Has anybody had control arms replaced under the CPO warranty? I'm at 50k miles and noticed some fluid leaking from the passenger side bushing, a clunk over speed bumps, and some shimmy braking from highway speeds.

I suspect the dealer is going to try to pull the "wear and tear" excuse which isn't really acceptable at 50k miles. They also claimed there isn't any fluid in the bushing.

 

The bushing is a wear and tear part, they regularly go at 50K. I did mine at 80K. There is a small amount of fluid inside for the hydro dampening. If they are leaking they are toast.

Here's the trick though. Land Rover will cover the whole control arm because it is not a "serviceable part". If the dealer is any good, you can talk to them about this. The new "Select Certified Pre-Owned" coverage only covers "Non-Serviceable" bushings. Since the LCA bushings are available separately, they are considered serviceable.
Worse case buy the whole lower control are from Lucky8 with the Polybush LCA bushing. Worth it!

 

I'm generally reasonable (my wife may disagree) but I think these bushings "wearing out" at 50k miles is pathetic especially if LR wants to make some exclusion under the CPO warranties. I looked high and low for the right LR4 with the CPO warranty given what I knew about the control arms and likely replacement at this mileage.

The dealer went into some odd discussion about being able to source the "parts, i.e. bushings" separately. If they couldn't source the parts separately they'd have to cover all of it. I'll bring it up the "serviceable part" aspect with them. They haven't looked at it yet but I'm also anticipating they'll say the bushing isn't that bad because the knocking and shimmy are intermittent. The parking break is inoperable, fuel guage reads zero miles, and I have some start-up chatter....but that's another discussion.

 

We had to do lower control arms on ours and the LR CPO would not cover it as it specifically excludes bushings and other wear items. Not a cheap fix, but was worth doing
You could get an Indy to do it a lot cheaper - it's mostly labor. There is a YouTube video somewhere if you like diy and have the time.

 

I'll probably do it if after the drivers side fails. I've seen the diys videos and have a good amount of wrenching experience.

Oddly, the symptoms are not consistent (clunking, steering wheel shaking) so it's clearly not a pressing issue and the dealer will likely think I'm crazy.

 

Did they replace just the bushings, or the whole arm?

 

The whole arm. It hardly made any difference to the price - the bushings can be a pita to get out and get the new ones in. So the labor cost saving mostly offset the additional cost for the arms themselves. I seem to remember something about them now using a new design of control arm, but not sure

Don't forget to have car aligned properly once the new ones are settled in

 

My dealer did not want to replace them under cpo.

 

The CPO warranty specifically excludes bushings. So unfortunately you're on your own for the control arm work. I had the same issue and had to pay out of pocket. As mentioned above the price is about the same to just do bushings vs doing whole control arm as the extra labour time to remove and refit the bushings is about the price of the control arm itself

 

Possible to share what the dealer charged to replace the front lower control arms (bushings seem to be almost shot at 54k miles).and the dealer seems to be quoting just under $3k (including alignment). Seems high.