Quote:
Originally Posted by Marty in NY
My money is on hydrogen embrittlement, I've seen what this can do in other applications and believe BMW's spring supplier had an out of control process. Interesting to note in my case is that one day my wife got in the car (2011 X3 35i at probably 70K-ish miles), started backing out of the driveway and heard a very loud bang. I was in the house and it sounded like a gun going off. Neighbors who were walking by shuttered, stopped and looked at her.
There was no obvious or visible rationale for the noise and I thought it was the brake pads breaking loose from the rotors as I had washed it the night before and put it in the garage, she was the first to take it out the next morning. So, since we couldn't find any other reason, I took it around the block, it seemed just fine, she got in it and drove off.
A little over a year later when I was replacing brake rotors and pads, I noticed the broken spring, passenger rear corner, and then it hit...we finally knew what that very loud bang was. In the year since it happened, we drove the car from Florida to NY, drove all year in NY and then back to Florida again, probably around 10K miles all in all and never knew the spring was broken...no noise, no ride hide diff, nothing.
We just got back from Florida a couple of months ago, I pulled it in the garage and have not driven it since due to the virus and as soon as the weather decides to warm up, I'll jack it up and see if there is a part number for the spring and will replace it. I have learned from members on this board that BMW used different part number springs depending on the options on your car so for those of you out there wanting to replace yours, be sure to get the correct part number spring.
Here is what my broken spring looks like. I will replace both springs and both shocks since I'm doing it myself.
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My 2015 X3 rear passenger side just snapped out of no where about a week ago now and never in my life did I think German engineering would be so poorly made. I might as well buy my self a K car! will be visiting the dealer soon to see what they can do as these things should not happen regardless of salt climate or not. Not cool BMW not cool.