Hi all ,

Was inspecting my front suspension and found my lca bushing looking like this.

Can anyone familiar with those help me figure out if this bushing's totally gone or just starting to go?

Feels like the lca is still sitting where it belongs and the bushing doesn't look separated. Any input?

 

its cracked and ready for replacement.

 

I would agree that these are in need of replacement.

 

Thanks guys, appreciate the input.

Just to be clear, I should be good driving like this for a couple days right? The bushings not separated and the arm isnt hitting the subframe like I've seen in extreme cases. Just wanna make sure since I'll probably have to order the parts.

Thanks again

 

Yeah, you'll be fine until its replaced. You've been driving on it this whole time, after all.

I would strongly recommend a Genuine Acura replacement.

 

yeah it will be fine, I seen worst than that.

 

Thanks a bunch guys. Will look at replacing either the bushing or the whole arm depending on price. Might do the whole arm if I end up doing it diy.

 

Unless y'all are determining that it's cracked from the angle of the arm, I don't see anything to indicate that here. The part that is extended out of the LCA bushing is a tongue put between a gap on the bushing to prevent it from overstretching and cracking. If you wiggle it you'll notice its not actually attached to anything, just a 90* bend of rubber with a circle cut out of the top to secure it around the metal center bore of the LCA bushing.
You'll need to take a look from the top down/bottom up to determine if it's cracked. Coming from Accords I saw the same on my TL and replaced them. Upon removal I noticed there's zero cracking on the bushing itself and the tongue is what I diagnosed as the center bore lifting out as the accord does not have this attachment.

Upon closer inspection of your pictures I actually see signs that the bushing is fine and intact. The bushing itself within the diameter is not bent even with the arm at full torsion lifted off the ground. If it were torn the sides of the disc would be angled toward the outside of the car while the arm is depressed, not flat across the top. I'd take a better look from the sides of that insert tongue (front and back of the car) to see if there's any cracking around the center metal bore. There's no tears at the outside diameter to be seen which is where these usually tear.

 

How many TL LCA bushing you replaced so far? I did 5 set on mines and about going into the 6th set. These are know for being rip and torn early, I had seen they goes bad as soon as 20k miles.

 

These are not the worst cracks posters have reported, but there are small cracks in the bushings (see cracks between red lines in picture attached).

My bushings have similar cracks and I'm planning on replacing them before the summer ends. Last time, I waited too long and ruined two newish front tires when the alignment got bad.

The thread below has many more pictures (most worse).

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-p...d-look-707888/

 

as someone that replaced both LCA about a year ago here is my experience with the whole situation
if i can and its not priced insanely inflated i always try to go OEM > Aftermarket when it comes to replacement parts
so when i started getting the clunks over pot holes and confirmed my compliance bushings were ripped and shot the first thing i did was buy all the OEM replacement bushings on the LCA, i believe there is like 3 or 4 on each arm and the online Acura parts store sold all of them for a reasonable price, i cant remember but it was something like 20 or $30 a bushing, some of them were cheaper at like 10-$15
i called around all the shops in my area and for some reason... none of the shops would help me press these old bushings out
i ended up getting a pair of aftermarket LCA from Mevotech for like $100 something dollars and when i pulled them out and compared the compliance bushings on the aftermarket and the oem ones, mevotech's bushing design looks a lot beefier than the OEM one.. the oem has much less support surrounding the center bushing hole.. the mevotech's look much more supported, i ended up just replacing the entire oem arms with the mevotechs so i didnt have to deal with pressing the old ones out of the arm
ive had them on now for a while and it feels just as sharp with the oem arms, couldnt tell a difference and im confident these bushings will outlast the oem ones, i know these oem compliance bushings fail pretty quickly and is common issue with a lot of 3rd gen owners, i feel like it was a design flaw making them so weak from the start

 

You don't need to replace those, unless you are anal and think those tiny edge cracks are causing problems. Mine look just like that.

That bushing determines the caster. Alignments should be done every year anyway to compensate for gradual suspension wears, or tires will wear out.

 

Thanks for all the good info guys.

The tears identified in red above are indeed what I thought was sign of failure.

OEM parts are stupid expensive here in Canada sometimes, bushings alone were 93$ per side just for that single one. Complete arms are even worse.

I went ahead and ordered new Mevotech arms. I know aftermarket arms aren't everyone's preferred option on here but at 100$ per side (Moog was 185$). I'll be keeping my original arms in case I'm tempted to replace the bushings and reuse those if the aftermarket arms end up being bad. The Mevotechs have a lifetime warranty and the company is somewhat local to me so I figured I'll give them a shot, reviews online were good for the most part.

Thanks again for your input, much appreciated.

 

Very cool, glad I went the Mevotech route also.

 

https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-t...acment-960631/



Here's a thread with some mevotech arms.

 

I have the Mevotech compliance bushings, installed 3 years ago. So far, so good. They're lasting longer than the original OEM's which the dealer had to replace at 11,000 miles.
.
.

 

My Mevotech LCA shock bushings collapsed completely within about 5K miles.

The Mevotech compliance bushing is also marshmallow soft.

I'm sure they appear to "work fine". But they're not the same quality as a factory part. If they were, you'd probably need a second mortgage to buy them.

 

3 sets on 3 different cars, one each as 2 of them are running spherical bearings now, and the other doesn't get driven much. I wasn't dealing with those things wearing out, they already were too soft for me and caused some wheel hop.
Mevotech makes good parts, the tiny rips you circled are early signs of failure however there's so little material gone the difference will likely be from the rubber being fresher/stiffer than not having tears. It's an early replace for sure, but if you're in the better safe than sorry mentality it is still a proactive replacement after early failure signs. You could get some 80A urethane off McMaster-Carr and add it to those old bushings to make a backup set that should be a bit stiffer than the new Mevotech ones.

Maybe sounds like user error, the factory ones are soft as well and i've never seen anyone's set of any brand fail that quickly.

As a note to OP, make sure you raise the control arm with a jack before you tighten the bolts to spec when installing the control arm. The bushings in the mid and rear of the control arm act a bit as rotational springs for the arm, so if you tighten them to spec when the arm is all the way down, it'll want to pull the tire back to an area it can't and always be under torsion. The front one doesn't matter quite as much as it doesn't have any rotational forces on it.

 

Did you just accuse me of error?

 

 

Not in all my 23 years....or the several years before/after those, has such a bold claim been brought forth.

 

Thanks for the tips, I thought all 3 bushings had to be tightened while under load.

It is indeed somewhat of an early replacement but at 14 years old I'm guessing most rubber parts on the car could be refreshed. I'll keep my old arms as back ups if the mevotech ones end up being bad. Might get them powdercoated and new bushings pressed in if it comes to that.