Ok, you've read my other posts so you are fully up to speed....

I'm going to replace the whole front suspension because its ****e to drive at the moment and i'm getting grief from the missus.

On smooth flat roads (yeah right, road tax pays for those) its great, smooth as silk but going over speed bumps its creaks and clangs and feels like its going to fall off.

2 MOTs ago it failed for the passenger side lower link/wishbone and cost me £300 (ouch) to replace. No its not gold-plated.


So i've decided to do it all each part at a time to see which fixes it. Thats where you guys come in, what do i need?

From the top:
Top mount
Spring n damper
Drop link
Lower link/wishbone

I'll replace each part and report back.

d4zzl3r said:

I'm going to replace the whole front suspension

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That sounds a little drastic. I'd rather replace what's actually necessary with good quality parts, than replace everything with cheap rubbish.

Taken to its extreme, you could replace every part on the car (@baglady is getting close to doing this ). A franchised dealer could help here; if you buy all the parts in one go you'll get a big discount, you'll get all OEM parts, and they usually come ready assembled at no extra cost.

Seriously though, running a secondhand car is about accepting that not all of it will be 'good as new', and knowing what to replace, and what to live with.

Some of the best folks at diagnosing what's actually wrong with the suspension are the MOT testers; they're examining this sort of stuff ten times a day or more. Find a good independent testing station (preferably one that doesn't do repairs), explain your problem and see if they can advise what you need to change to fix it.

d4zzl3r said:

So i've decided to do it all each part at a time to see which fixes it.

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That's a lot of dismantling and reassembly.

d4zzl3r said:

what do i need?

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Remember also the anti roll bar and its bushes. Usually it's the bushes that split & perish, but the bar itself can also wear at the point it passes through the bushes.

From the armchair, I'd start with the droplinks. If one does wear excessively (or is loose - it's the same type of allen tool/ring spanner or OE socket combination as the top hats, and some folks fail to hold the centre part correctly), they can make one heck of a racket - and they're cheap and easy to do.

Hi again

Let us know what the 45' kerb tells you

On my blue panda in the GUIDES

I did dampers:shocks at 6 years

Wishbones at 8 years (aged rubber)

BUT.. it failed its 1st MOT on a nearside droplink

I suspect that is a fairly standard sequence of failure..

AND.. the least labour intensive jobs came 1st

Given the work involved, replace everything all at once, if you are going to do it bit by bit, personally I'd go for Lemforder lower arms and top mounts, the rest is personal choice

I second John202020 replace everything I did mine over a couple of weeks and noticed the difference immediately
As for parts dont skimp on cost I don’t mean blow the budget but stay away from cheapo or you will end up doing it twice!
As JR said I have personally worked my way through my 11 plate replacing what I can! In the long run for me it’s a preventative as I want to keep my car for years and years ?

Thanks for the replies but things have moved on......

In one of my posts i mentioned that i could make the lower arm squeek (rear bush) by prying it. This is the new one i had replaced 2 MOTs ago. One of you guys mentioned silicon grease. I am still looking for silicon grease with an applicator so in the interim i got silicon lubricant from WD40 in a spray can.

Sprayed each side lower arm bushes front and rear, each side anti-roll bar and each side top of the strut rubber mount (from below and above).

You know what they say, silence is golden, its like a new car......

Chuffed to bits but why its stopped clunking too? I expected the creaking to go but clunking too?

However, chuffed as i am i'm not going to count my chickens just yet, its seems too easy, too simple. Too good to be true.

If......when it comes back i am going to change the lower arms. I think these are the culprit.
Is it easy to do?

Replacing the arms is a little more involved than many cars as the front bumper has to be removed, followed by the lower crash bar behind it, then the sub frame extensions need removing to gain access to the front wishbone fixing.
The job isn’t hard as such, just a little time consuming, and there are videos on You Tube covering it. I have this job to do on mine soon too.
Do make sure that the car is jacked up and securely supported on stands.
Not sure why the clunking has stopped but a little noise in the suspension can travel and amplify through the car so the silicon lube may well have done enough to quiet it down....

It's good that the silicon lube has improved things but, as you suspect, it's probably just papering over the cracks.
Apart from the anti roll bar bushes there should be no points of friction between suspension components.

d4zzl3r said:

If......when it comes back i am going to change the lower arms. I think these are the culprit.
Is it easy to do?

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Before you go through all trauma... you can do a simple check of the arms' health just by looking at the inner edge of the front tyres. If you know/fairly confident that your front wheels are properly aligned then your tyre wear should be even. Failing arms will cause inner shoulder wear.

