BMW carried over most of the rear end setup from the E36 to the E46. This simple setup consisted of a trailing arm and two control arms attaching the upright/rear trailing arm to the rear subframe. The engineers opted for eccentric bolts on the arms to adjust camber and the trailing arm bracket had elongated holes to adjust toe. The standard toe adjustment tends to be more than enough for most E46 applications but the level of camber adjustment is not enough with the standard arms and eccentric bolts.

Camber adjustment can be increased by installing an aftermarket lower camber arm. This removes the flimsy pressed steel OEM component with an aluminium arm that has more range of camber adjustment.

The upper arm which also doubles as the lower spring perch can be swapped out for a camber arm similar to the aftermarket lowers. This is only suitable for cars running a true coil over damper rear suspension as it deletes the spring perch. If you are running a rear anti roll bar you need to run the Millway upper arm as it has provision for the drop link. If you delete the rear anti roll bar you can run the VAC upper arm.

We strongly recommend that the trailing arm bushing is swapped out for a precision bearing. The standard item is rubber and deforms under load which knocks the toe adjustment out giving the feeling of the rear end being disconnected from the chassis. Solid precision bearings are a must to maintain geometry mid corner.