[MrMoose0987]

Hey all -- picked up my M60 a month or so ago. The first couple of weeks were great, I had a lot of fun driving and the longer drive I went on was nice and smooth, small bumps were non existent and big bumps were still really tame.

But I took it in on the 22nd for a ceramic coating and it has felt like, since then, the ride quality has taken a massive nosedive. I've tried all 5 drive modes, I've rebooted the car (go into diagnostic mode -> hold volume button for a minute), I've tried changing the ride height, etc. All things were tested by changing the drive mode while parked, waiting a minute, then driving the same route on the same road.

I called the dealership to get an appointment to have this looked at, but they told me it is a month wait. I booked that, but a month seems awful. Had the car been like this when I tested it, I would have walked away from the purchase no questions asked. The car just feels like a completely different car and I'm NOT happy withit.

I shared this on one of the FB groups but figure there is a different audience here. Anyone else having a similar issue by chance?

 

[Razor488]

Please let us know what the dealership says. I can't believe it takes a month to get an appointment...

You might post this on Bimmerpost and see if you get more feedback there.

 

[MrMoose0987]

Yeah, agreed. I'm basically escalating with my Salesperson and hoping she can get someone to look at this sooner. Because honestly, this is a fatal flaw for me with the car. While the performance is nice, ride quality is my #2, right behind an interior I can fit well in. I would take a slower car that NAILS these two things.

I'm going to see if the dealer has a test model with the air suspension that I can give a run just to confirm I'm not imagining, but if I take mine out and can easily say I wouldnt have bought this if it felt like this, something is wrong.

 

[smiesguy]

That is very strange. Every review I've read or watched has praised the suspension. Hoping you get a resolution soon!

 

[Dmichael]

From what I have read, most think the ride quality is slightly better on 50 vs the 60 due to the performance differences, so unless your dealer has a 60 to test drive(most I have seen don't have a 60), not sure it is the right compare. None of this really answers why after 1 month there would be some sort of solidly noticeable decline. 1 month for an appt is also ridiculous for a 110k + car you bought 1 month ago. They need to step up their game.

 

[MrMoose0987]

For me, the 50 and the 60 I drove both felt similar at lower speeds, and most reviews have echoed that.

But yeah, I'm more concerned with the decline, because this suspension was AMAZING the first month. Felt like driving on a cloud. Now I'm feeling every bump. It almost feels the suspension just isn't adjusting at all no matter what I do as when I go into sport and toggle from sport to comfort, I feel almost no difference.

 

[Dmichael]

The simplest answer I can come up with in my non BMW technician mind (and I did not sleep at a holiday Inn express last night) is that the air suspension is not working, not sure what else it could be that would create such a change in behavior.

 

[J78]

But I took it in on the 22nd for a ceramic coating and it has felt like, since then, the ride quality has taken a massive nosedive.

Could it have been damaged while in the detailer? It’s a very tempting car to go out for a spin…

 

[Dmichael]

You have a precise timeframe when it stopped working, but I dont think that even if the detailer did something that they should not have, driving the car should not damage the suspension. If they hopped curbs you would have tire damage so that is hoepfully unlikely. Not sure how the detailer would influence the air suspension unless they somehow covered a sensor which the system relies on? The car does have road sensing, although I think that to be GPS based, but there could be sensors measuring ground distance. This is supposition on my part, just trying to help if possible.

 

[blue202]

On my iX50, from the very start, the ride seems quite a bit more harsh then the dealer demo car. The dealer demo has 21” all season, while I have 22” summer tires. I would describe the ride as if the dampers are locked into a sport mode. Changing the suspension settings makes no noticeable difference in the ride quality. My car is currently with the dealer and they are looking at it. The sunroof and interior camera are also not working, ie same symptoms that were reported by others as “modules in transport mode” . This makes me wonder if the my suspension has something similar going on (ie in some sort of transport mode). Will update if dealer figures it out. BTW, I didn’t see this mentioned in any of the reviews, but there is quite a bit more road noise from the 22” summer tires (Pirelli P0’s) compared with the 21” all season.

 

[MrMoose0987]

On my iX50, from the very start, the ride seems quite a bit more harsh then the dealer demo car. The dealer demo has 21” all season, while I have 22” summer tires. I would describe the ride as if the dampers are locked into a sport mode. Changing the suspension settings makes no noticeable difference in the ride quality. My car is currently with the dealer and they are looking at it. The sunroof and interior camera are also not working, ie same symptoms that were reported by others as “modules in transport mode” . This makes me wonder if the my suspension has something similar going on (ie in some sort of transport mode). Will update if dealer figures it out. BTW, I didn’t see this mentioned in any of the reviews, but there is quite a bit more road noise from the 22” summer tires (Pirelli P0’s) compared with the 21” all season.

The whole feeling stuck in Sport Mode is very similar to the issue I'm experiencing too, but my Sunroof does seem to still be working. That said, given that I've had to do some resets of the computer lately, I'm wondering if one of those "broke" the suspension somehow and stuck it in sport.
Also, an update after talking to the dealer today:

• Tested an xDrive 50 with the Dynamic Suspension package. It had similar issues, but felt "better" than my M60 did. This was not the case when I last drove the 50 (back in July) as it felt the same as my M60 did on pickup.
• If I drop it off for 3 days, they said they can get it looked at. I'll be carless but I'll survive (they don't have any available loaners).
• I went to buy cat litter after going to the dealership, put it in the back, and stuff seemed a bit smoother after that, which was odd.
  
