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I love doing some spirited driving. Even if I had a bad day driving home with my Golf 5 GTI just made the day so much better. The acceleration, the car pushing you into your seat, and the car that feels like it is running on rails through bends in the road.
One day I was on my way home again and the car felt funny. I just could not figure out what is going on. The car felt loose on the road, it did not feel like it used to. When I got home I jacked the car up and could not really see anything wrong. I made a booking for the Golf 5 GTI at one of the workshops close to my house. Maybe they could see what the issue is.
Till now the handling of the car was absolutely perfect, I just wondered what it could be.
So what did they find wrong?
After a few hours, I got a call from the workshop, and they said the problem was with the lower control arm bushes. The bushes on the car are torn. The car was a few years old now and my spirited driving wasn’t helping.
VW made these lower control arm bushes in such a way that they do have movement on them. It is mostly to dampen out road noise. On proper race cars, you will never see a joint like this as they will really flex under track conditions and you don’t want that. My lower control arm bushes were full of small cracks and they could move a lot more than they should. One of the ribs indicated with the arrow above was torn off. This made the issue so much worse.
The rear lower control arm bushes weren’t torn yet but they were super soft. If you took a crowbar you could move the wheel around a lot just by jacking the lower control arm a bit. This was really bad for a performance car.
So what were the options to fix this?
The workshop gave me a stupid price to replace the bushes with standard bushes. I told them that I would drive the car like this for now. I first wanted to see if there isn’t a better option to fix this. Later that day I went to fetch my car. That evening I spent some time on the internet and found another option. I found a company called Whiteline performance, they specialize in performance polyurethane suspension rubbers. Their prices amazed me and I ordered there antilift front lower control arm bushes. This was a complete CNC machined housing with a molded polyurethane bush.
The mounting angle of the housing is slightly different from the standard one. This helps that the nose of the car does not lift on hard acceleration and you lose traction on your front wheels. I also ordered the solid rear lower control arm bushes. If you have all this movement on your wheels then the only time your wheel alignment is correct is when the car is stationary.
Conclusion
The kit was really easy to install, I just had to make a tool to pull out the standard rear bushed. Once they were out, it was a walk in the park to fit the new bushes. You don’t have to press the new bushes in like the factory parts.
Once everything was fitted I just had to take the car for wheel alignment to check that everything was in spec as I did loosen some suspension bolts to fit the front lower control arm bushes.
If you have a stage 2+ car and love doing spirited driving I would recommend changing most of your suspension bushes to polyurethane bushes. The car will drive like a new car again. I did not gain any road noise with the new bushes installed. I originally thought the car handled well before the standard lower control arm bushes failed. With the new bushes, the car was solid on the road. This was a really good mod to do.
Here is a link to this product:
Whiteline Polyurethane Control Arm Bushing Kit – Rear Position« Wearing TFSI High-Pressure Fuel pump(HPFP) cam follower | What are the best brake pads to buy? »
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