Hey there.  I have a car with a strange problem and even the best suspension shop in my area can't figure it out.  The thing won't stay aligned.  It's a low mileage 2008 bmw E93 335i that I picked up and bought from a dealer sight unseen...  This is my second E chassis, first one an E90.

By low mileage I mean roughly 17k miles when I bought it.  And it was a good price as well, only $16,900.00 clean CarFax and full detailed maintenance records too.  I thought I was getting a deal, but $5000 in parts and labor later, I still can't get anyone who can perform an alignment that will stay for more than one or two days.

I picked it up, noticed the alignment was off but had an ohlins coilover kit earmarked for it so figured I'd wait for that install before investing in the alignment.  Got that installed along with M3 front control arms (a common mod).

First shop, BMW / Mini only tried to align it and told me it wasn't possible to align that the car had been in an accident and that the caster was out between the two front wheels by nearly 19 degrees...

This didn't make sense, something like that would be visibly obvious, so I started a conversation with the dealership at this point BMW Dealer in greater Lansing Mi.  They of course told me that they can't help and had no idea that the car was damaged or unserviceable and implied that I must have wrecked it or something.  Aka., pound sand - zero help.

The mechanic told me to get fully adjustable lower control arms (control and tension) and adjustable camber / caster plates and he'd be able to get it where it needed to be.

I get this $2000 kit installed per installation instructions (former Marine Corps diesel mech myself), and bring it back for the full alignment and full adjustment.

Then I find out that their rack is and has been ("19 degrees caster etc."), on the tilt.  They told me that their rack is not usable and had to bring the car down the street to their buddies rack to align it.

They then aligned the car as is, no changes whatsoever to the camber plates or lower control arms and told me that I did a pretty good job approximating the correct lengths.

They only charged me for a simple alignment, initially I was expecting to pay double for the "race alignment" which they did not do at all.  Good guys, I'm not here to bag on them but they didn't help me.

On to the next shop.  Another full BMW German only shop, assures me they can do the full adjustment, drop the car off.

Same exact story as the first, same trash alignment.

Third shop, does race cars / track cars.  Adjusts the camber caster plates, gets the alignment good.

I drive away and it's nice and tight, everything makes sense for the first time 2 months into owning the car...

3 days later the steering wheel is about 45 degrees to the left and I am getting a steering encoder code.

Bring it back to the race shop for a second go.  This time he goes over everything in the front end, found some things that weren't appropriately torqued, fixed that.

Drive the car away everything makes sense...

One day later the migration out of steering wheel alignment is well on its way.

I'm at wits end with this thing.  Someone in the ownership history of this vehicle is being dishonest about its history.

The rear end is staying perfectly aligned as set but somehow the front is changing for no discernable reason.

3 shops at this point, one that only does alignments on race cars...  The last check the toe had somehow wandered out of spec along with the steering wheel.

Corrections made and it's drifting out only 12 hours after the last alignment.

At wits end on this.