give'em a call. http://www.eurostarinc.com/customer_service.shtml Just remember this, Bilstein was never offered as OEM on any E34, including the M5, yet if you read this forum, you'd be an ass for using anything but. I guess all those engineers over at BMW are asses for not using Grunt bushings, Triflo exhausts, Bruno's subframe inserts, or Bilstein shocks and struts. Who'd have thunk it?

[Jon K]

I am so tired of the name bashing in this place.......whether it's tires, suspension, exhausts, or air and oil filters, EVERYBODY has an opinion, and they are certainly entitled to it. However, these opinions can sway a member into a purchase that they may have never made otherwise. As for the guys @ Groton, I have personally used their stuff, and BELIEVE IT OR NOT, some of the Hamburg products have actually had the Lemforder "Owl" casted into the part. Since Hamburg Technic is a company that manufactures NOTHING, but instead buys overstocked inventory from the larger part manufacturers globally, you will often get Lemforder, Meyle, and even Sachs parts in the box. Here is the importer's website, give'em a call. http://www.eurostarinc.com/customer_service.shtml Just remember this, Bilstein was never offered as OEM on any E34, including the M5, yet if you read this forum, you'd be an ass for using anything but. I guess all those engineers over at BMW are asses for not using Grunt bushings, Triflo exhausts, Bruno's subframe inserts, or Bilstein shocks and struts. Who'd have thunk it?


No OEM would use a solid bushing in a luxury car, or a free flow exhaust that sounds froma mile away... etc etc

[632 Regal]

dont tell anyone but im evaluating the thrust arms, got about 10k on them now. the only thing I did notice about them parts is the paint sux, have to buy a can of rustolium so they dont rust but every other aspect looks legit. Only got 30k out of the Lemforder arms so for the price I figured I would give these an honest trial.

[Bill R.]

lemforder is a manufacturer of high quality parts that has a reputation for excellence, thats why they are a OE supplier to bmw... Meyle and Hamburg-technics are not manufacturers, they are middlemen distributors who contract out with various suppliers who manufacture parts... A large number of these parts are coming from china, malaysia, india etc.. common sense would tell you that they are getting these parts very cheaply and reboxing and marking them up accordingly. If you do a search for hamburg technics you'll come across many posts with complaints about the quality of the parts that come from india. I'm real curious about this because in the US its required by law to identify the country of origin on the parts that you buy... and i don't remember anybody mentioning that their hamburg parts actually came from china or hong kong. And a number of you mention that the little owl is ground off and that these are actually lemforder parts...IF you were making counterfeit parts (and this is a very big industry) the cheapest and easiest way is to get one of a good quality manufacturer such as lemforder and use it to make the mold for your sand casting, when you do this the little owl will transfer right over..so to avoid counterfeiting charges you grind off any indicators like this.. then the rumors can start... "These parts are really lemforder but we bought them as an overstock and they ground off the id" etc etc...
In this day and age its very easy to make copies of quality parts with substandard materials and very few people are going to be able to tell the difference until early parts failures occur...
All the auto manufacturers are fighting this problem right now with cheap copies... The point of all this is if you buy the lemforder brand name you know what quality you are getting... If you buy meyle or hamburg technic its very uncertain.. As far as bilstein you don't ever find me plugging them here, i personally prefer boge, kyb, koni etc all name brands also.. I don't like the way the biltsteins ride on most cars. And as far as everybody has an opinion, lets say that opinion of some of us who install and use these parts every day may hopefully carry a little more weight than others.








I am so tired of the name bashing in this place.......whether it's tires, suspension, exhausts, or air and oil filters, EVERYBODY has an opinion, and they are certainly entitled to it. However, these opinions can sway a member into a purchase that they may have never made otherwise. As for the guys @ Groton, I have personally used their stuff, and BELIEVE IT OR NOT, some of the Hamburg products have actually had the Lemforder "Owl" casted into the part. Since Hamburg Technic is a company that manufactures NOTHING, but instead buys overstocked inventory from the larger part manufacturers globally, you will often get Lemforder, Meyle, and even Sachs parts in the box. Here is the importer's website, give'em a call. http://www.eurostarinc.com/customer_service.shtml Just remember this, Bilstein was never offered as OEM on any E34, including the M5, yet if you read this forum, you'd be an ass for using anything but. I guess all those engineers over at BMW are asses for not using Grunt bushings, Triflo exhausts, Bruno's subframe inserts, or Bilstein shocks and struts. Who'd have thunk it?

