[Wolfus Aurelius]

From time to time I park the F30 on a nearby suburban street overnight. This city has no standards about streets and curbs. Where I park, the street itself dips quite a bit down as it meets the grassy curb. I tend to run my right wheels up on the curb, so the car winds up being basically level. Of course, the suspension on that side of the car is compressed and remains so for some eleven hours.

Am I doing any damage, long-term or short, to the suspension? I've done it with my German-built Buick Regal and with my big Park Avenue, and nothing ever cropped up; but this is my first BMW, and for all I know there are suspension parts that do not take kindly to being compressed for so long. Any harm?

[Fliplegend]

IMO, no harm. It's built to compress, regardless of how long its compressed for. Sure fully compressed for let's say a year straight may cause harm but even at that, it's a big "may."

[cfm56d7b]

OEM shocks and springs routinely last 50K miles while encountering a wide variety of road surfaces and compression / rebound cycles. The more ominous adversary is a pothole engineered by nature to damage the rim, tire, and in the worst of cases - the strut itself and connecting hardware.

[Wolfus Aurelius]

Originally Posted by cfm56d7b

OEM shocks and springs routinely last 50K miles while encountering a wide variety of road surfaces and compression / rebound cycles. The more ominous adversary is a pothole engineered by nature to damage the rim, tire, and in the worst of cases - the strut itself and connecting hardware.

Yeah, well, we got plenty of potholes (as well as road surfaces that look like the face of the moon in miniature) around here. All the more reason why I was concerned. But I'll avoid the bad streets, which means confining my driving to only 30% of the streets in town, and not worry about parking on a slant.

[upsidedownfunnel]

Dampers (shocks and struts) only wear when they move. Regardless of their absolute position, as long as they're not moving, they're not really wearing. Dampers are generally stored/shipped compressed and they stay that way for months or even years.

The springs on your car will probably outlive your car. No worries about those.

The only thing that could potentially wear unevenly would be your loaded bushings. Even then, most bushing wear occurs when they are moved. And I doubt the slight angle your car is at is enough of a limit to really stretch them out.