Ive owned my 2004 Z4 since November 08 and because its mainly my wifes car I tend to drive it rarely. On Sunday we took a nice long drive in the spring sunshine and the one thing that irritated the hell out of me was the steering feel.
What I notice is the following:
1) Self centering, well it doesnt, at least not if the wheel is moved within a few degrees off the straight ahead, if its a big turn the wheel does centre itself.
2) The steering wheel "sticks" its as though there is no continuous connection to the wheels themselves and steering has to be done in bite sized chunks, particularly noticed this if the steering wheel is just off centre i.e. back to the self centering.
3) If I let go of the wheel during one of its sticky moments, it stays put, so if the car is slightly pointing the right, it just keeps on going to the right.
These symptoms arent intermittant, its always there. I did wonder of the hard sidewalls on the tyres were the cause and I do recall a friend with an early latest generation 5 series have "odd" steering feel which was blamed on his runflats but I dont remember it being an issue from my earlier Z4 ownership. "My" car is a Porsche Cayman-S which has superb steering feel so thats an unfair comparison but even the Merc E series load lugger (nicknamed USS Nimitz btw) is fine and much nicer than the Z.
So is this a sympton of the electric steering/run flats or is something amiss, whatever is up it makes driving the Z4 not very pleasant.
Thanks
Keith
What I notice is the following:
1) Self centering, well it doesnt, at least not if the wheel is moved within a few degrees off the straight ahead, if its a big turn the wheel does centre itself.
2) The steering wheel "sticks" its as though there is no continuous connection to the wheels themselves and steering has to be done in bite sized chunks, particularly noticed this if the steering wheel is just off centre i.e. back to the self centering.
3) If I let go of the wheel during one of its sticky moments, it stays put, so if the car is slightly pointing the right, it just keeps on going to the right.
These symptoms arent intermittant, its always there. I did wonder of the hard sidewalls on the tyres were the cause and I do recall a friend with an early latest generation 5 series have "odd" steering feel which was blamed on his runflats but I dont remember it being an issue from my earlier Z4 ownership. "My" car is a Porsche Cayman-S which has superb steering feel so thats an unfair comparison but even the Merc E series load lugger (nicknamed USS Nimitz btw) is fine and much nicer than the Z.
So is this a sympton of the electric steering/run flats or is something amiss, whatever is up it makes driving the Z4 not very pleasant.
Thanks
Keith