E46 Shock mounts suck!

[Coco Savage]

i picked up the RE ones for my car because i have heard of the horror stories! Im crossing my fingers this Never happens to me!!

i believe e46f has a thread on how to get this covered by bmw

[MikesJo]

i picked up the these bad boys while at bimmerfest from the ie booth. I don't think i'll ever use a stock mount again.

The build quality on these are great :). I'd just go with these. I should have put the washer on the oem e46 ones, I did on the IE ones, lol. Live and learn. If you can afford it, go with the IE ones. I've heard good tings about the GCs as well.

[Sam Lin]

so the consensus is....install the e46 mounts correctly and if you can't do that buy the aftermarket ones

Uh, no. Consensus is: Install ANY mounts correctly.

Sam

[einstein57]

i picked up the these bad boys while at bimmerfest from the ie booth. I don't think i'll ever use a stock mount again.

[LINUS]

Oh my, I went for the E46 //M mounts too when i did my Koni yellows.

I trust that my tech installed the washers..........

If you have the dust shields in place (pt #5 on the realoem pic) then part #6 is there - the rim of the washer is what retains the dust shield in place. It's not as critical, but a load spreading washer up top wouldn't kill you either - that's a simple doublecheck too, just pull back the fender carpet & see what you got.

[speedhop]

so the consensus is....install the e46 mounts correctly and if you can't do that buy the aftermarket ones

[mtechnik]

Oh my, I went for the E46 //M mounts too when i did my Koni yellows.

I trust that my tech installed the washers..........

[Schniddy]

its painfully obvious that the rubber part is going to push out without the large metal washer in place...there is NOTHING to stop the shock from pushing out of the mount. this should be a no-brainer.

now that I think of it, I think I did the supension two summers ago. :(
and Yeah you are right I have no idea why they weren’t there. Nonetheless, the new mounts are in and I don’t think the shocks are blown. Huge difference in the way the car handles, the rear end seams much firmer and intune with the front-end.

[golde30]

its painfully obvious that the rubber part is going to push out without the large metal washer in place...there is NOTHING to stop the shock from pushing out of the mount. this should be a no-brainer.

[Schniddy]

I must have forgot those bottom washers a year ago when I did my shocks. I'm putting ones in now with new shock mounts.

Whats an indication that the shocks are blown? I dont think they are, but when I compress both of them, they come back to normal at different times. the one gradually goes up and the other does the same except for the last 25% ( it shoots up faster during that last 1/4)

[MikesJo]

My e46 mount, one of them, lasted me less than 1500km, lol. Yes I didn't have the bottom washer on it though.

I replaced both of them with the IE RSM. Great build quality and I also installed the bottom cupped washer. The IE RSMs have a bit of aluminum/metal (whatever it is) in the middle of the mount to stop the shock from pushing right through it, unlike the E46 one which has nothing.

[fretburnr]

so far it looks like the bimmerworld/bavauto "repair shop" mounts are similar to the JTD just with a rubber, non-urethane bushing... this sounds decent to me as i dont need the stiffness of urethane (nothing else on the car is urethane)

[browntown]

Rogue engineering has quite the marketing campaign against e46 rsm's: the nicest ones on the market(JTD, RE, IE) with z3 reinforcement plates are 100 dolla, not that much more than using e46 stuff.

[BM5W]

They probably will warranty it for you. (ask me how I know)
Did you install the large washer things under and over the shock mounts when you installed them? Without those washers, the shocks will blow out in a couple miles. (ask me how I know)

#6 and #12 in this pic:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...27&hg=33&fg=45

-Erik

+1 I blew out the RSM within one mile... mine pulled through. There wasn't one there before. Shitty thing is that I couldn't put the rubber part back into the housing, so i wasted 50 bucks on a set of RSMs. I ended up buying the 30 dollar ones from bimmerworld.

[fretburnr]

just saw this tonight... i replaced my shock mounts a year and a half ago (when i installed the cupkit) with the TaperCore ones.

just recently i've noticed some clunking and finally opened it up today - the rubber between the taper core and mount had ripped, but because the core was tapered it wasn't pushing all the way thru.

i do have the top cup-washer, but i didn't have one on the bottom - ever. the stock hard protective boot is there, along with the soft rubber bump stop and the upper cup washer, but no bottom. i assume i'll need to get a pair so i can re-do these right?

i'll probably go with IE mounts for less chance of failing, unless anyone has a better option