I wouldn't get a tracking/alignment check unless you're fairly sure that your lower arm bushes are okay and you want to confirm it, to save yourself changing the arms.

If you pay for for a alignment check and the arms turn out to be worn (camber will be all over the place) then replacing the arms would have to be followed up by another alignment check... in which case, try to time new arms with new tyres, so the garage does the tracking for "free"..


Ralf S.

soooo....I didn't mention my suspension noises before because I didn't want to hijack the thread. However, I have had an annoying 'heavy' rattle and a knocking from the front of my 2015 500s, 35,000mls, and after replacing the top mounts and drop links with no improvement, I started to gather parts ready for a full on assault on my front end when the weather improved.
Being wary of parts that are 'excessively' cheap, I bought Meyle wishbones and Bilstein struts.
On Monday, I let rip. I changed the wishbones first, observing that the ball joint on the near side arm was extremely sloppy (but no play felt when rocking the wheel), and the rear bushes were alot softer than those in the new arms, although they weren't torn to bits. I then put the car back together and went for a potter round the block. My knock had gone but there was still the heavy rattle on high frequency bumps (imagine driving along cobble stones) and small potholes.
Car went in the air again and the struts got changed.
Near side strut, minus spring was easy (but sounded squelchy!) to compress but didnt return to its extended position. There was some evidence of misting around the neck seal area but this wasnt visible with the strut fitted to the car.
The off side strut looked a bit scabby but was smooth to compress and returned to its extended position of its own accord.
The new shocks however were relatively difficult to compress prior to building them up (I always stroke new shocks a few times in their vertical position before fitting them, and they returned far quicker than the old ones to their extended position.
Back down for test drive number 2 and all was quiet and knock free.
The noises were always at their worst in cold weather so the acid test will be when I go to work at 5am in the morning, following the forecast of -1C tonight. Im confident though..........
Taking out tea breaks, chatting, and all the other distractions, I reckon it took about 5 working hours to do the wishbones and struts, on the drive. It would have been less if I had just done everything at once but I wanted to know what effect each change had.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I got the steering realigned - it was a fair way out - the steering wheel went from straight ahead before the work to about 11 o'clock afterwards, and the car was pulling to the left.

Costs were_

Arms £84 for the pair
Bilstein B4 shocks £100 approx (cant find the order or the invoice and have a memory like a sieve!!)
Alignment £34

Anyway, I've waffled an awful lot so I'll leave it there and hope that my findings help someone!

Cheers,

Rich

I am doing exactly the same this weekend.
I have bought Meyle HD wishbones and drop links, Bilstein B4 shocks and Febi top mounts.
Then a couple of new tyres. Both fronts are excessively worn on the inner shoulders.

CALLISR - so you reckon it was the strut/damper?

PAUL999s - how did it go?

AT
d4zzl3r

d4zzl3r It went very well. I replaced both lower arms, front shocks, top mounts , and drop links, although the only bits which really needed changing were the lower arms. I took it nice and steady, a full day yesterday and finished off this morning re-fitting the bumper and wheel arch liners.
I found the most time consuming job was actually getting to the things I wanted to fix! Corroded screws on the wheel arch liners, bumper clips did not want to let go etc etc.
Eventually I got down to the 'nitty gritty' which was fairly straightforward.
I would advise anyone taking on a job like this to make sure you have the right good quality tools (six sided sockets, impact tools etc.) Without these you will struggle to overcome a few years of normal corrosion.
The car now feels transformed. No more creaking and croaking and the steering feels more positive.
The parts which I removed were original components ( I am fairly sure of this because of the car's history).
Here's a few pics...

Those blocks of wood look a bit precarious

I thought someone would mention that
Look a bit closer...the axle stands are under the chassis.
The blocks of wood are just supporting the wishbones.

d4zzl3r said:

CALLISR - so you reckon it was the strut/damper?

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In my case, yes. The majority of the noise (best described as a heavy rattle) was from the N/S strut but also some noise (knocking) was coming from the ball joint on the same side.

PAUL999s said:

although the only bits which really needed changing were the lower arms

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Yes they look shot. Great pics, thank you.

There was no excessive movement in them but if you zoom in to the rear bushes you can see the rubber is coming away from the steel. With a bar through the centre bush I could generate a lot of squeaking noises which are amplified through the subframe while driving the car.
Hence my earlier comment about silicon lube, it would certainly get rid of the noises but would just be delaying the inevitable.
When still fitted in the car the rear bushes appeared to OK. Indeed the car had recently passed an MOT.
Paul