Changed Lower Control Arm

[Jordo]

Well I most definatly do have steering wheel shaking under light brakeing at highway speed. And there is ZERO peddle pulseing under brakeing.

And the reason I ask, is I did order new bushings for this tension bar. But I now wonder if it's not the bushings but the other side that has the ball joint on it.
So I wonder if I take a chance and replace my bushings with the new ones, or send them back and just get a complete tension bar, and swap out the entire damn thing.

What do you think I should do?

[ArtMan]

Ill give you my advice....change all at once not one at a time. I had worn out rear lower control arm bushings (attached photo) and the ones in your pic are the upper front control arm bushings.

1) i replaced all the front suspension with the ebay kit (supposedly German but fake) initial results: my front end felt so much tighter at lower speeds and things were smoother. 2nd: i had a wobble/steering vibration at 60 and up. 3rd when driving at 40+ and taking a long left or right turn meaning not stop and turn but like on a highway as it banks left or right i would get tremendous shaking that would feel like you were driving over logs or something. 3rd noticed the bad aftermarket front control arm bushings were soft as crap. bought febi brand that have the correct stiffness bushing and the new ball joint as well. I still have a annoying vibration at 60+ thus i have to replace the new shit asian aftermarket crap and i hope it gets fixed but now my febi parts might experiance some wear and tear...


2) thus i advise you if you have high mileage and have never replaced anything then you might consider the ecs tuning stage 2 kit that replaces all the ball joints, bushings, sway bar links etc with real German name brand parts. the labor will kill you once you start to change each part out one by one. Unless your doing it all yourself then still the kit is like 750 with shipping and that is a great price at great parts.

3) if your confident that nothing else is worn then you can use a press to push the old ones out and push the new ones in, i made a wooden press at home and pressed into my oem rear control arms bushings that worked great.

4) i only bought the asian/german crap off ebay because there was a lot of discussion on these forum if it was worth it or not and at (200 dollars for all) it seemed to good to pass up. Some members did it and had great results and I had bad. I too am thinking about the same ball joint your talking about. its the one thats in the knuckle and not at the end of the picture i attached. But i cant seem to blame a new ball joint no matter who made it. I tested the ball joint it was stiff and no play just like oem ones so i m still trying to figure out whats my vibration source. I might just but new parts once i get paid.

5) I also put new tires and balanced them and rotated them there ware no change.

6) I was also advised by a shop that it could be my front bearings ( although i dont hear that worn out bearing noise as in some youtube videos but i have a sound thats oscillating sound that gets louder now when i turn left or right so yea im just making a list of parts at at 150K i might just change them all and see.

[Jordo]

Thanks for your time and effort! Well I replaced my rear upper control arms 2 weeks ago. And the ball joint on that was completely shot. (both were bad, replaced both)

I have the symptoms that my front bushings are worn, but I could also see a worn ball joint giving the same feel. So I guess I'll yank it apart first. Then replace if needed. I guess I should of done that in the first place, huh?

[flatlander]

I've gone through three sets of control arms in four years! I've used BMW at first, then Febi-Bilstein. But neither seem to last more than a year before the shaking starts again and either the ball joint or the bushing starts to go. Has anyone tried a different brand?

[sasquatch]

Why not replace the steering tie rod ends and sway bar end links while you have it apart?

I'm getting ready to do this job but I'm replacing everything....tie rods, ball joints, bushings.

[recklessspyder]

I had my suspension check by both BMW and an Indy and they both said that the lower arms (ball joints) and tie rods needed replacing. I was at 70k and they probably could have been done at 50k. I purchased the parts from ECS and I'm 2 months into happiness at a lot less clunk. Never had vibrations though. I do have a properly aligned X now too.