upgrading to powerflex bushes

[dhali]

thinking of buying these. Anyone have any experience of these? What i dont want is bone jarring stiffness leading to rattles,squeaks etc.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... i:1:1v_buy

[Chubby]

I have them on my Rs4 - make for much better handeling but do squeek a little over bumps - but the differance is worth it.

R.

[dhali]

did you fit them yourself or got someone to do it? What sort of price bracket would i be looking at to get these fitted? and would the alignment have to be done?

[bakerdcb]

I certainly don't want to disagree with Rich but if I still had mine I was actually going to take the Powerflex bushes off because they were really noisy and uncomfortable. I guess much also depends on the rest of your suspension set up and all of mine was standard apart from stiffer H&R anti- roll bars. I suspect Richard has done more to his. However, it made mine no good anymore as a family car, way too hard to passengers and the kids would complain on long journies or simply be sick!!
Having said that it made an awesome difference on the track and from a single driver's point of view they make the car handle much sharper and quicker to respond. For me they were just a little too biased towards track and handling which was great for the track days I did every year and the times I was driving fast on my own but not so great for the more frequent occasions I was taking the family out. Mine were also really noisy and the only way I could cure that was by lubing them every 2 months, especially the rears. Not a difficult job but a bit of a pain.
Just my 2p

[dhali]

so a mixed reviews. thanks for the input guys. So as i am not going to track my car i think i will leave it for now.
On a lighter note:

quote dean:
Mine were also really noisy and the only way I could cure that was by lubing them every 2 months, especially the rears. Not a difficult job but a bit of a pain.

[Peakz]

Surely the squeaking is due to insufficient lube?

[bakerdcb]

The rear bushes are more prone to the s**t that gets thrown up from the road and eventually whatever you've used to lube them washes out. I settled upon a silicone based spray job in the end which worked really well and penetrates deep quite easily but nothing seemed to last for very long

By the way the Mrs is p***ing herself reading this one over my shoulder now

[Peakz]

So Polly's rear bush is full of $h1t . . . there's a surprise!

[GHH]

i got polybushes fitted last month, i love the tighter handling and response (running stock shocks with h&r springs for now) but can see your points regarding passengers you do feel a lot more bumps. luckily i dont care yet, hopefully will be upgrading suspension further in the future too.

[duncanhancox]

they undoubtedly tighten up the steering etc but they are a bit harsher

if you combine them with h&r pcs, 19" wheels / 30 profile tyres your teeth will fall out and your wife will leave you

i went back to 18" wheels, koni s4 dampers with oem springs but kept the bushes - the cars feels and drives better and
is more compliant than the pcs+oem bushes setup.

i spoke to powerflex about the squeaks - they said to spray the bushes with wd40 in-situ - it works!
i had to spray mine twice but the squeaks are permanently gone, unlike the squeaks from my a3 oem bushes...

[S4]

why not then as a compromise change all you bushes for spanking new standard ones.

you would be surprised how tight a car can feel with all new bushes, even on a low mileage, they do get soft over a few years, and you cant tell this from looking

maybe one of the nice guys on here can get you a full set trade.... is it the nice Mr woody I think.

and its a good idea to have a 4 wheel track after all this work.

All the best


Darren

[dhali]

[quote="S4"]why not then as a compromise change all you bushes for spanking new standard ones.

you would be surprised how tight a car can feel with all new bushes, even on a low mileage, they do get soft over a few years, and you cant tell this from looking

Good point there darren, i thought as they probably need replacing was it worth going for the powerflex ones.

[duncanhancox]

it was a difficult call between oem new bushes and powerflex ones - the oem bushes/arms are more expensive to buy but probably a lot quicker to get fitted. i was concerned about the life of the new oem bushes and the fact that an 'upgraded' option was available appealed to me. with the right wheel size and reasonable damping they werent a problem - it was only the combination of all the 'max' parts on my car that causes all the discomfort

[jimbo1234567]

just a small point the powerflex bushes do go quiet when we are experiencing wet weather then its pot luck which corner will chirp up first when it dries. its only slow manouvering that makes the noise. you get used to it.

[Chubby]

I would agree with all that has been said here - when I said that it was worth the squeeks - I was talking about out and out track day performance..

R.