Need suggestions on how to improve ride

[Ilia]

I recently purchased a 2005 325CI and am obviously very satisfied with it.

However, after driving for some time, i realized that even though the car is very smooth, the drive is actually somewhat sloppy. I feel almost every bump and crevice on the road regardless of how small it is.

The problem is that i have absolutely no knowledge in cars and i was thinking to maybe replace my tires to a larger size (the 17inch) to see if it would help.

Please help me out with some suggestions as to how to "feel the road" a lot less

[drz]

Welcome

Well, it is funny that yo are looking for less road feel, since most BMW drivers (or at least most of our forum members), crave as much interaction with the road as possible.

The first thing I would recommend would be going with a smaller wheel instead of larger. The larger your wheels, the less rubber there is between you can the road. I don't think the size of the brakes on your car will allow anything smaller than 16" wheels, however.

The next step would be to change the shocks and springs in your car to the setup that comes with the non-sport E46 sedans. See, all the coupes came from the factory with the sport suspension, which sits lower and is firmer than that in the sedans.You may even be able to find someone who wants your suspension to fit into their sedans and is willing to swap with you.

I imagine you should not have a problem fitting the spongier shocks from a sedan in your coupe.

Good luck!

[witeshark]

You may well come to love road feel. There is not much greater feeling than the telegraphing affect the wheel gives as one front tire is getting (but not yet) loose, especially on wet roads. My change from a car with road isolation to a BMW with road feel taught me this.