My Cooper has been in the shop since yesterday morning. I need new front control arm bushings. It should be a ~4 hour job, but... all the hardware underneath my car seems to be seized / rusted solid. I had the same problem when I had my camber plates installed.

The mechanic says he has the front subframe dropped, and one of the two bushing brackets removed (not that those tasks were easy). But the other bushing bracket doesn't want to come off the subframe.

It might be done today, or might not... I hope the labor charge for this doesn't get too out of hand.

Does anyone else have a MINI that has suffered from rusted bolts?

 

I stopped by the shop this afternoon to see what was going on.

I'm happy that they look to be doing things as carefully as possible. One of the control arms was off the car with the new bushing in place. The other was still being wrestled free. Everything under the car that had been exposed was cleaned up to a startling degree - which is nice.

The subframe bolts had been removed and the subframe lowered a bit. One of the two bolts holding the bushing housing was off, the second had been loosened a couple of threads, but was still stuck.

I'm actually not that upset, because I know that all the stuff under my car is a rusted mess. And the shop looks to be doing a very competent, careful, clean job.

Hopefully, tomorrow they other bushing will get installed and an alignment done. I'm really happy about the alignment work they will be doing. The don't have a fancy laser based alignment table. Just simpled gauges and the willingness to make things right.

Other than paying for the extra labor, I am looking forward to getting the car back, with at least the front end in tip-top shape.

 

Hey Snid, what year is your car? I just picked up my car at the dealership yesterday. The MA was going over the warranty info with me and one of the things that caught my eye is that there was a warranty (standard, no extension needed) for no rust for 12 years or they would replace what ever was rusted. Is that new or have they always had it? Maybe you should take a look at your warranty info and see if it would be worth taking it in and have things replaced with new parts? Just a thought!

 

Tell the mechanic to soak the bolt with AeroKroil (used by aircraft mechanics for years) for about 8 hours. It'll come right out after that.

 

It's a 2003.

Those rust warranties are worded such that they do not cover any of the parts that typically rust. It's probably something like "body corrosion". Since my problems are with bolts etc under the car, it would not be covered.

The two main options for getting this work done were to go to the dealership and pay their high labor rate with a "book" time or go to an independent and pay a much lower labor rate but pay for "actual" time.

Paying for book time, if the book says the job will take 4 hours, you pay for four hours. If it only takes 2 hours, you pay for four hours. If it takes a little over 4 hours, you pay for 4 hours. I'd bet that they'd ding me for over 4 hours for this job, though.

 

Latest word: the bushings are on the control arms and the car is going back together.

If the tie-rods aren't also seized, and the alignment isn't way off, it should be done today. Since I had an alignment done about a year ago, I think the tie-rods should be movable...

 

The car is back together, but the alignment is going to wait until tomorrow morning.

4 hours, 4 days, what's the difference?

 

I did a set on an 02 S with 100k miles on Monday. When I pulled out one of the bolts for the bushing a big chunk of threads came out with it. Had to retap the whole thing. So don't feel too bad your not the only one.

 

Well, the job is done. I think I did manage to wind up a little cheaper than meb's first front LCS bushing job, but not much. :(

And my test drive consisted of driving from the garage on one side of town to the glass shop on the other side of town for a new windshield (unrelated issue).

The bushings were from http://www.bavauto.com/ and a a "soft" polyurethane bushing offset for increased caster. I've got some mountain road driving on tap for this weekend, and a crazy tight track event next weekend, so I'll post my impressions of the bushings after that.

So far, expansion joints didn't feel bad at all. Maybe even less noise from the car with these than with the old, worn out bushings.

 

Make it end!

The suspension seems to be working out well. But now I think I've got an exhaust leak that has developed. Most likely from moving the front subframe around during the bushing install.

 

I changed my mind... it's more likely a vacuum leak than an exhaust leak. It sounds more like sucking air than broken exhaust.