Please bear with me and I thank you in advance for your patience
2006/56 Passat 'S' Saloon, 2ltr TDI (BKP) 140bhp
With my MOT date closing in, a friend and I gave the car a check over and saw that the rear suspension bushes were totally shot, the lower arm (with the coil spring) was sat at and angle in the rear sub-frame.
I jumped on eBay and ordered a full kit for about £150, which included all 3 arms with bushes and necessary bolts along with new ARB drop links
The kit arrived and we set aside a day to do it. I had toyed with the idea of buying a bush kit and using a hydraulic press, but then figured that complete arms would be simpler and quicker seeing as we'd have to have the arms off in the first place
All went well at first, a few tight bolts here and there but with plenty of WD40 and gentle elbow grease they came out one by one.
Then we found that the adjustment bolts had seized into their respective bushes on the lower track control arm.
We simply cut the heads off where necessary (carefully) for the lower arm bolts but the upper track control arm bolts proved to be tougher than we could handle at first, so we decided to drop the whole sub-frame off the car and work on it out in the open.
The O/S/R upper track control bolt was seized solid. During the process we bent the jaw on the sub-frame by standing on top of the sub-frame and being a bit over enthusiastic with a club hammer trying to get the bolt to slide out of the bush, we straightened the jaw and then we cut the old bush open and pried it off with a crow bar etc.
Every thread we could find was carefully cleaned and copper greased liberally before reassembly
Once it was back on it's wheels the back end was like Quasimodo's eyes, the next day, ATS Euromaster were tasked with 4 wheel alignment - They failed.
The couldn't get the back wheels to toe correctly on either side, saying that the O/S/R kept "Springing back".
They blamed a failed bush, i told them that the bushes were approx 18 hours old and had covered about 25 miles at most.
"Oh right" they said, handed me my paper work and sent me on my way.
Since then, the car feels loads better, but every now and then the back end will wander around the road as if a side wind has caught it or a water tank in the boot needs some baffles.
It get's upset by cats eyes and crossing the while lines in the road
In this image:
All new arms and bushes replaced, except for #9
#14 on O/S had it's jaw bent, but then subsequently straightened (we had to re-use the adjustment bolts in both sides here)
#8 wasn't included in the kit, so is still original
#15 (Anti Roll Bar bushes) are original
#10 had new bolts, the old ones had to be cut off
Further more, bush #2 was replaced on both sides shortly after alignment was carried out
I'll post a picture of the alignment sheet provided to me by ATS soon, it means nothing to me, but may mean something to some of you I hope.
It's been suggested to me to use someone else to line it up but that's going to be a few weeks away yet.
Could my sub-frame now be bent out of alignment? (although it bolted back up to the car just fine afterwards)
Could that once bent jaw be causing issues? (Although i thought the bush would've compensated as we got it pretty darn close when we straightened it)
What are your thoughts folks?
Thanks!
Russ'