[jlm]

has anyone changed out their fromt/rear wishbone rubber mounts for polyurethane?

[DerekR]

No, but I did cut poly and insert in the webs of the front lower arm's rear bushing. That bushing seems way too compliant to me and there's noticeable fore and aft movement of the wheel on brisk acceleration - at least on my car.

By the way, John, any progress on the new bushings for the top mounts? My poly is now so misshapen that the bearing is clunking around in the holder - keeps noise on any bump now.

On a related topic - from your experience with the front end, is it possible to have enough negative camber on the MINI to cause the occasional complaint from the CV joints? I'm getting an occasional noise from the CV joint and I suspect it's a combination of the top mount problem above and the coilovers causing excessive negative camber. What do you think?

[jlm]

I noticed the same hopping on acceleration and expect to fit the powerflex bushings in a while. You can see what the effect is by prying between the fixed and flexed points near the bushing and observing how mudh the wheel moves; there is too much movement form my taste

I will have your parts ready to send by the end of this week; I ended up adding grease fiittings.

Lowering the front (with coilovers) didn't give me too much negative camber, but the rear does get more negative. I also had both front wheel bearing assemblies go out for unknown reasons and that was noisy. (Problem solved by replacing the wheel bearing units, but no one has a clue why they failed)

[DerekR]

Many thanks on the parts - just let me know when you're ready and I can email you my FedEx acct. info if you don't still have it.

Yes, I did the same prying at the rear of the arm and ended up using some poly - this was back before the Powerflex were actually available - I should really go for the suspension bushings I suppose. I have all the engine and gearbox bushings installed as i had a problem with the engine rocking so much it would not select gears under hard braking (and even under hard acceleration out of corners once or twice).

Curiously, I had the left front wheel bearing fail earlier this year - I followed your saga with interest. Mine was pretty obvious. Best guess - and this was by one of the roving BMW techs who happened to be here at the time and actually did the change for me - was it had been subjected to 'a large side load'. Meaning, I think, that he thought I had clipped the odd kerb. I did ride kerbs at the track but I sure did not slam the car sideways into anything - as i pointed out to him, my S-Lites and the lightweight 16" wheels were all pristine.

[Malc]

I have what might be noisy wheelbearings on the MC. It has camber plates (K-macs) and has run a lot of AutoX this year (two sets of Azenis worth ) . No coilovers, but I have been running with about -2deg camber and 1/16 in toe out

I recenty took it to Florida on the Autotrain and driving from the station was when I first noticed the noise. There is an Urban Legend around that says that the way they tie cars down and the swaying of the train can damage wheelbearings. Considering the number of cars that get transported and the few that suffer WB problems it does not sound very credible.

[DerekR]

Curious that all of us who have reported wheelbearing issues compete and have changed wheels (I assume). Maybe it's a spec problem. Would be interesting to check the part number of the wheel bearing in '02 and now and see if BMW have introduced a new part.