powerflex wishbone bushes...?

[Pete69zx]

I have some powerflex poly wisbone bushes fitted to my car (amongst all the others being powerflex aswell).

Upon the car being inspected today for some other random issue it was suffering... my mechanic noticed that the powerflex wishbone bushes had started to wear already!

He only fitted them 2-3000 miles ago!

Should they start to wear this fast?

When i say 'wear', i mean, on the driverside bush the top part has started to wear away.

Could this be down the excessive lowering of the car or some other reason?
(the car was fitted with a brand new FK/Koni coilover kit at the same time as the bushes were fitted).

Im just curious if this is a common problem or if it could be down to something else?

He told me about how the front wishbones are the same as each other, just that depending on what side of the car the wishbone needes to be fitted to, you just flip it over 180 degrees.

So then one bush goes in from the top & the other side goes in from the bottom, everyone following yet? LoL

So, both wishbones & wishbone bushes are exactly the same, just one side is flipped over 180 degrees in comparisson with the other.

Cheers.

 

[Defratos]

humm a pic would be nice. I've had mine fitted for like a year and a few months, haven't looked at it recently but I'd like to see what you mean by wear just to compare

 

[Pete69zx]

I knew i should have taken the chuffing camera with me! LoL

 

[Pete69zx]

Took this link from your website defratos (hope u dont mind?).

Look at the bush on the right, u see the top most part, then there is a slightly larger diameter part just below?

It's the part just below that has started to wear & i mean almost 50% of it has worn away already!

 

[Timbo]

There are many threads about this on VWVortex, for example this one:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2874495

The problem is some of the joints on the A3/Golf suspension don't move in an axis that suits a poly bush. The one in the link (I presume this is the one you're having trouble with?) is designed for a rubber bush, so the rubber acts as the pivot. Poly bushes stop the lower arm moving laterally in relation to the pivot point, which is good, but don't allow it to pivot as it should, which is bad.

Having said all that if your car's a lot lower than standard that probably won't have helped either.

 

[Pete69zx]

Timbo... what would you suggest is the best thing for me to do with them then?

 

[Timbo]

Hmmm... not sure really - I went for OEM replacements when my bushes needed replacing.

First things first: Is there actual play in the suspension or does it just look a bit worn? Or is it just the lip wearing because of the ride height?

If the car's really low you might be able to slow down the rate of wear by raising it a bit (probably not what you want to do though).

If memory serves RichA3Turbo has some sort of poly bushes on the front arms of his car, and his is lowered - Rich - any undue wear to yours?

 

[Defratos]

Took this link from your website defratos (hope u dont mind?).

Look at the bush on the right, u see the top most part, then there is a slightly larger diameter part just below?

It's the part just below that has started to wear & i mean almost 50% of it has worn away already!

first off, no porbs for using the pic. Secondly I get what you mean, I'll have a look at my bush today and see how it's getting along. Sounds interesting as I've been getting weird feel through the car from the front and rear, but I know why the rear is acting up, now I think I might know what the fronts up to as well,

 

[Pete69zx]

First things first: Is there actual play in the suspension or does it just look a bit worn? Or is it just the lip wearing because of the ride height?

Example... when i pull the car off from my driveway & have to use full left hand down lock, the car feels as if the driverside wheel has coggled a little (the steering feel changes i mean).

When i took it to my mechanic & told him the situation, he examined it & used a large prybar to try & compress the bush back into its housing (driverside).

Now after a week or so, the car doesnt feel as vague when i pull off the drive, but it still feels a little strange still.

Surely powerflex wouldnt design a bush that will wear so quickly, would they?

 

[Pete69zx]

Oh, when changing from moving forwards to reverse, there is a little clunk from the front end of the car (quite possibly driverside).

I also think this happens when going from moving backwards to going forwards aswell.

 

[Timbo]

I noticed today in an advert in Track & Race Car that Superflex give a 3 year warranty on their poly bushes. Worth checking if Powerflex do the same? On the offchance you got some substandard ones?

BTW, check out the "before" and "after" on the Superflex website: http://www.superflex.co.uk/

 

[Pete69zx]

Cheers for the thought, but to me it really does seem as though its either a design fault or they just wont last very long due to there location & the extremeties that are placed upon them.

 

[Secret Squirrel]

In my experience Superflex bushes are better than Powerflex.
At least the rear wishbone bush is easy to replace. The front one can be tricky.

 

[god_thats_quick]

There are many threads about this on VWVortex, for example this one:

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2874495

Very interesting, wish I hadn't been so busy this week and seen this earlier, those are the original ECS bushes Rich got me, they split and ******** like that as I was trying to press them in (went it but cut off one lip)

Not sure about the A3, but the S3 doesn't have the same wishbone on each side of the car. That top bit you are saying is worn away is metal on my powerflex bushes is it on yours - I thought they were the same, I'd be ****** worried if that had managed to wear down.

I'll have an inspect of my car over the weekend if I get time, I noticed last time I had a look that the metal had some surface corrosion but it wasn't really anything to worry about, if the bush is not holding the wishbone in place vertically you will get all the problems you describe Pete69zx, as I had the issues you describe when I had an ECS bush bodged in on one side of my car.

 

[Pete69zx]

The bushes i have are exactly the same as the ones pictured earlier in this thread. So i guess the A3/S3 use different setups to each other at the front of the car.

 

[god_thats_quick]

looking back at what you wrote, you don't actually mean the largest diameter part is wearing away do you? you mean the area below the metal disc I think, might have to go have a look at mine as they've been on for about a year (10,000miles +) now.

 

[joshxs]

Does anyone know the superflex part numbers for the front S3 wishbones? I can only see a mention of A3's on the website.

Also, are they hard to fit? I did ring Vindis Audi up in Cambs for a laugh and they wanted to charge me £350 for OE bushes!!
cheers