It's time: to remove the old bushings in my front A-arms (also known as front lower control arms) and replace them with some good poly bushings. I need to do the ball joints too so will be doing it all at once.

I have seen various threads about the bushing removal, on this and other forums over the years, and the general consensus seems to be that it is a major PITA. The "best" technique seems to be to remove the a-arm, put it in a vice, drain the oil from the bushing, heat the metal around the bushing with a torch while twisting the bushing, and eventually it will come out. Vorschlag said this is a two man job, but I am only one man.

I would gladly pay for a set of a-arms with the bushings and ball joints already installed, but the only ones I can find are Steeda with extended ball joints (which I do not want); BMR which are lightweight and over $600 for the pair, and the GT500 ones which supposedly have "slightly harder rubber bushings" but I am told they really aren't any different.

Suggestions please! thanks in advance

 

I too have been looking at a arms for my 2011. I can't quite find what I am after either. Steeda offers two different sets. The first has stock height ball joints and slightly firmer rubber bushings (probably same as GT500 arms). These are priced reasonably, but the bushings may not really be firm enough for how some of us use our cars. The other is a Boss competition set with extended ball joints. These come with poly bushings, but are more expensive at $500 a set (currently on sale). I like the looks of the Boss competition arms better, but understand that their are eps issues on some of the earlier cars with poly bushing front control arms. I am not sure what build dates are affected by this.

 

I am told the bushings in the FRPP aka GT500 arms are really no better than the original stock bushings. So these are probably a safe bet for your car, though I am not sure if they are just firm enough to cause trouble with the EPS.

The extended ball joints in the Steeda "Boss comp" arms will cause bump steer issues that must be corrected with a bump steer kit. I was planning to go with those, until I learned the whole story about bump steer and decided I didn't really want to get into all of that. I do not have any major bump steer issues right now.

BMR also sells arms with bushings and ball joints installed, with several variants. But these are fairly lightweight and intended for track cars that are checked often for cracks and other issues.

You have the additional complication with the 2011 EPS that (gladly) I do not have. I believe the problem runs through the early 2012 cars so I'm pretty sure your car is affected. I think if I were you, I would look into that first.

 

Thanks for the advice. I am lowered, so I am not sure if the extended ball joints will cause problems for me or not. I am not opposed to the bump steer kit, but do not want steering shudder. I am trying to find out which build dates were affected by the EPAS issues.

 

I remember seeing the date for the EPAC issue in some thread somewhere but would be tough to find it again. My memory (which is very unreliable) says it was about 1/4 of the way through the 2012 model year production. I have been thinking about a 2012 for a while, and my take-away was that I would need to be careful in the 2012 model year to get a car that was late in the production, not the beginning.

My car is lowered 1" ; I learned the extended ball joints are really intended for cars that are lowered 1.5" or more, not needed for just 1". Yes the roll center is not optimum for cars that are lowered a little, but not a big deal.

The issue with the bump steer kit, is that it has to be set up correctly. The procedure is that you make a guess based on a standard setting, then you set the toe with the car at rest, then you need to compress the front suspension to the maximum travel that you would expect to see, and measure toe with it compressed. Then you adjust the bump steer kit and start over and repeat; until you've fiddled with it enough that you are convinced that you cannot get it any better. The goal is to find the setup for the tie rod ends that minimizes the change in toe through the travel of the suspension. I could see this taking an hour or two on an alignment rack and I don't know any shop that would do that, without charging an arm and a leg for it. I guess the alternative is to have your own alignment setup so you can do it yourself and take as long as you want . . . but I don't have one of those, nor do I have two or three heavy friends waiting around to sit on the bumper while I measure the toe. The more I look into the bump steer thing, the more I am convinced that we are better off with less than optimum roll center, than with all this.

 

decided to go with the Prothane bushings, which come with the outer sleeve, which makes the old bushing removal a little easier.

Doing ball joints at the same time . . . probably next weekend.

Wish me luck!

 

Good luck, let us know how it goes!

 

Just to close the loop on this old thread -- I did finally complete the bushing replacement in my front A-Arms . . . this was one of those "easy" jobs that took forever, and I'm not really sure yet if it was worth it or not.

I was plagued by many small issues, like not having the right depth sockets, combined with not devoting enough time to the job. For example, one thing I discovered, is that the ball joint part number (and a-arm design) were changed part way through the 2010 model year, and most on-line parts places list the new ones . . . but of course I have the old ones, so I got the wrong parts.

The biggest issue is removing the old bushings. The best tip for that, is you need a press. I got the smaller one that Harbor Freight sells, and it worked OK; the larger one would be even better because the frame is bigger and would give more room to get things at the right angle. (I went with the small one due to space limitations in my garage, the big one is only a few dollars more.) If I was doing this over, I would first drill some holes in the bushings and let the oil drain out, them press the arm out of the bushing (see photo) . . . I learned just after taking the photo that the bushing will pop and spray oil all over the place, if you don't drain the oil first, LOL

After all this work, I wanted them to look different when installed back in the car, so I painted them red!

Here are some pictures, in case anyone was wondering what is inside those bushings

PS/EDIT -- kinda strange how the pictures posted, I didn't mean to do that, I just uploaded them the normal way (drag and drop) and usually they show up at the end of the post, not the begginning