[Kalevera]

Jeff -- you're doing that, too? I've got the complete HT/karlyn/trw/whatever front end on the car. Got a brake shimmy at ~ 10k miles, but that can't be pinned on the parts until I replace the tires.

best, whit

[632 Regal]

I didnt want to brag about this because I also believe Lemforders to be good quality...everytime.

BUT without giving them a spin I wouldn't be able to comment on the subject of these purchased from that particular seller.

Besides for the cost at 10k miles I already broke even with the Lemforders cost at 30k.



Jeff -- you're doing that, too? I've got the complete HT/karlyn/trw/whatever front end on the car. Got a brake shimmy at ~ 10k miles, but that can't be pinned on the parts until I replace the tires.

best, whit

[Jon K]

I am siding with Bill on this. Lemforder arms w/ bushings pressed are what, $99 from BMA ea? $400 for upper and lower arms w/ bushings? I mean yeah, it'd be nicer to pay $300, or $280, but the issue is this... i took one weekend to do this repair. One weekend of sweat and time should not have to be followed up by a parts failure. The matter of it is, too, that if you do the repair, and you drive on them and it fails, you're going to come on the forum and share what happened. 100 people are going to say the parts sucked, 100 people are going to say you didn't torque them under load / properly, and a 100 people are going to answer with "yeah, that'll happen" with no experience in anything. Sure, if I wanted to experiment with the safety and general operation of my car, I could put in a Korean or Indian control arm and save $100. Would I want my mother, sister, girlfriend in the car when a control arm breaks and I hug a median @ 60 mph? No.

My buddy JUST last week called me and said "my wheel fell off." He was about 2 miles off campus and the tow trucks was already on the way, so he told me to not bother coming to get him but to check it out at the shop. Turns out his control arm (the "lower" one like on our cars) broke in half. He doesn't abuse the car ('99 Stratus). It was in for bushing replacement and the indy mechanic/insurance company fixed it with aftermark parts (he got hit). The part was from Korea and not OEM, it broke AS he came to a stop sign meeting Route 309 in Quakertown, a road that has people doing 60 - 80mph with cross streets... imagine if the control arm failed as he were making a right on red or something... Thats the short of **** that makes me pay $100.

That's not to say that I don't use aftermarket parts because as many of you are aware, that couldn't be further from the truth. I just have a real "fear" if you can call it that of front end suspension. Especially something that controls what direction my wheels point. I don't mind the back wheels being loose ;) but the front ones are for me to decide where they face. I don't use dealerships, but I use OE parts; you can save $ on aftermarket parts, but if you do the labor yourself, and you buy OE, you're still coming out on top. Now, tires, rotors, pads (and yes brakes are important too... but brakes dont have the same work/fail rate of control arms), drivetrain, suspension, I will use aftermarket usually to upgrade... but it's with proven aftermarket... I stick my neck out in the open a lot (cough, supercharger, cough) but when it comes to safety I like to know my **** is going to work.

[632 Regal]

Jon I do agree with you but also feel that these parts do deserve an evaluation with a posted review. The arms are iron with the better bushings so I dont really expect the things to snap like dry toast while hugging medians...not that I practice that.

Bills point is absolutly correct because he is working on many "other peoples" cars, there is NO WAY I would use these parts in them "especially" since they have NOT BEEN evaluated by anyone. I can pretty much assure that any of the other mechanics on this forum would stick to the Lemforder quality because of the liability risk of using non quality assured parts.

Between me and Whit I think we will finally have an opportunity to actually see an evaluation by current long term members of this forum. With Whit also being a mechanic and me being...umm... well at least a post whore we can post our personal experiences with these particular items. I have about 10k on mine so far so until they fail at under the 30k that the Lem's did I will continue my evaluation...

[Bill R.]

better be cast or forged steel..:) I still don't understand why your lemforders only lasted 30k... makes me suspicious that they may have been counterfeit.. As far as the differences in casting materials, there can be a tremendous difference in casting alloys, purity of the material, casting conditions, annealing and final machining. The odds of one snapping are pretty slim but you can never tell if due to poor casting practices you have a large void in a piece that weakens it enough.. Another area of concern is the material used in the bushings themselves, these can also vary alot in quality. And then there is the actual machining of the ball and socket of ball and socket of the ball joint, no way to tell how precisely machined they are.
Not just on a customers car but on my own its not worth the price savings to me to justify using a unknown brand




Jon I do agree with you but also feel that these parts do deserve an evaluation with a posted review. The arms are iron with the better bushings so I dont really expect the things to snap like dry toast while hugging medians...not that I practice that.

