r/Cartalk • u/badspendinghabit • 1d ago

General Tech How bad is this?

Please see video. Comment from technician: Finding: RR under control arm bushing has excessive play and LR starting to develop play as well

Recommendation: Recommend replacement with alignment

Quote: $915+tax Canadian dollars.

I wasn’t expecting this. Car has been driving smoothly all this time. I went in for a swap (winter to all season summer) and they identified this issue.

57 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

78

u/JDD64JDD 1d ago

That's definitely bad. Try replacing the bushing in that control arm. It has a lot of play.

16

u/BigPimpin91 1d ago

The misalignment is eventually going to eat the tire on that side adding to your repair bill.
I'd repair it as soon as economically viable.

3

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Bomber_Man 1d ago

Had to do a double take there. This is the rear suspension with separated coil and damper. As such this is a bushing mounted on a lateral arm. Ball joints aren’t used here as the wheels don’t need to turn. If it was a ball joint it would be a vertical mount on the knuckle. This type of attachment doesn’t allow turning the wheels on a steering axis because there is none.

As such this is LESS dangerous than a bad ball joint, but still not a good thing to ignore.

15

u/InterestingFocus8125 1d ago

Potentially deadly if not repaired soon

7

u/Alextryingforgrate 1d ago

Yes. Also get it fixed.

6

u/NuclearHateLizard 1d ago

Doesn't matter if you drive a car smoothly, suspension components wear out with use. Its pretty bad, I would get it fixed as soon as you can afford to

3

u/norwal42 1d ago

Could separate at any moment - delete 1 of 4 wheels bad. I wouldn't drive this due to risk of catastrophic failure. Even at low speeds, lower risk of injury on failure, but failure could multiply (by a lot) the cost of replacing everything else that could get damaged in the process.

2

u/Z_AnDaran 1d ago

It’ll make it all the way to the scene of the crash

2

u/AbzoluteZ3RO 23h ago

it's pretty bad

3

u/relakas 1d ago

Hurts to see the quote. Something like 60€ (+ work) for that, where I live.

1

u/nhp890 18h ago

Yeah that’s more reasonable and closer to my experience, where does almost 1000 come from

0

u/profane 19h ago

Where do you live?!

1

u/jrs321aly 1d ago

Fuckin...

1

u/aorshahar 1d ago

That ball joint is fucked