My trailing arm bushings have some cracks in them and i have an occasional creak coming from the back so I think it's time for new bushings. I have the powerflex inserts to help stiffen up the stock bushings, but I wonder if it's worth going with the powerflex bushings. My car is mostly daily driven and I don't have a press which seems like it's neccessary to press the OEM bushing out of the bracket and to press the powerflex bushing in. Does anybody know how much better the powerflex bushings are than the OEM bushings with the powerflex inserts? is it worth trying to find a shop with a press that will press the bushings in for me?

 

Your signature indicates you already have super stiff Powerflex black bushings everywhere including the rear trailing arms?

 

if you have the space, i'd consider buying a used press off craigslist or facebook. for the money you'd pay to someone to press bushings once you could instead buy a press and never look back. they're great when you need to press wheel bearings, suspension bushings, etc...

 

Thanks for the advice, I will keep it in my mind.

 

Just the inserts right now, but I'm contemplating going whole hog.

 

Not a bad idea, though right now space is at a premium for me. I downsized from a 3 plus car sized garage to a 2 car garage, and I've got the 2 cars, the kids bikes, and the kart racing operation to squeeze in to this garage. But hopefully I'll have a larger garage in the next 6-8 months.

 

i understand - my garage is like tetris getting everything to fit. but, i had a car that was chewing through wheel bearings and eventually got a used harbor freight press off craigslist. it's a bit unwieldy in the garage but i've used it more times than i ever imagined over the years. it's kinda something that when needed it's great to have.

 

Call around and see what a local shop would charge. I wrench at a small performance shop and we just did this for guy who brought us his suspension components from a '92 Toyota MR2. I think we billed him about 15 minutes per bushing to press out and press his polyurethane bushings in. In all, it came to about 2 hours of billed labor time for that job. For a pair of trailing arm bushings, I would expect you to be billed no more than 1 hour labor, maybe even less.

 

The shop that worked on my wife's Mercedes charged me $50 to press two rear trailing arm bushings (I took them the trailing arms/bushings). Easily worth it.

 

Thanks for the tips, I'll call around and see what I can find.