Bills point is absolutly correct because he is working on many "other peoples" cars, there is NO WAY I would use these parts in them "especially" since they have NOT BEEN evaluated by anyone. I can pretty much assure that any of the other mechanics on this forum would stick to the Lemforder quality because of the liability risk of using non quality assured parts.

Between me and Whit I think we will finally have an opportunity to actually see an evaluation by current long term members of this forum. With Whit also being a mechanic and me being...umm... well at least a post whore we can post our personal experiences with these particular items. I have about 10k on mine so far so until they fail at under the 30k that the Lem's did I will continue my evaluation...

[Jon K]

better be cast or forged steel..:) I still don't understand why your lemforders only lasted 30k... makes me suspicious that they may have been counterfeit.. As far as the differences in casting materials, there can be a tremendous difference in casting alloys, purity of the material, casting conditions, annealing and final machining. The odds of one snapping are pretty slim but you can never tell if due to poor casting practices you have a large void in a piece that weakens it enough.. Another area of concern is the material used in the bushings themselves, these can also vary alot in quality. And then there is the actual machining of the ball and socket of ball and socket of the ball joint, no way to tell how precisely machined they are.
Not just on a customers car but on my own its not worth the price savings to me to justify using a unknown brand


Well having my sister in a '95 530i I've done work on, I wouldn't put it in hers either, just because I know its one less thing I need to second-guess. And like you said, the paint came off etc. Seriously, surface rust is a big deal on items that require strength. They're not iron, they're steel, and steel as we all know rusts. A high-stress item like that should definitely not have any rust on it. Like Bill said, the castings are typically fine, but the truth is, there's a reason they're cheaper. I just replaced a computer motherboard with "GSC" brand capacitors. The company provided many manufacturers with capacitors to replace Sanyo, Samsung, NEC, etc brand capacitors on motherboards because of costs... they copied the design and formula but apparently not well enough as almost every GSC capacitor has leaked now. Just like if the casting was copied from a Lemforder but not close enough... its not rocket science, but the cheaper cost comes because theres probably some R&D or QC left out SOMEWHERE. It could be that they use Fedex instead of UPS, who knows... but the point is, Lemforder was the original manufacturer with the original castings and manufacturing procedure, I'd hate to see one of the other arms fail, requiring replacement when a lemforder product could have been used originally. And I know, Jeff, you said your lemforders failed in 30k, and I understand your willingness to switch to another product. I had my 750i OEM bushings fail (installed properly) after about 10k miles. I switched to a relatively unproven bushing (Grunt). I took the same risk because the urethane is injected, it could have air bubbles that affect integrity, and i took that chance. But a bushing isn't as terminal as an arm. I'd be fine to read that people want to get cheap bushings in lemforder arms.... but I dunno, i've always considered control arms/steering components a spot to not scrape thin on. But that's me personally, I am sure the aftermarket arms are probably fine.

[Jon K]

Also I'd like to throw one more thing out there. It is good to see that the aftermarkets are all steel. I know there are OEM (in fact the E34s came stock with) aluminum arms out there. They're cast aluminum which requires more detail to retain strength. Things like stress cracks and pits can cause the whole item to crack. The steel ones dont break in half as likely, rather they would bend, but nonetheless, it's good at least that the aftermarkets are steel and not aluminum.

[Lennyz525i]

I'm also using a complete FCP enhanced front suspension. I think I'm nearing 10K miles on it. I have clunking and rattling going but I doesn't feel like its coming from the suspension. I still have to look into it. California bay area roads are a great test for suspension. I can't believe the richest and most expensive state in the richest country in the world has shitty, dirty third world roads and highways....

[Bill R.]

And the aftermarkets are available in aluminum, now whether its forge or cast is a good question...I find it hard to imagine that even the cheesiest aftermarket would use an aluminum casting instead of a forging.. but the requirements to make forgings over castings are a big difference.


.
Also I'd like to throw one more thing out there. It is good to see that the aftermarkets are all steel. I know there are OEM (in fact the E34s came stock with) aluminum arms out there. They're cast aluminum which requires more detail to retain strength. Things like stress cracks and pits can cause the whole item to crack. The steel ones dont break in half as likely, rather they would bend, but nonetheless, it's good at least that the aftermarkets are steel and not aluminum.

[632 Regal]

As for the control arms that is an area where even I wouldnt want to take the chance with aluminum from aftermarket, Lemforder or steel only.


And the aftermarkets are available in aluminum, now whether its forge or cast is a good question...I find it hard to imagine that even the cheesiest aftermarket would use an aluminum casting instead of a forging.. but the requirements to make forgings over castings are a big difference.


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