BMW Z4M 2007 - Rear wheel grinding noise

M

Maein

Member
Hi,
recently i have bought a 2007 Z4M Coupe and did not experience any issues related to the differential nor the gear or anything related but on the other day i was driving the car and then had to hit on the brake to avoid the speeding radar :driving: but shortly after that i noticed there is something holding the car and there is a white smoke coming from the back, stopped the car and found that the smoke is coming from the rear tires with no idea what was the issue!! tried to move the car but there was a bad grinding noise coming from the back and actually i felt as the is something holding the tire... called a breakdown and took the car home, lifted the car and tried to rotate the tires by hand, the passenger side tire had no problems but the driver side was causing the noise and the tire gets jammed and with some force it rotates and then it gets jammed again!! :(

i am not sure if anyone faced such issue before but anyways i am seeking for your assistance on what could be the problem, is it the differential or something related to the braking system?

looking forward to your responses.

Regards
 
Potential sticking capliper, or also worth considering the handbrake shoes may have came loose inside the hub, long shot but worth a look.
 
Could be a number of issues.

Firstly are you sure it was the tyre smoking and not the brakes? If it was the tyre then i would lean more towards a collapsed spring and which will jam the handbrake on or it will catch on the arches.

Alternatively as said above it could well be that your caliper is sticking, but again this would be your brake that smoked rather than tyre.

Also quite common on older BMW's the pin that hold the handbrake in place rusts through the backing plate which will let the handbrake shoes loose and jam the wheel up. Had this happen to me on a track day in my E36, but would be surprised if its happening to ZM's since they aren't all to old yet!

Reckon your best plan of action would be to strip the brakes off and see if anything either falls out when you remove the disc, or try push the piston back and see how much resistance there is.
 
Thanks again for the advices.

i have received a call from the mechanic and he have checked the brakes by striping the entire thing and nothing seemed wrong. even without all that attached, rotating the axle shows resistance so the next step is to disassemble the differential to identify the issue :headbang:

if you have other thoughts / areas to cover before doing the major job then please share.

Regards
 
Yikes - that sucks! Diff's are a black art to me. Suppose if the diff is at fault it shouldn't cost too much for a rebuild providing it hasn't self destructed. Otherwise get one off a breaker.
 
So... here is the update :(

The Diff is damaged and the issue is that the diff casing has few damages as well... at the moment we are looking for a wrecked Z4M or M3 CSL and buy off the complete diff (this is option 1), the down side is that this car is a rare car and even the M3 specially here in Oman...

Option 2: to rebuild and hope nothing get effected.

will keep you posted :headbang:
 
Sorry to hear this. You shouldn't need to find a diff from a CSL any normal M3 will do as they are identical. A decent condition M3 diff over here will cost you something around £400.

Good luck
 
Any idea what the shipping would cost?

if you can share a contact number of where i can get the diff from that would be a great help.

thanks
 
TomK said:
Sorry to hear this. You shouldn't need to find a diff from a CSL any normal M3 will do as they are identical. A decent condition M3 diff over here will cost you something around £400.

Good luck
Click to expand...
Are you sure they're identical?

The M3 & CSL diff have the same part number (33102282481), but the Z4M uses different number (33107840534).
 
Well that puts a spanner in the works. I'd assumed if the shop said put a csl diff in then they were the same. I was just pointing out that m3 & csl definitely were the same.
 
TomK said:
Well that puts a spanner in the works. I'd assumed if the shop said put a csl diff in then they were the same. I was just pointing out that m3 & csl definitely were the same.
Click to expand...
From reading that thread, it seems it will still work even though they're not identical.

You might even get away with just swapping the internals over.
 
I'd always thought ours had an identical rear axle assembly to e46m3, I suspect as you say an m3 diff could quite easily br made to work.
Op, give these guys a call, they quite often have m3 breaking. Whether they will ship to you I'm not sure. http://www.quarrymotors.co.uk/
Alternatively there are usually a few on ebay, or check the for sale section on www.m3cutters.Co.UK
Best of luck with it.
 
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