Neighbor asked me to inspect his vehicle due to "severely unstable handling at highway speeds." It is a 2014 Forester with 85K. I found a failed inner control arm bushing on the passenger-front lower control arm; the bushing sleeve had separated from the rubber.
When I inspected the car 2k miles ago, the large rear bushing had some dry rot but the inner bushings were fine. For this event to happen so suddenly is kinda scary. The passenger-front tire developed a significant amount of play, almost as bad as a failed ball joint.
A pair of new control arms from Subaru would be $500+. Since the ball joints were fine I elected to only replace both bushings (inner and outer). My local Subaru dealer sold me all 4 bushings for about $114 OTD.
The perfect driver tool for the inner control arm bushing is a 1" Ingersoll-Rand Impact Socket. Since the bushing sleeves are extremely thin, using the exact-size bushing driver is critical in order to prevent the driver from being stuck in the bore (or digging into the rubber portion of the bushing).
For the larger rear bushing, I used the 60/70MM cup from my Mueller Kueps Press/Pull Sleeve kit. Unfortunately, this was just a hair too big and resulted in the driver being pressed into the arm. As a result, I had to use a 58/68MM cup to press the other cup back out once the bushing was removed. If I were to do this job again, I would buy the Subaru-specific bushing driver from Snap-On (#BJP1-43A) for $27.75. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures while pressing out the rear bushing.
Overall, removing and replacing the arms is very quick and easy in our CA climate (total r/r time is under 45 minutes) but pressing out the bushings can be extremely time-consuming. However, the savings are considerable compared to buying complete control arm assemblies from Subaru if you wish to only use Genuine Subaru bushings.
When I inspected the car 2k miles ago, the large rear bushing had some dry rot but the inner bushings were fine. For this event to happen so suddenly is kinda scary. The passenger-front tire developed a significant amount of play, almost as bad as a failed ball joint.
A pair of new control arms from Subaru would be $500+. Since the ball joints were fine I elected to only replace both bushings (inner and outer). My local Subaru dealer sold me all 4 bushings for about $114 OTD.
The perfect driver tool for the inner control arm bushing is a 1" Ingersoll-Rand Impact Socket. Since the bushing sleeves are extremely thin, using the exact-size bushing driver is critical in order to prevent the driver from being stuck in the bore (or digging into the rubber portion of the bushing).
For the larger rear bushing, I used the 60/70MM cup from my Mueller Kueps Press/Pull Sleeve kit. Unfortunately, this was just a hair too big and resulted in the driver being pressed into the arm. As a result, I had to use a 58/68MM cup to press the other cup back out once the bushing was removed. If I were to do this job again, I would buy the Subaru-specific bushing driver from Snap-On (#BJP1-43A) for $27.75. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures while pressing out the rear bushing.
Overall, removing and replacing the arms is very quick and easy in our CA climate (total r/r time is under 45 minutes) but pressing out the bushings can be extremely time-consuming. However, the savings are considerable compared to buying complete control arm assemblies from Subaru if you wish to only use Genuine Subaru bushings.