Change of bushes to powerflex

smithysmoo · Post by **smithysmoo** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:40 am

Just checking powerflex and they list arb bushes, front and rear wishbone bushes and also a rear mount bush.

What ones can you change withough needing tracking afterwards and also are all these a home diy job or are they likely to be an absolute pain in the ass.

Cheers for the advice.

RUM4MO · Post by **RUM4MO** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 1:18 pm

To be honest, if you are not too DIY minded, even the ARB ones can be a pain in the neck - usually you need to compress (jack up under the hub or so) one side to reach the top clamp bolt and extend (jack up the car body using normal points) to reach the other bolt - might have the bolts the wrong way round. TCA front and rear bushes mean realignment unless you get hold of the after market kit and dismantle a lot of other parts. I'm guessing that the rear mount is the power/transmission rear mount, if this is so then changing it does not mean realignment (I think!) - I've never considered that one before so can't be sure!

smithysmoo · Post by **smithysmoo** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:56 pm

Well pretty diy minded and do most of the work on my cars. Only the bloke who had it before has lowered it on springs giving me this horrible knocking noise over uneven surfaces that I need to cure. Am even tempted to put it back to standard.

Will look at the bushes and see what I can get to.

Cheers

RUM4MO · Post by **RUM4MO** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:02 pm

I just get a bit depressed thinking about trying to carry out what should be simple jobs on these little cars, they usually end up biting you and wasting a lot of time - you have unfortunately been warned - sorry!

Jamo · Post by **Jamo** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 2:12 pm

I bought some powerflex bushes for my Polo, but it turns out the rear wishbone bushes have to be fitted in conjunction with good quality OEM bushes as they just fit it the holes to stop any compression - my advice would be to get some SEAT ibiza cupra bushes and have the car tracking adjusted. That's what I settled for in the end and all is now well.

RUM4MO · Post by **RUM4MO** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 9:10 pm

Jamo wrote:I bought some powerflex bushes for my Polo, but it turns out the rear wishbone bushes have to be fitted in conjunction with good quality OEM bushes as they just fit it the holes to stop any compression - my advice would be to get some SEAT ibiza cupra bushes and have the car tracking adjusted. That's what I settled for in the end and all is now well.

Exactly, and the camber/caster also gets sorted out as does the total front>rear geometry - maybe made right for the first time in the car's life - now that it has been "run-in" !

GaryUK · Post by **GaryUK** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:50 am

+1 for the ibiza cupra bushes. The feel in the steering is improved.

The garage did say they had a problem lining them up though, is this difficult or are the garage being incompetent? Result was a bigger bill than expected.

RUM4MO · Post by **RUM4MO** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:49 pm

GaryUK wrote:+1 for the ibiza cupra bushes. The feel in the steering is improved.

The garage did say they had a problem lining them up though, is this difficult or are the garage being incompetent? Result was a bigger bill than expected.

Even the nonCupra bushes need careful alignment (rotational) - but these Cupra ones have an aluminium other skin - instead of the nylon skin of the nonCupra ones - so pulling them into the aluminium consoles will be a bit more difficult - there is an assemblying fluid provided by VAG to assist with this task. The bill might have been quite big due to this task requiring a full four wheel alignment afterwards - that would add Â£75 > Â£115 roughly.

GaryUK · Post by **GaryUK** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:40 pm

RUM4MO wrote:
GaryUK wrote:+1 for the ibiza cupra bushes. The feel in the steering is improved.

The garage did say they had a problem lining them up though, is this difficult or are the garage being incompetent? Result was a bigger bill than expected.
Even the nonCupra bushes need careful alignment (rotational) - but these Cupra ones have an aluminium other skin - instead of the nylon skin of the nonCupra ones - so pulling them into the aluminium consoles will be a bit more difficult - there is an assemblying fluid provided by VAG to assist with this task. The bill might have been quite big due to this task requiring a full four wheel alignment afterwards - that would add Â£75 > Â£115 roughly.

Hi RUM4MO, the alignment I paid for seperately. I was quoted 2 hours, charged for 4 hours but they spent 8 hours doing it!

Is that reasonable?