rear lower control arm bushing DIY
 

'07 4.8i with 3rd row seat and air springs. I have been experiencing a loose side-to-side feeling from the rear of the X5 for some time now. I had previously replaced the upper control arms, integral links, ball joints, air springs, and shocks. This reduced the looseness feel significantly, but not entirely. So I decided to tackle the inner bushings on the rear lower control arms (BMW calls it a swing arm).

There are 2 bushings on the inner side of each control arm. Until fairly recently you couldn't replace the bushings separately - you had to replace the whole control arm, which is expensive. FCP Euro carries the bushings. All 4 cost me about CAD 170.00.

The TIS has instructions on how to remove the lower control arm. Here's what I did:

1. jack up the rear of the vehicle and support on jack stands
2. remove the wheel
3. use ISTA function to drain the air springs
4. remove fuse 32 in the front fuse box
5. disconnect level sensor from lower control arm
6. disconnect sway bar end link from lower control arm
7. support wheel carrier with a jack on the brake disc
8. disconnect lower shock bolt from lower control arm
9. disconnect lower control arm from wheel carrier
10. use a paint pen to mark the position of the eccentric bolt/washer at the inner rear connection of the lower control arm to the rear axle carrier (subframe)
11. disconnect lower control arm at the inner rear
12. disconnect lower control arm at the inner front
13. pry out the lower control arm
14. I bought a 6 ton shop press to remove the bushings, but I could only get 3 out of 4. So I upgraded to a 12 ton shop press to get the job done. Clean the control arm thoroughly. New bushings go in much easier if you leave them in a freezer overnight.

The forward bushings were far more worn than the rearward ones which seemed fine. Installation is reverse of removal. Make sure the air springs are correctly seated before activating the function to fill them (which requires that the fuse be replaced). Align the eccentric bolt / washer to the marks you made earlier. When installing bolts use anti-seize everywhere but the portion of the threads that will be engaged by the nut, and just lightly snug up the nuts / bolts. Then when you're done, drive the rear up onto ramps to do the final torques when the vehicle is loaded. Go get an alignment.

Initial road test was quite good - much less loose feel from the rear. Not perfect however, so I will likely go on to do the subframe bushings. There's lots of DIYs for the E53 and special tools are easy to find. For the E70 there is a TIS procedure, but no tool available beyond the ridiculously expensive BMW tool. I wrote about this here. I suspect I'll end up making a puller tool for this job.