wishbone /suspension bushes

[THREEFISHORANGE]

I'm in the process of stripping my 1800 s to bits. I was wondering whether its preferable to replace bushes with the standard rubber metallastic bushes or replace with Polyflex style bushes?

[Astacus]

This will cause some discussion.

Metalastic bushes give better compliance and softer ride I understand. Poly bushes much firmer. There was some discussion a while ago on the benefits of poly for suspension v rubber for diff etc, but I think this all comes down to preference.

I used poly, but only because they came with the car

Edited by Astacus on Friday 6th September 23:43

[Cerberus90]

It will mostly depend on what you want from the car and how much and it what way you'll be using it.

Good rubber bushes are fine for road use. I doubt you'd notice between rubber and poly on the road, especially if you've got large sidewall tyres.

[Moto]

I need to make the same decision on my Vixen. Gut feel is to stick with rubber as the ride is firm enough and a bit of compliance seems a good thing to me. The down side is that rubber bushes will need replacing again at some point where as poly bushes won't deteriorate.

[thegamekeeper]

I defy you to tell the difference if you drove 2 identical cars except for the suspension bushes, road or track.

Contrary also to popular belief rubber bushes will probably last longer, poly bushes tend to wear the shoulders, especially front suspension due to braking forces.

I wonder what Porsche, ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ford, Kia, Dacia use?

Only my opinon.

[madsvlund]

I replaced all the brushes with new rubber ones on my M for 2 reasons. The geometry of wishbones and fixing points are not 100 % straight, the rubber bushes are more easy to adjust to compensate for this. 2'nd reason is to avoid noise, and the distance between bushes are quite big som even the rubber flex a little, will it hardly give any flex of the withbones.

You could buy 4 poly flex bushes, and use them on the outside of the upper rear wishbone, where the bushes sit quite close

[madsvlund]

I replaced all the brushes with new rubber ones on my M for 2 reasons. The geometry of wishbones and fixing points are not 100 % straight, the rubber bushes are more easy to adjust to compensate for this. 2'nd reason is to avoid noise, and the distance between bushes are quite big som even the rubber flex a little, will it hardly give any flex of the withbones.

You could buy 4 poly flex bushes, and use them on the outside of the upper rear wishbone, where the bushes sit quite close

[Cerberus90]

thegamekeeper said:

Contrary also to popular belief rubber bushes will probably last longer, poly bushes tend to wear the shoulders, especially front suspension due to braking forces.

+1 to that. I've stuck with rubber bushes on my mini as everyone has said that poly just wears out quicker, especially lower arms due to the way the castor works I think.

[Moto]

thegamekeeper said:

I defy you to tell the difference if you drove 2 identical cars except for the suspension bushes, road or track.

Contrary also to popular belief rubber bushes will probably last longer, poly bushes tend to wear the shoulders, especially front suspension due to braking forces.

I wonder what Porsche, ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Ford, Kia, Dacia use?

Only my opinon.

There you go, decision made. Rubber it is