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Clunking after putting on Meyle HD control arms and bushings

53K views 61 replies 28 participants last post by  johnboi84 
#1 · (Edited)
My original bushings went bad (~80K miles), so I replaced them with Meyle HD control arms + bushings. Soon after the Meyle were installed, the front suspension started to develop a metal clunking noise that can be heard and felt (through the floor board) on both sides. It also can be heard outside. It sounds like a metal-to-metal pop/snap.

The noise is mostly successfully reproduced by turning the steering wheel when accelerating/decelerating. Sometimes an abrupt take-off in a straight line can produces the noise too. However, going over bumps does not produce the noise.

I have searched intensively and extensively in here and other BMW forums. Two of the most helpful and relevant threads are these:
http://www.e46fanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=490479
http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=587245

I had couple BMW techs inspect the suspension. Nothing could be identified as the culprit. However, as BMW techs, they don't like any part that is not OE. In one occasion, while car was driving off the edge of the garage floor to the pavement (steering wheel turned), we could hear the clunk coming directly from the area behind the front wheel. We have inspected the tie rods too. They are fine.

I contacted the vendor. While they firmly refuted the theory that Meyle causes the clunk, they admit once or twice a year, out of the hundreds of sets of Meyle arms they sell, a customer would report such a problem. They attribute it to install error and the notion the improved/tighter ball joints/bushings would exacerbate the symptoms of the weak links in the suspension. With that said, they are willing to give me a full refund.

It's about 3 months now after the Meyle went in. The clunking has gotten worse. I now also have a steering wheel shake between 60-70 mph. When I take my hands off the steering wheel, I can actually see it shimmying.

I am without a job right now. Therefore, I don't have the money to follow some of the members who replaced strut mounts, struts, brake calipers, sway bar bushings, namely the whole suspension, to chase down the root of the problem. What I have decided to do is to buy a new set of OE control arms and bushings to put back in, and then ship the Meyle to the vendor. I believe it's the most financially feasible move at the moment. Hopefully it'll return my suspension to good form and ease my anguish.
 
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#13 ·
I'm guessing End Links as well.

17mm or 16mm depending on which brand you have.

OP, make sure to safely get both wheels off the ground before you tighten the end links...while you're there you may as well take them off, and inspect the ball joints on the end links (they should be pretty firm, a blown end link will be floppy), and will need to be replaced.

Good Luck.
 
#4 ·
So many Meyle went bad stories on the forum lately... not saying it's your Meyle parts that's causing it... just really making me want to go OEM forever. :(

Is this good or bad?
 
#5 ·
It's your endlinks. Tighten them well. You may need a zap of an impact wrench if you can't do it by hand.

As far as your shimmying goes, you need to get a good balance job done with a place that has their machines calibrated regularly. Not all balancing jobs are equal. You also need to remove the wheels and lightly sand all hub to wheel mounting surfaces. They need to be perfectly clean. You aren't using cheapo aftermarket wheels right? And tires, what condition are they in?
 
#6 · (Edited)
I assumed I would be auto subscribed to my own threads. Apparently not...

E46Mango, brand new OE end links had been installed while trying to pinpoint the problem. The clunk was the same before vs after.

Last night, a new set of Lemforder control arms and bushings went on the car. The clunk went away immediately! The whole front end is now quiet as a mouse. It feels tighter too (which may be subjective). The day before, I followed the advice of balancing the wheels. That cured most of the steering wheel shimmying. With the OE control arms/bushings installed now, the shimmying is virtually gone.

My car is back ^_^ Alignment is in order tomorrow morning.
 
#7 ·
This experience made an OE(M)-only believer out of me, especially when your financial means are stretched. Thanks to Max @ oembimmerparts for his understanding and commitment to customer satisfaction, I was able to return the Meyle HD.
 
#8 ·
Yeah man I ordered some stuff w max, he didnt have crush washers on his site. He threw them in for free when I contacted him on FB!!! Great service. That guy is on to something..
 