  Makes me think this is software related if others are experiencing similar symptoms and it is fixable. Because honestly, if I can't get this fixed, there's no choice but to sell back as it would no longer feel like a $110,000 car to me. Really hope we can get this figured out between myself and the dealer.
  

 

[MrMoose0987]

Up next: I'm going in to talk to the local BMW Genius sometime after 3. The dealer asked that I talk with them and have their techs look at the car if needed before I ask them to buy it back from me. So I'm giving them a chance to fix this because I love everything else about this car. But this ride quality drop will kill my enjoyment -- I could get this same ride quality from a car half the price

 

[BMWiX60M]

The simplest answer I can come up with in my non BMW technician mind (and I did not sleep at a holiday Inn express last night) is that the air suspension is not working, not sure what else it could be that would create such a change in behavior.

I concur with Dmichael; I own a Lexus GX that had exhibited the issue due to the air suspension. In my case, the inflators were faulty that the dealer fixed under warranty. I have not had an issue with that in the last 10+ years.

 

[MrMoose0987]

So, it gets even more confusing. Talked with the Genius here at the location, went over all the steps I did. We suspect my profile is at play, and I have my unused second key that was set up right when I bought the car. We say that taking it out with that may be a good idea. So I get in, and instead of the interior lighting being the bronze-ish color it has been lately, it was blue. This persisted after I started the car, whereas my regular key flashed blue briefly then went to the bronze-ish color. I notice this and am optimistic...


...AND MY CAR IS BACK TO WHAT I BOUGHT. The radio even seemed to be performing better, which was intriguing. But the ride quality was what I expected. I'm not smoking crack, there IS A DIFFERENCE.

I was happy. I drove my test route, it felt like what I expected. I get home, get a call back and am excited. I share what I learned, we hone in on the problem being the profile. We do some resetting of stuff, repairing of the key, full reset of the car and all that. A couple of times, even. So we repair the key, re sync my settings, no dice after a drive. So I come back, get my spare key, go to the car with it. But the lights dont go blue again. They do the brief blue, flash white thing.

And now I lost the car I thought I had back.

Conclusion, for now: Something messed up is going on with my profile, potentially connected to entering diagnostic mode. It seems to have "poisoned" the key, for lack of a better term, and that key seems to have it stuck in this strange forced sport mode damper quality. So this seems like a fixable issue and is almost assuredly due to some update that came to me at some point, or something with my profile. It is just a matter of getting them to look at it and fix it. Waiting on a call back tomorrow from the GeniusI was working with.

For anyone else having this issue, if your second key happens to be unused, could you bring your first key in, go back to the car with the second key, and see if this helps? And if you're having this issue, did you go into diagnostic mode at any point?

 

[Razor488]

Great information, thanks for the update. Please keep us posted on the fix. Are you on software version 7/2022 .40?

 

[MrMoose0987]

Great information, thanks for the update. Please keep us posted on the fix. Are you on software version 7/2022 .40?

I think .37 actually. So maybe an update there will end up helping too.

 

[Razor488]

So this issue has to do with driver profiles... Is that only an issue if you use digital keys instead of the traditional BMW key? or are they different.

 

[Raymond]

How come driver profile would change the setting of the suspension? If no one has attempted to play with your settings, the settings should be factory settings and suspension on the m60 even on sport mode would still ride very smoothly.

my question is did the detail guy jacked up the car? Or the guy or you accidentally disabled the air suspension which is by holding the ride level button for about 7 sec

 

[MrMoose0987]

So this issue has to do with driver profiles... Is that only an issue if you use digital keys instead of the traditional BMW key? or are they different.

That was my thought until I tried resetting the entire car and pairing it with a new MyBMW profile that I freshly created. Nope, same issue.

My current theory is that drive modes changed with a recent update. My unused key had the drive modes from when I bought the car and when I started it up with that key, that key "called" the drive mode and it felt like it used to. But then the key's software or some such got updated (speculative), and now it calls the new "Personal" drive mode instead, which has the messed up suspension. I get a feeling that my car has some messed up software with regards to how it sees "Personal" mode and it treats the comfort suspension it used to feel like into something sporty. Which doesn't really explain why changing "sport" mode to comfort dampers doesn't seem to change anything. So maybe the damper programming itself is messed up and doesn't set properly to "comfort".

I dunno, I'm not a BMW tech, just someone that did tech support for nearly 6 years. I almost wonder if "re-delivering" the car so to speak with some sort of hard reset at the dealership (beyond what I can do) may fix it. But figuring out what broke it in the first place is the difficult thing.

How come driver profile would change the setting of the suspension? If no one has attempted to play with your settings, the settings should be factory settings and suspension on the m60 even on sport mode would still ride very smoothly.

my question is did the detail guy jacked up the car? Or the guy or you accidentally disabled the air suspension which is by holding the ride level button for about 7 sec

I can't say why it would change the suspension, honestly. All I know is that using the key I only used when I bought the car and never any other time fixed the issue for one drive.

As for the disabling of air suspension or jacking the car up -- given that the unused key fixed the issue once, I'm fairly certain it is not hardware at this point but instead software.

 

[sprockets]

This thread got me thinking about one of my favorite early cars. A 1969 E-Type roadster.

It came with two keys. And no matter which key I used, the actions of the suspension were always the same.