Originally Posted by
GraphiteGhost
Did you recently have an oil change at a dealership or those oil change places? The damage to that bushing looked like the time I took my ford to a dealership for a free oil change, and they sprayed something on both sides at the lower ball joints and it rotted away the rubber requiring me to change both lower arms with ball joints. Just saying...
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I have only had the car for the past two years and did all the oil changes myself. From the Carfax report, previous ones were done by
local shops.
Interesting thought, but you would think there would be some oil stains on the arm, and there doesn't seem to be.
I have zero experience in how bushings age. When I looked at this one, I just figured this was normal after 15 years spent in a hot tropical climate, I wasn't exactly surprised.
What did surprise me though, is that the other bushing on that same arm looked quite good. Although they are not the same thickness/construction, I would have expected both to be worn out the same.
What will be interesting will be to drop the control arm on the passenger side and look at the rear bushing. If it is in a much better shape, then yes, the driver side bushing that I posted a picture of was either defective from the start, or sprayed with an agent it did not like.
What's funny is that after all this, I still have that cracking noise coming from the driver side suspension when turning the wheels all the way...