[mthomas]

Here is my situation: I live at 6000 ft in the Tahoe / Reno area. For those not familiar this is the mountains / high desert. We get a lot of snow for three to four months out of the year. I would like to improve the handling and decrease body roll of my 330xi, and am not really concerned with a lowered look, though that would be nice in the summer. This is my DD and in the winter I need to get through 6-12 inchs of snow regularly, and more critically deal with plow berms and rutted up old snow. My car has about 47k miles on it , stock suspension is getting tired.

Here are my questions Should i just replace stock componants to maintain ride height? Is there an aftermarket replacement strut that would improve things and maintain clearance? Do i go coilover and get adjustability but lose a minimum of .75 inchs of clearnce?There is a lot of knowledge on this forum, and I was wondering what your input would be. Just to head of the inevitable: I already own an SUV.

[fdriller9]

What are plow berms?

OP, Like TrackRat said, I would go with coilovers so you can adjust for each season.

Last winter Philly got hit with like 1 and 1/2 feet of snow and I had a parking space on the top of my garage. I thought I was snowed in but I backed out, and pushed all the snow.....no problem, no slipping.

I wish I still had the picture on my iPhone but I think I deleted it. Basically my car looked like a hatch back, there was that much snow.

[mthomas]

not to jack my own thread, but, After the past 14 winters living in tahoe, and a lot of years driving up here every weekend to ski, I dont find the vehicle to be a stretch in the snow at all. The only limitations i have found are
1. at about a foot of fresh or so, too much comes over the hood and you have to slow way down
2. I cant get through much of a berm when the county plows. Although the berms are frequently 2-3 feet or more high, and nothing is going over that. Generaly the county drivers are very good about not berming roads, only driveways.

I used this vehicle all last winter here, and actually it goes really well in the snow, and about 1/3 of the people I know here drive sedans or wagons ,but frankly its mostly the driver and their experience in snow that makes any vehicle "the best in the snow". My wife's sienna is a machine in snow, so is my Avalanche (son is driving this one now).

What is really entertaining, as long as you can stay out of the way, is watching the tourists/vacationers attempting to drive their AWD/FWD fill in the vehicle of choice in adverse conditions. "It's okay I've got four wheel drive, i bought it just to come to Tahoe".The lack of experience and overconfidence is practicaly a guarantee of some sort of incident. ine of my favorite examples was a guy in a WRX trying to get into Alpine Meadows w/ performance rubber on. That went well.

[mthomas]

Back to the original questions, since most CO systems have a minimum lower of .5 -1 inch, should I just look at swapping to a higher quality strut such as a bilstien, or is just a fact that the raised height of the vehicle creates the body roll and it probably cant be modified much?

Berms are the excess snow that spills out to the side as they plow down the street. It builds up in front of the blade and is contained by the snow at the side of the road, then unloads when it hits an open spot ie your driveway. The price you pay to live in a skiing paradise.

[Noah@CamberToe]

sway bars would really help with body roll, on my car ( e90 335xi) im running kw v3's and uuc front and rear sway bars, and theres next to no body roll what so ever

[jgalaxy]

Originally Posted by mthomas

Back to the original questions, since most CO systems have a minimum lower of .5 -1 inch, should I just look at swapping to a higher quality strut such as a bilstien, or is just a fact that the raised height of the vehicle creates the body roll and it probably cant be modified much?

Berms are the excess snow that spills out to the side as they plow down the street. It builds up in front of the blade and is contained by the snow at the side of the road, then unloads when it hits an open spot ie your driveway. The price you pay to live in a skiing paradise.

I have COs and even set at their highest, I'm sitting .75-1" lower than stock and routinely plough the streets of Montreal on anything more than 10cm (4.25") of snow. Most after-market kits are going to drop you close to an 1" from OEM. The OEM dampers/springs on the XIs dont inspire much confidence. If you can deal with plowing the roads of Tahoe, I'd go for the Bilstein PSS10 or similar. The damper / spring are going to remove the majority of the roll. Your just going to have to deal with the snow ploughing.

Originally Posted by nas335xi

sway bars would really help with body roll, on my car ( e90 335xi) im running kw v3's and uuc front and rear sway bars, and theres next to no body roll what so ever

LOL. There isnt enough traction in the snow to introduce body roll. You'll lose traction way before you experience any serious body roll. And with XI's any introduction of sway bars beyond what is already on the car will further introduce irregular handling. Although sway bars make sense to change, it is pointless without appropriately matched dampers/springs.