V1 My experience with Moog control arm bushings

[Dsteinhorst]

Like most builders, I took the suggestion from others to buy rear lower control arms with the Moog semi-spherical bushings to limit movement on the rear axis.

About a year later, I also bought a set for my beater, a 2004 Dream Cruiser (5 speed turbo) thinking it would be the last set of bushings for the useful life of the car. PT cruisers eat control arm bushings... amongst other things.

I've put almost 10k miles on the Goblin and about 6k miles on the Cruiser since install. After about a year, I noticed noise on the Cruiser suspension. As my beater, I ignored it until it got really bad. I inspected a few weeks ago and found about .050" movement on the left arm and about .070" movement on the right.

After seeing this, I inspected the Goblin and found the right side tight, but the left has about .020" play.

These bushings are a great idea, but it seems in practice, the lifespan is pretty short. Just an FYI.

 

[Rttoys]

Moog has had their ups and downs, plus there’s a huge counterfeit market out there too, which I think is part of their downs. I use Moog at work on my fleet trucks when OEM are not available and have had very few failures, it does happen though.

I have pressed in several sets of the Moog heims for the Houston goblin crew and wouldn’t take much for me to check them at the next autocross just to see if any are loose. It’s kind of a forgot about part. I have ottp heims in mine and will check those too, just for reference. Mine have been installed for about 3 years now with roughly 30 autocrosses and a couple of track days of use.