I have a 06 LR3 that I replaced the lower A-Arms, front and rear about 3 years ago.
It appears I now need to replace the right lower rearward control arm bushing and the left lower ball joint.
This time around I plan on replacing the upper A-Arms, but my question is should the ball joint and bushing have worn out on the new A-Arms I had installed 3 years ago. As far as I know the original A-Arms had lasted 15+ years.
When we did the A-Arms we did everything to factory spec.
The only thing I'm not sure about now is when the wheel alignment was done did they tighten everything back up to spec., or would that have even been an issue?
Also wondering if the control arm bushings need to be installed with the special tools that LR recommends you use, or can they be pressed in with a hydraulic press?

 

Where they OEM parts? "Factory spec" means nothing at all.

 

They were not OEM parts.
When I mentioned "factory spec" I should have clarified that all bolts were torqued to factory spec.

 

Well then, you did good at 3 years! Torque is critical, bit likely not much when it comes to wear. For there to be an issue you would have to have play in the bolts, and that would be pretty dang loose. If you are keeping the truck for a while, I recommend OEM parts. That does not mean LR sticker labels on stuff, but parts made by the OEM for LR. There are substantial price differences. LRDirect.com has original parts for cheap, they come in various boxes, often BritPart boxes, and have no LR stamps on the metal but the bushings will clearly have the "Land Rover" logos scratched off. Same part, often used at repair shops, but without the expensive stickers.

Oh, and pressing in bushings is possible but it can be a pain. My neighbor tried to have a shop do his and they bent the arms. So usually its easier and even sometimes cheaper to buy the compete arms. There are special tools for doing them, but they are not cheap as they are geared towards shops that do the work on a regular basis and can recoup the costs.

 

The bolts we used with the A-Arms I had gotten directly from the LR dealer, so they should not have been a problem, so that leaves the A-Arms themselves maybe were cheap and not as good as should have been. Lesson learned.
I see Lucky 8 has complete kits for upper and lower A-Arms including new bolts etc, so that might be a better choice at this time. Will have to find out what bushings they use in the A-Arms though.
Thanks for the info on pressing in the bushings, I thought it might be cheaper and more efficient to just do complete A-Arms.

 

Def not a better choice unless those are truly 100% OEM kits. Doubt they are, knowing them. They dont make anything after all, they just resell.

 

I ran the lucky8 kit on the front of my gray truck for 4 years and a lot of hard miles with no issues. It's retired now but that was from rust

 

Need new parts, genuine Land Rover, aftermarket and off road upgrades, Support the Vendor that supports us WWW.Lucky8LLc.com716-898-8153 ext 101

Just looked at the "Vendor Directory" and Lucky8 does not appear to be a supporter of this forum any longer, am I mistaken?