GottaAllroad

I'm still fighting the front end instability, especially on braking. Here's the plan from here:

1. new tires are on and road balanced - some improvement.

2. tire guy couldn't do alignment cuz 'upper control arm bushings are cracked'.

3. plan to upgrade to zimmerman rotors up front. new pads as well.


Questions:

Is it possible to change out the control arm bushings by themselves or do I have to replace the arms as well? I've read in general the entire arm needs replacing cuz bushing gets frozen to the arm over time and is hard to get out.

Is it advised to do the rotors and the control arms at the same time since the wheels will be off, etc.? Or can I do this in two phases - rotors first, then control arms later?

Should I repair the lower control arms bushings as well?

As always, thanks.

paulroad

mine were shot, all of them. I had them changes along with control arms. Aso check you end links on the front sway bar. As my indy told me, the H-sports ad a bit more stress to the stock end links.

2002a642

You can replace the bushings but right after you do the ball joints will fail. Thats what I experienced anyways. It does not save much work to do it at them same time so doing it in stages would be fine in my opinion. I think they sell complete link kits for our cars which is the way to go if you have higher mileage.

kingfishgrapejam

lowers seem to last a little longer. My order of failure up has been upper control arms then outer TRE's and then inner tre's.

GottaAllroad

I see control arm kits from meyle and ocap at blauparts.com, though they say the're 'under development', so not sure if the kit is available or I'll have to do it piece by piece.

Questions:

- Are Meyle and/or OCAP considered solid replacement and/or upgrade parts?

- Is blauparts.com a legit outfit? They look legit and seem to have good parts for the AR.

- Do I need to replace outer AND inner tie rod ends? The kit seems to only have the outers. Maybe the inner is less important and/or harder to get at so they're not done when the outers are?

kingfishgrapejam

may just want to do it all and be done. I've been going oem for the upper control arms lately. With the discount at www.genuinevwaudiparts.com the price is comparable. Also if you want to add a more vesatile camber adjustment Purems.com sells an upper control arm kit that does just that for not much more than oem. I think meyle has been rated fairly well lately but stay away from hamburg technic and most other ebay cheapie kits. I only get about a year out of them on pa roads.