Looking for stock ride height measurements

[BillWilliams]

If anyone has a stock 2002 with 185X70R13 tires and stock springs, can you give me the measurements of the front and rear ride height?

Can you give me the measurements from the ground to the front and rear fender wheel lips at their highest point? Thanks.

I am trying to see how much too high the touring is setting and how much it needs to settle.

Tonight, the front measurement on my car (ground to fender lip) is 25" and the rear is 24".

The car settled 1" in the front and 1.5" in the rear in a week.

[02Les]

Bill,

Assuming the pic is accurate, you could scale off it. I could print it off and do it tomorrow (got nothing to work with here in the Hotel).

I would also assume (dangerous) that the height of the front & rear bumpers would be the same - that would give you an indication of level.

[Mike Self]

combination you're looking for, but be advised that USA 73's ride an inch higher than the 72 and earlier cars due to bumper height requirements. They were met in '73 (only) by raising the car on its springs. This is independent of the aluminum spacers that were installed on US cars. If you need the measurements from a '69, I can do that too. Both of my cars have had the spacers removed.

Lemme know

mike

[BillWilliams]

with tires the same size as mine, and the two cars are identical in height.

Maybe the body color wheel houses make the car appear to sit higher than most.

Measurements of the two cars:

Front - top edge of waist molding = 31"

Rear - middle of round latch = 29"

Thanks Les and Mike.

[Bill_Riblett]

Do you know what colors the stripes on the springs are? There were originally 2 stripes on each spring. The springs were graded by BMW marked by three colors: green for stiffest, then white, and red for softest. The front springs also have a blue stripe. I think the rear springs second stripe was brown.

Anyway, the point of all this is that my first 2002, bought new in 1972, had green springs front and rear and always sat very tall in the 70k miles I had it. Installing Bilsteins made that even worse.

Looking at the factory manual spec pages, it appears that all the cars used the same front springs, so maybe you could try swapping springs if your car doesn't come down more.

From my reading of the rear spring specs, it appears that 1600s got stiffer springs than 2002s and that tourings were supposed to get the softest of the 2002 grades. Seems backwards, but who knows?

One last trivia point: my second 2002 was a 74 tii and it had red springs in front and white springs in back so perhaps BMW only tried to match springs for each car and didn't see a reason to put 'stiffer' springs in tiis?

[02Les]

I'm wondering how accurate this pic is, but anyway.

Front wheel arch lip to ground = 23.5"

Rear wheel arch lip to ground = 22.38"

Originally the car would have had 165/13 tyres - would this make a difference?

It would have those aluminium spacers on the front shocks too.

[MichaelP]

Don't forget height will differ depending on the spring pads in there as well. There are 3 different pads available, so depending on what was used at the top or bottom of each spring, there are 9 possible combinations.

[BillWilliams]

powdercoated them. I reviewed the photos and I can not pick up any stripes.

I put the stock small rubbers on the bottoms of the springs and 2 dots on the top.

It appears it is at the height of at least one other touring.

Since tourings only were Euro models, I do not think they had the spacers.

[02Les]

I believe all models had the spacers on the front shocks. My UK Touring had them.

Perhaps we should add this to list of '02 myths???