craigmurray

I have a C320 coupe with 112,000 miles I bought used six mnoths ago. The tires needed replaced, the left front tire seemed to be more worn that the right. There was also a clunking noise when going over the speed bumps in parking and with help from this website I replaced the sway bar links and the clunking noise is gone.

Here is where I need advice. I replaced the tires last week and noticed afterwards that the car is pulling to the right. I took the car to a shop that specializes in german cars to get a front end alignment. They looked at the car and told me that both control arms on on the front left and front right need replaced because the bushings were worn. They have me an estimate of a litle over $1700.00, nearly $870 labor and $870 for parts. Then the alignment would be an additoal $100.

How can I confirm the bushings are bad? I do not want to replace parts that are good.

Is it best to replace the whole arms including the ball joint or is just replacing the bushing enough?

If I replace the whole arm I am considering either doing it myself or have the local mecahnic do it. Local mechanic said he would charge about $250 for labor if I supply the parts.

phister

if there's no real damage to the control arm you should be able to buy the bushings and have an indie shop put them in for not that much. 1700 is ridiculous for that much of work. I'd go to a different indie shop and have them look at it again.

samaritrey

You can look up parts at http://www.rmeuropean.com/
The only place I order from for my car. It can save you lots of money if your local car dealers are like mine and usually charge twice what rm does. GL

CHiKompressor

the lower control arms should be around $100 a piece and the bushings like $60. I dont know about the upper control arms. I remeber seeing on ebay a seller selling set of two(left and right) lower control arms for like $120.

craigmurray

Thanks for all the information and including the link to the parts. It looks like I can buy all four arms and replacment bolts fopr a little over $300.

Will I need a strut compression tool to replace the control arms?

I looked at the control arms on the car and it looks like it is not too difficult, unbolting the bushing end and ball end. Maybe I will need a ball joint fork to pop them out?

Is there a procedure link that you can point me too?

craigmurray

OK, I took my car to another shop and they said the lower control arm bushings are bad, the upper are OK. They also said that they do not replace the bushing, just the entire arm. Must be a lot less work to replace the entire arm than the bushing or maybe it is a warranty thing.

They are working up a quote for me.

I see a lot of places sell the lower control arms. If I do the owrk myself should I alos replace the bolts? Will the bolts come with arms?

samaritrey

I know with my car the bushing on the inside was fine but the outside part that attaches to the hub assembly went bad. So Replacing the whole are is not necessarily a bad thing. But my arms lasted 155k miles lol

jcnash

Yep once one of the bushings is worn, the other end is probably very close. Just replace the entire arm. RMEuropean has them for about $130 each for the Lemforder (OEM quality) and about $60 each for the Karlyn (POS quality). Labor should be about 2 hours for both.

W203E35

Not alot of shops push the bushings in. They need to have this tool to do it and many don't. It will be cheaper if you can just buy the bushings and have them pushed in. Try to find a reputable shop that does this. The bushing around around 20 dollars and shouldn't be more than 20 dollars to get them pushed in. You should be able to get away with 100 dollars for both sides.

capt_paul

I just changed out my upper and lower suspension parts. I ordered from rmeuropean, which came out to about $450. You do not need to remove or compress the strut. I do highly reccommend that you disconnect the speed sensor wire from the hub, so you dont screw them up like I did my suspension stuff.

I used a suspension fork tool from autozone to seperate the ball joints, which will tear up the boots (if you are reusing the arms, you will have to get the mercedes tool that saves the boot).

capt_paul

The replacement arms that I received came with new self locking nuts.