I have a loud snap sound in the left front end that feels like it is right under your feet. This happens mostly when you are turning to the left and the road elevation goes up or when you hit the brakes while turning left. I think the problem is the rear mount bushing in the drivers side lower control arm. In the attachment, the red arrow is pointing to where the metal is shiny. Notice how low the control arm is sitting. Other times I've looked at this bushing the control arm is up higher and you can see the metal under it is shiny. If the control arm is bad, who sells a decent aftermarket replacement for a daily driver? Thanks in advance for your help. The shiny area is actually along the bottom edge, the picture looks like it is on the side right above the arrow.






















































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Read this on going saga =
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...l-arms-186936/

I did OEM and had faulty parts, so the after market parts for rear lower front control arms were perfect. The "only buy OEM" is a personal "thing".


This place sells decent after market control arms =
Shopping

 

Thanks for your reply Dell. Personally I wouldn't buy lower control arms that are being sold as 2 for $50 when the OEMs go for $300. I'll probably buy from one of the vendors on this site, now that I know they have them.
I would like to hear from someone that can tell me if the control arm is indeed bad before I shell out the money for a replacement. Should the control arm be that low, as shown in the picture, and still move up so that it hits where the arrow is pointing? I had someone watch it while I drove forward and hit the brakes hard. He said the rear of the control arm moved up and down on the bushing. Being oil filled, I don't know if that is what it is supposed to do.

 

That's the struggle, figuring out what is causing the noise. Currently I have a squeak in the US drivers side and I just can not pin point it, using a stethoscope.

I know Lemforder- who made the OEM arms for Jaguar- sells the ball joints to refurbish the arms at about 70-100 each, but I have not seen lemforder bushings, which is a shame, because refurbishing the original arms for say 150.00 each side with original bushings would still be more cost efficient than getting new Jaguar ones

 

So now faulty OEM (LHD) front right control arm arrived back at seller yesterday. New replacement sent this morning, so a few more days to arrive to tear it all apart again and replace. I had no steering or loosness in my front end, just a bothersome squeak going over speed bumps or as the body of the car traveled up and down while driving at freeway speed on the left front (& rear before replacing rear front lower stabilizer bars). I was told by Jaguar the large oil filled bushing was leaking, so I ordered both sides along with stabilizer bars. Hey why not while you're in there?

The bushings WERE NOT leaking on either side, the knot head tech took the fluid film (great stuff by the way) I had sprayed on all rubber I could find up on a rack to see if I could quiet the squeaks (ended up replacing rear front lower stabilizer bars = they were shot) he thought was a leak.

The left side front stabilizer bar got installed on the above link and the car is dead quiet now. No squeak!! The components were tight, but the rubber seals were torn and getting brittle. Funny thing is the rubber on the right side ball joint (the replacement coming side) was actually in worse condition than the left, yet no squeak.

As for "travel" of the arm up & down, I regretfully must admit, I never thought to even try seeing the amount. I will say that in trying to install the faulty arm on the right side, we could not get a noticeable movement of the large oil filled bushing part. In trying to pry/force/beat the lateral bolt into the captive nut towards the front of the car, we had to loosen the larger oil filled bushing side (was not fully tightened) to attempt to get a bit more movement on the front side. My gut says it shouldn't be moving much at all.

 

Amendment = did replace the left stabilizer bar but it was the left control arm that was squeaky.

 

Interesting.

I think it's rare that the oiled filled bushings fail to the point of leaking oil, but who knows about squeaking?

I know a few, or maybe just one guy in the UK replaced the ball joints with the arms in place, but maybe that's all that really needs to be replaced on the OEM ARMS. There is a second bushing in there though, right?

 

Second in the area where oil filled is? Not that I seen, it all looks like one bushing and firm as all get out, because of course curiosity got the better of me and I was pressing down on the bushing trying to feel how soft this oil filled thing was. It didn't feel AT ALL soft.

I've read and seen pics of folks replacing just the ball joints as well as have looked at the parts. You have to remove the rivoted ball joints and kit comes with 3 bolts each side to bolt on the ball joints. The downside I see to this (imo) is old arms and bushings still exist and it's not exponentially more from ball joint kit to full arms.

 

Deutsche Parts USA who's specialty is Audi and BMW =



Internet kit =

 

Also, the Prime Choice parts listed up above comes with a 6 month guarantee. For a nominal fee (like ~$85 in base cost), you can get a lifetime guarantee on the part(s) for about $12 (on the $85).

If parts fails, you contact them, they email you a link, you take a picture w/explanation & they send a replacement.

 

So installing the right front control arm Friday, I thought of this post as we were fighting once again to install it. In prying on the bottom side of the rear (big oil filled bushing) with a 4 foot pry bar trying to canter the top of the metal sleeve from outboard to inboard side to get the bolt from bottom through top of assembly. The big bushing NEVER moved i.e. "slid" up and down on the metal sleeve. So I would hazard a pretty good guess, it's not supposed to move up and down as you said yours did. Again this was with a 4 foot pry bar, the amount of force of the entire car might be able to do it.

 

Another addition = on my other posts about control arms, I found a TSB stating the fluid in the bushing "is incompatible with hot weather areas" (like the 100+° Utah summer. There are "JAGUAR ONLY" replacement arms (inc. part numbers in the TSB post) with a fluid that is supposed to alleviate the squeak from the bushes. Bite me, Jaguar.