Wayne (cjd777) and I are planning to replace the factory front upper control arms in my 2005 S-Type 3.0 in the next few weeks. The car currently shows 98,400 miles. While I believe my factory shocks are still performing as designed, it may be a good idea to replace both front lower shock bushings while we're in there. The few online sites I've found that sell these bushings typically price them at $55 to $60 each. I think that is a bit pricey for just bushings when I can replace the entire shock for about $100 each....

Has anyone found decent lower shock bushings at a significantly better price? If so, please share your details. Thanks....

 

I had replaced my lower shock bushings and this link should help. Not sure where I got them I think jagbits.com.

Link. http://www.jagrepair.com/AlignmentRideImprovements.htm

Gus
www.jagrepair.com

 

Gus,

Jagbits.com currently sells these front lower shock bushings for $57.95 each plus shipping. That's too much money compared to going ahead and replacing the entire shock for $100 each with free shipping from Tire Rack....

Has anyone else found more reasonable shock bushing prices elsewhere?

 

I went looking and not sure what bushing you are looking for. Do you have a photo?

 

Never mind, Gus. We're not going to bother to replace the lower shock bushings. Thanks for your assistance....

 

Any reason why, Jon?

As I plan to do this job soon, I'm thinking of other things to change out, a "while I'm at it, I might as well change part x " list.

 

Jimmy,

Replacing just the lower shock bushings is simply not cost-effective in my book unless I can find them for maybe $20 each. It would make much more financial sense to bite the bullet and replace both shocks, but my factory shocks are still performing as designed so we're not going to replace them. We'll take a good look at them and hope we made the right decision. Keep in mind that I expect to sell my S-Type in 2017 so I prefer to minimize what I have to spend maintaining it until I do. My front upper control arms definitely need to be replaced since I noticed back in October that their ball joint casings are starting to disintegrate, so we'll do that job and hopefully call it a day....

I have the new control arms but we're waiting on the required Torx T-60 bit that I ordered from sears.com to show up. No wonder Sears is headed for extinction - a simple bit like that is on backorder for probably the next ten days to two weeks....

 

The reason I ask is that I found bushings for around $20.00 but wanted to match them with what you were looking for.

 

Thanks for trying, Gus. Unfortunately, I do not have a photo....

 

Jon, when you take the front struts out for upper arm replacement, the front shocks will either fight you or come out clean. I had to cut the front shock lower bolts when I did mine the first time because the lower bolt was rusted to the bushing inner sleeve. At that point, you will have to replace the lower bushing regardless.
Here's hoping it will come out clean.

 

Tony,

Thanks for the warning. My car is very rust-free (it sleeps safely at home in the snow and ice while we drive the Subaru to get us around) here in central North Carolina so I hope we don't have to struggle with the lower shock bolts. If they fight us and we wind up having to ruin the lower shock bushings to get the components apart, I think it makes more sense to shut down at that point, order two new shocks ($100 each from Tire Rack with free shipping) and try again once I have the new shocks in hand....

Wayne (cjd777) has air tools and torches and plenty of other tricks, so I sure hope this won't be an issue for us. Still waiting on my backordered Torx T-60 bit to arrive from sears.com so we cannot schedule this job until I have that bit in hand. I'm guessing it will be early February before I head to Wayne's house so we can knock out this job....

 

One more thing, Jon, the lower bushing are not included with new shocks.
If you can get the T60 bolt out then you know it's not fused to the bushing sleeve. As long as that is the case, I don't think replacing the bushing is worth the effort either.

 

Jon, I guess its not the good ol' Sears & Roebuck of yore. No wonder why they're going under. Ever go in one of their stores lately? Depressing...

You can get a Lisle T60 bit on Amazon instead.

TonyX, thanks for this tidbit of information. I will be doing this job in the spring.

 

Tony,

What?! The new Bilstein shocks we installed on my wife's 2006 XK8 (rears in October 2014, fronts in January 2016) all came with new lower shock bushings. Hard to believe that a reputable shocks seller would ship a new shock without the appropriate new lower shock bushing. To me, that is part of the deal....

 

Jimmy,

Around 4:30 pm yesterday I received an e-mail saying that my Torx T-60 bit had arrived at my local Sears store and is ready for pick-up. So I phoned the local store to verify. No answer on their main line. No answer in the Merchandise Pick-Up department. No answer in the Tools department. No answer anywhere I tried. My call either rolled to voicemail after 12 to 15 rings or just cut off and the line went dead. This has been the flagship Sears store in Raleigh for more than 45 years. Now it is apparently a ghost town. I guess I'll drive over there today or tomorrow when I'm out running errands, brush my way through the tumbleweeds and cobwebs, and see if anyone is around to locate my order and bring it to me....

 

Jon,
Same around here. Sears turns the incompetence dial to 11.

Its funny, recently I was in a Sears, one of their employees approaches me with a tablet and says, "Did you know Sears is in the travel business?"

Apparently they're travel agents too, and wanted to enroll me in a sweepstakes where I could win a free trip...

Wow.....

Anyway, enough of Sears. Thats crazy about the shocks, now I have to be worried about that.... it never ends....

Good luck with that work, thanks for the invite, and whatever you guys come across in the job and post here will allow me to stand upon the shoulders of giants! lol

 

Picked up my new Torx T-60 bit this morning at my local Sears store. It was indeed a ghost town, but the two employees I dealt with were friendly and retrieved my order quickly. When I mentioned that I had called several times yesterday attempting to verify my order, they acknowledged that there have been so many layoffs and cutbacks that no one is ever available to answer the phone. No question that's a business model destined to eventually kill off Sears once and for all....