nogoer

Ive had my 8 for about a year now its an 04 with 127k miles. It's been flawless until the other day when it started puling to the left. The steering wheel is also slightly turned to the left. I checked tire pressures and they are fine and even all around. So i jacked her up and started poking around. It didn't take long before i found what looks like a worn out upper control arm bushing on the front drivers side.

All the bushings look straight where as the one in the pic is obviously tweaked. I'm correct in my assumption that this is why its puling and the steering wheel is turned, right?

Ive never had it aligned but it's been tracking true under all conditions even heavy throttle on the wrong side of the road crown. New shocks about 1k miles ago as well which may have put extra stress on the bushings. If this is the case anyone have any sugestions for new bushings for both sides? Seems like ive got a new fun project for this weekend.

Coldwound

iTrader: (1)

Mine pulls to the left all the time... and the right... then I realized I live in massachusettes and our roads are **** with grooves in them that I get stuck in.

JCrane82

iTrader: (3)

I would first start with an alignment. I am guessing that if the rest of the underbody looks like that picture, that the shop will have major difficulties getting the cam bolts loose to make adjustments. The steel sleeves inside the lower control arm bushings might also be seized to the cam bolt.

The upper/lower control arm bushings are a major pain in the *** to replace. They need to be removed with a hydraulic bushing press. The dealer should have the correct equipment to replace them though....but even the dealer may have trouble. Last summer I had my control arm bushings replaced by the dealer, and their press was not able to remove the bushings. They were required to take the control arm to a local machine shop and use a 50 ton press.

Mr.Mango

iTrader: (2)

Upper control arm might be to blame, alignment is out, inner or outer tie rod loose on either side, strut is leaking, or spring is worn. Those are your probable causes!

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

i had the same issue with mine a week ago except nothing was worn alignment was straight, turned out my tire went bad i moved it to the rear and the pull went away. im not saying that bushing isnt the cause but try putting your front left tire on the right side tighten up go for a drive see if it pulls right now. if it does replace tire. if it doesnt move tire back replace bushing

nogoer

Yeah i get plenty of tramlining myself, but this is different and it's new. steering wheel has always been straight until recently. I also have not mashed any curbs or hit any nasty potholes.

I know it looks worn, but i wouldn't consider it bad under there. When i did my shocks last year i tried the cam bolt removal way and couldn't loosen either so you're probably right about that. This is my summer car so it's not a big deal to put it up on jack stands and leave it there for a few weeks while i have the bushings pressed out. By the sounds of it though this bushing isnt as bad as i thought it was. I also dont want to mask a worn out suspension with an alignment, but i also didn't do one yet after replacing the shocks with Konis so i imagine some of this could be due to suspension settling.

Struts are brand new konis i replaced last fall and maybe have 1k miles on them by now. I havent had any brushes with curbs or potholes so im thinking the alignment is out due to normal wear and tear. Springs could also be worn but they seem like thier in great shape i.e. no rust or anything.

Ive had this problem on multiple cars and it is a ghost issue, as in it's really hard to visually see that something is wrong. I do know the tires are khumos or some off korean brand so i wouldn't doubt that it might be a tire issue. I do know if the cars sits for a few days that the tires vibrate and feel hard for the first mile or so until they soften back up from road heat. Who knows how old they actually are in spite of them still having usable tread.

thanks all. Im going to try swapping the tire around and go from there. My main concern was how worn this bushing looked, but i guess until it starts clunking it is driveable. I also forgot to mention that the steering feels heavy and it does tramline and toss the steering around a bit. Im starting the think the bigger issue is the tires. they still have tread left though so if this is the case then ill deal with it until i have cash burning a hole in my pocket or i honestly need new ones.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

if your tire is defective just move the front set to the rear and re balance the rear when u put em up front you can only do this if your rear tires dont end up having more tread than the front tho. major understeer issue.

if you drive on that bushing too much you could destroy something more expenseive. better to park it imo.

nogoer

So you agree the bushing is shot and thats the likely reason of the pulling? The tire swapping was to see if the tire itself was the cause of the pulling by just fliping it over and seeing if the pull moved the other way. However if the bushing is bad it would cause toe out and drag which would result in both the pulling and the steering wheel angle.

Ill probably just pull the control arm off this weekend and replace both bushings. Its not my DD so it can sit on jack stands as long as it needs to until i get them fixed.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

the busihing doesnt look very good yes but i think the car would feel more wobbly rather than a simple pull if that was the only problem

nogoer

i took the car to work today to try and get a better feel for whats going on. I had trouble trying to determine if it was the road or the car. The steering wheel is turned to the left slightly, but i also realized that would mean the car is pulling to the right. On the flatest roads i could find it does want to pull left, but not a lot. Putting the wheel straight and it wants to go right.

The biggest thing i felt today was a nice "dead" heavy resitive spot from center when trying to steer either way. I have felt this before on old tires so im starting to think thats what the problem is. It very well could need an alignment also now that the new struts have settled in.

Is there a test for checking these bushings, besides the normal pry technique?

JCrane82

iTrader: (3)

The pry technique is the test.....

nogoer

was looking around trying to find a DIY on this and couldn't find one, not that it's difficult. However i also had trouble finding the physical parts. Mazmart doesn't appear to list the bushing by itself and the control arm assembly is 230. It doesn't indicate if the bushings come preinstalled either.

Im wondering now if this is something that isnt commonly changed? In my searching i was reminded about the normal tire grab testing for ball joints and tie rods. So im just going to go back to basics and start looking at more common wear components, rotate the tires, then maybe get an alignment done.

Thanks guys

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

go aftermarket. if one failed the others would follow theres different types so do your research

nogoer

took the front tires off yesterday and took a better look around. I didn't see anything as bad as i thought and im pretty sure the "tweak" in the bushings was because of preload and the car being jacked up. The bushings had a little give front to back but nothing side to side. There was no tie rod flex or ball joint play and all the boots looked just fine.

I couldn't flip the fronts around because i have uni-directional tread, but i think im chasing ghosts at this point. I'm sure it needs an alignment now that theres a thousand or so miles on the new shocks and the pulling is probably just tramlining or other road related issues.

JCrane82

iTrader: (3)

Just make sure the upper control arm bushings are not preloaded before getting your alignment....