#11 ·
I got the same clunking after installing Meyle HD bushing. After 2 days triple checking everything I did; torque everything to spec over again; and checking forums to identify what did I do wrong?
The problem boils down to Meyle bushing design is not same as the OEM. The Meyle bushing outer metal cylinder where the control arm is inserted, the edges are not slightly bent out as the OEM. The control arm and the metal cylinder touch every time I hit a bump. I will replace with either a polyurethane version or OEM (not sure yet). BTW, I did a temporary fix to this by cutting pieces of the old bushing rubber and inserted in the open gaps between the metal cylinder and control arm (it***8217;s holding really good so far).
 
#16 ·
Guys look at the OP date...he solved it already too.

Bad quality control on the Meyle HD parts seems to be the issue here. I would bet a second set of Meyle HDs would be good, but I understand not buying another set and just going back to OEM. My Meyle HDs are great.
 
#17 ·
I am experiencing the same issue of a "clunking"sound during speeds of 70+and turns.

Recently replaced both control arms and the right one is secure yet the left one is able to move up & down.
 

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#19 ·
Place a block of wood directly under the balljoint you are tightening then jack that block of wood up a decent amount to get some weight of the car on it. Then torque the nut. i hope you're using genuine bmw nuts (brand new) i think the torque is around 48 ft lbs. (don't quote me on it though)
 
#24 ·
It seems like there have been a lot of problems with Meyle control arms lately. I also found out that many of the Meyle oil level sensors are defective; I know because I had one of them :ben:. My bad oil level sensor was made in China and I'm assuming that their control arms are being made there also, which may explain their lower level of quality.
 
#25 ·
Just did the Meyle HD Arms/wishbones HD FCABS , tie rods/boots and new sway bar end links. The Meyle HD arms are FANTASTIC!

Your problem is most definitely the sway bar end links. Hopefully you replaced em when you had the wishbones and everything else out..

Your sway bar end links may either be shot or just loose. I remember even my stock shocks and end links needed washers because the threading was much longer than the thickness of the mounting point on the shocks. If you dont have the washer on there, you would tighten the end link all the way down but it would rattle because it wouldnt be actually tight on the shocks mounting point. I hope that makes sense.

Here's another scenario that you could have;

Depending on your suspension set up, the bottom of the sway bar end link may bang the MEYLE control arm! Remove the wheel and look for nicks on the control arm right below where the sway bar connects to the sway bar end links. This happened to me. If your lowered your ride or are no longer using the OE suspension you will need adjustable length sway bar end links and may need to shorten them 1-3 inches shorter than the stock length to avoid the bottom sway bar end link ball joint banging the control arm.

If you cant get the adjustable end links soon or dont want to, you can rig something like I did to artificially shorten them so nothing bangs.

Here's what I did:

I cut a 2x 4" long x 2" Wide 1/4" thick galvanized steel plates.

I drilled 2 holes in each of the steel plates. One hole on the top of the plate, one hole on the bottom of the plate. The drilled holes are the exact same size as the stud in the sway bar end links.

I then purchased 1.5" long bolts the same thickness of the sway bar end link studs along with some lock washers, fender washers and of course corresponding bolts.

I bolted one bar to each shock using the lock washers. I bolted the bars facing upwards to the part on the shock where the sway bar end link would normally connect to the front shock.

After the bar was bolted on, I then drilled an additional small hole through both the galvanized steel plate and the shocks "sway bar end link mounting plate" right next to where the sway bar end link would normally bolt to the shock.

This then allows you to connect the sway bar end link about 3 inches higher than It would normally bolt to , to avoid the bottom of the end link from smacking the control arm. The additional small hole described above prevents the galvanized plate from spinning because there are now 2 bolt holes instead of one.
 
#26 ·
I've had my Meyle HD control arms and bushings for almost 10k now and I have no complaints. I had 125k on my old control arms and around 60k on my old bushings and the difference is night and day.
 
#29 ·
Good to hear people are at least getting something of value from their Meyle parts, but they are made in China. I searched numerous forums and they all seemed to say the same thing: Go OEM or Lemforder (Made in Germany and what I chose for my front control arms, bushings, tie rods and sway bar links). My gosh, what a difference after I put these bad boys on.
 
