Control Arm Bushings
 

Just a heads up for LR3 owners approaching 10year and/or exceeding 100,000 miles. When I bought the 3 last summer, the bushings were in decent shape, enough that they passed a rigorous inspection of all suspension parts and a 4 wheel alignment. I knew that I was probably looking at replacing the front bushings on the front lower control arms at some point as others have had them go. About a month and a half ago, I started noticing the truck would sometimes getting squirrelly when on the highway but at first just chalked it up to the wider tires getting pushed around in the wheel ruts of the asphalt. I was also noticing a rattle from the front suspension when going over smaller bumps at slow speed and so I booked it in with my shop to have them look underneath. What they found was the rear control arm bushings were completely worn out with quite a bit of play and the rear knuckle bushings were seized. The fronts was a bit better with it only needing new bushings on the lower control arms. It was also needing a front sway bar link (cause of the slow speed rattles) as well as a new inner tie rod (which was replaced last fall). In the time it took me to order in the new rear control arms and all the other bushing and hardware and to book the appointment to get it fixed, about 2 weeks, the truck became almost completely unsafe to drive at highway speeds. It felt like driving on marbles and lane changing was a white knuckle affair.


Got the work done and it is amazing the difference (obviously). I just wanted to post this up to warn anyone that starts to experience any type of "darting" on the highway to get it checked and fixed immediately. These trucks are heavy and after 10 years, the bushings, as massive as they are, start to deteriorate and when they do, it's rapid... at least that was my experience. To be fair and completely honest, we have an outdoor disability scooter lift and scooter that we haul off the back which adds about 400 lbs to the rear, so it probably accelerated the problem a bit.


Hope this helps someone in the future....

Even with good bushings and suspension components I find the LR3 to be "darty" around highway ruts. It tends to tramline more than most vehicles. My Infiniti Q50S is the same way. I blame it on the more precise suspensions! :)

You can imagine then that phenomenon but not on precise suspension, where each bushing was either siezed of had 1/2" or more of play making each wheel feel like a shopping cart wheel.

Yeah scary....glad it's righted now.

What toe and caster numbers are optimal? Still feeling more darty than I like so I'm getting them to increase caster. The toe is a pretty fine window so I'll probably leave it where it is.

This is what it is supposed to be:

Front Castor: +3° 45'
Front Camber: -0° 20'
Front Cross Camber: +0° 45'
Front Individual Toe: -0° 05'
Front Total Toe: -0° 10'

Rear Camber: -0° 10'
Rear Cross Camber: +0° 45'
Rear Individual Toe: +0° 03'
Rear Total Toe :+0° 05'
Rear Driving Axis: +0° 00'

But the specs were updated due to tire wear apparently:

Front total toe: +0.03
LH rear toe: +0.18
RH rear toe: +0.18
Rear total toe +0.36

Shop put the truck back on the alignment rack ans the front and rear toes were out, presumably from the parts settling in. Re-adjusted and she's back to her old self.