Last week I bought PowerFlex control arm bushings which cost a pretty penny to replace the crap hydro-bushings in both the lower control arms on my 2004 XJR. I had replaced the bushings about 40K miles ago and they went to hell. I believe I got them from flea-bay so, ok, I got what I paid for.

Since I had to do the job again, I went for the polyurethane bushings from PowerFlex so I did not have to do the job again... ever. The bushings are definitely of good quality but unfortunately they did not appear to be machined correctly. All of them took very little power and one of them (the 59mm outer one) you can flop it in and out by hand which makes it unusable.


Have any of you had any experience installing PowerFlex bushings in your vehicles and did you have any similar observations?

 

Read reports that they sometimes squeak. After some use. People greased them to reduce issue.
Used Moog and some Lemforder when my front end was rebuilt in 2015. Had one bushing, strut bushing fail in seven years. It collapsed.
The fitting of the the bushings may be why they start to squeak. Moving in the receptacle.

 

I have not used them but I have heard they can stiffen the ride a bit. I went with cheap eBay bushings for my rear re-build. Not sure on what I will do for the fronts yet. Have you tried to use the 'Lifetime' warranty yet?

 

I have had great luck with Polybush on old Rovers. No issues with squeaks, fitment is good, and decent ride quality for polyurethane -- not sure how the ride would be in the x350/x358. They are available here. They are not cheap, by any means, but I haven't had to replace any on any of the Rovers I've done.

Well, not true. I installed 'soft' bushings on my RR classic, but they were too soft for highway driving, so I had to replace them with the 'mediums', which they consider to be similar to factory ride quality.

-j

 

After looking around at alternatives, the PowerFlex look much better. All the 20.00 options I gathered in 2015 are gone. There are now a few 40 - 50 options. RockAuto, PartsGeek, and FCPeuro all stock a few.
Think I ordered from five sources to replaces all uppers, all rear lower, toe links, outer tie rods , and bush front lower straight and curved.
And the uppers are no longer 119.00 from Ford.

 

I sent them a complaint with info and a video but that was just late yesterday afternoon. No response yet. Just the rear lowers (6 bushings) are just about $300. Sadness.

 

BTW, I did replace the rear upper arms as well - used the ones called for 2002 - 2005 Lincoln LS/Thunderbird, picked the Dorman version and they were exact, perfect replacements.

 

could’ve bought brand new XK arms with a lifetime warranty for 300 bucks. add a washer and you’re good to go.


https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/jaguar-control-arm-lemforder-c2p16879

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/jaguar-control-arm-lemforder-c2p16878


i like to buy complete suspensions out of wrecked cars with no miles. got a full rear out of a 2017 XJ with 20k miles for 150 bucks.

 

What year xk arms fit? My lowers still seem fine even after going through two sets of uppers.

 

Any from the list below. If you have a car made before sometime in 05 and the part you're fitting is meant for a car made after you need a washer to fill the gap.

F-Type, X200, X150, X350 - 2 hydrabushes 1 solid

X351 and X250 - 1 hydra 2 solid. I like using these

 

Where is the location of the hydra bush on these?

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Jaguar-XF-L...-127632-2357-0

knuckle side is now solid

 

Yessss, that the one that gets abused the most. And that is the one that failed on me - the bushing pretty much disintegrated (it was in two pieces when I removed it) and the knuckle was hitting the lower control arm.

 

Thats great info for the future. Both my xjr's are 2004's. I remember when sourcing new lower control arms for my cayenne turbo a later model Audi had aluminum arms with larger solid rubber bushings that was a direct fit. I never even thought about this.

 

So I have been going back and forth with PowerFlex's warranty department exchanging pics and such but their claim is that their bushings are manufactured for proper interference fit. I have taken the measurements below with my trusted Mitutoyo caliper many times (Powerflex vs the original that came out of the arm) and always come up with a 0.25mm narrower width on the Powerflex bushings. So pretty much $300 down the drain. So caveat emptor! I would not trust that company.

 

So obviously I couldn't keep the car on the lift indefinitely. Gave up on installing poly bushes for now and I purchased control arms from Amazon as shown below and the fit was superb and exact. So, for my 2004 XJR, the Doorman control arms 521-937 and 521-938 are a perfect fit. They are installed and drove the car for about 100 miles with absolutely no issues!.

 

I have these on my car but my NA XJ8, my STR has X351 arms.

30k miles and they're holding up fine. Shocking for a Dorman part.

 

Lemforder/Jaguar/Ford set the bar very low on lower rear control arm quality. My originals were in a danger to drive condition when I purchased the car.
Never seen a car that had all the suspension rubber completely disintegrate in 9 years and less than 100K miles. Only the subframe bushings were intact.at that time we had an Audi and BMW same age with perfect condition Lemforder suspension parts. At least rubber boots. The A8’s wear out front upper control arm bushings due to using the same arms in A4, A6, and A8. A front end heavy car holding up a V8, V10, or W12 with 4 cylinder car suspension.
May be heat, I have heard repeatedly thefactory hold up fine in Canada and Europe. Or different rubber composition.
I was so pissed at Lemforder that I used Monroe, Moog, and Raybestos brands that used to be high quality replacement parts. But used Ford for all uppers, rear lowers, and toe links. Some had Jaguar cast into the arm.
They are seven years old now. Rubber on the toe links is going, rest look fine.
But with factory items being disposable parts the Amazon, eBay, Rock Auto sure are looking better.
BTW, I try to avoid Dorman. But after Discount destroyed the third wheel stud I found out they are OEM for Ford wheel studs. They are still Dorman crap. Discount manages to destroy one about every second tire rotation. Last time the stud spun in the hub. That was painful.
I would have to rate the PowerFlex as junk. Your undersized bushing May explain the squeaking. Metal on metal. But not having to press in sure makes install easy.

 

it’s just age related. there’s v12 vanquishes with less than 20k miles that have completely blown out bushings toe links and boots.

the boots and toe link have been upgraded for a while with normal black rubber. the rear control arm hydrabushes you just have to live with and with an fcpeuro highly abusable lifetime warranty you don’t have to worry.

 

QUOTE: always come up with a 0.25mm narrower width on the Powerflex bushings.

You can use grades of Loctite and similar ( anaerobic ) products that will fill that gap and be very close in performance to an interference fit.
Note that these products cure differently with steel to steel contact as opposed to steel to alloy contact.
In some instances these products provide a better fitting solution than the conventional interference fit.
The reason it is not popular with manufacturers is that it requires more care to clean the components for fitting and also more time to do it.

There can be two problems with this approach:
1. It is not always easy for maintaining concentricity of fitted parts.
2. The cure process can be too quick for allowing everything to be tightened or lined up properly.

I would guess in the case of rubber bushes concentricity is not a major headache, and fitting is quick.

The most extreme need for an anaerobic fix was a pulley on a cheap Chinese lathe. The shaft key was a sloppy fit and allowed the pulley to create a gap about 30 thou on the shaft. I found a special Loctite product that would fill that gap. It was not possible to adjust the pulley for concentricity without a lot of extra work. So the pulley wobbled but was only being driven by a V belt and caused no trouble. Still working 20 years later.