#27 ·
I'm getting the same "clunking" noise after a pretty thorough suspension refresh consisting of: Meyle Control Arms, OEM control arm bushings, OEM sway bar links, OE Sway bar bushings and tie rods. I'm so fed up that I will probably take it to an indy to check it all out, re-torque and check for any issues that I have not been able to find.
 
#36 ·
I have heard that our sway bar end links even when new can be loud and make popping sounds when turning..
No, they should not pop or clunk when new.

You're clueless. The fact that something was manufactured in China does not indicate that it is junk or even low quality. I've done my research on this. Meyle adheres to the same quality control standards as every other big part manufacturer. It doesn't matter where the parts are manufactured. As long as the factory adheres to the ISO standards, the parts coming out are free of defects and problems. What really matters is the design, which I think Meyle has done an excellent job on. The tired argument of, "Go genuine, OE or Lemfoerder" for control arms and bushings is a total waste at this point. You can spend more to get the OE or genuine name and feel better about it, but in the end numerous members here are running Meyle with absolutely no issues.

They manufacture parts all over the world. Even Germany itself if I'm not mistaken.
I'm pretty sure Meyle is not a manufacturer, they contract with other companies so all of their parts may not be of equivalent quality.

And I absolutely would not put blind faith in all of Meyle's products.

They do sell some quality parts, and they sell some crap parts. The safe bet, if one is ever unsure, is to buy from the brand who made the part originally for BMW.
 
#34 ·
I vote endlinks as well. It's easiest to blast them on with an impact BUT know that you have to use a deep socket. A friend of mine had the same issue because he didn't think to use a deep socket.
 
#42 · (Edited)
You installed them incorrectly.

If you mean me, I never said they were junk. I said that Meyle (as far as I know) doesn't manufacture their parts in Germany, but, instead, do so in China. Now, that doesn't mean the Meyle parts are junk.

But if you ask anyone on this board, would you rather pay 100 dollars for a Meyle part or 200 to 250 for one made in Germany by an OEM manufacturer, Genuine BMW or, the brand I chose, Lemforder, I think you'd receive consistent answers on which ones to choose. That is all.
I would venture to say that's incorrect. There is a daily struggle here to convince new members to avoid no name eBay junk. Meyle parts might as well be made of gold in comparison to those parts. Too many people here are too broke for OEM/Genuine parts.

I think you are mistaken. If you can find a factory that builds Meyle parts located physically in Germany, I will stand corrected.

Also, to say that 'it doesn't matter where a part is manufactured' is living with blinders on, sir. There's a reason Swiss watches and German industrial products are the best and most sought out in the world. High standards, high wages paid to the workers, meticulous machining and serious quality control.
I am unable to verify if they manufacture in Germany, but its beside the point. They probably don't, because it certainly would drive prices up. I stand by my initial statement that it doesn't matter where a part is manufactured or assembled. Did you completely ignore what I said, or did you just not read my post? If the design and materials are quality, and if the manufacturer adheres to ISO standards, it does not make any difference where the factory is located. It could be on mars, as long as the quality assurances practices are adhered to, the part will be identical to one coming out of Germany. It's ignorant to assume otherwise. I use Apple as an example a lot, but it works perfectly. They manufacture some of the most complex and precision consumer electrics available, and they do it all in China with almost no defective products making it to store shelves.

Manufacturing costs in places like Germany and Switzerland are cost prohibitive for many firms. They probably see a slightly lower number of defective products on the assembly line, but they pay for it 10 fold over manufacturing elsewhere. Not to mention, the products being manufactured in a place like Germany need to be so demand inelastic that people are willing to shell out quite a premium to purchase them because the manufacturing costs are so high, unfortunately most bushings and replacement parts do not have this type of elasticity.

Based on your response to me, I would venture to believe that you do not know what ISO standards actually are.

Lastly, I believe Febi is either owned by, or in a partnership with Bilstein. I've never tried Febi parts but I think I might consider than at some point.
 
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